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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

Finding a Hobby

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Remember how it seemed that, coming up through school, everybody found a hobby-turned-passion? There was the girl who played the violin so well Stradivarius himself would’ve been proud. Another discovered art, blurring the boundaries between paper and subject. You know how it was. There was always somebody known as the kid who did ______ (insert hobby) really well. I wasn’t one of them, though. I mean, how on earth do you make sound (excuse me, music) from rubbing two sets of strings together? And I always thought my stick figures were the pièce de résistance of my short-lived attempt…

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Where Theory Meets Practice: Using Language To Help Make the World a Better Place

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Whenever I tell someone I’m a linguist, the inevitable question I get asked is, “So how many languages do you speak?” Similarly, when I tell people I work at Rosetta Stone, a common response is, “So you speak all thirty-three languages that Rosetta Stone offers?” Or when I tell them I helped create the Rosetta Stone Navajo product, they say, “Wow, your Navajo must be really good.”

The truth is, I know only four languages (English, Swahili, Spanish, and Latin), and none of them are languages I helped create products for (Chitimacha, Navajo, and Iñupiaq). “Then how,” you ask, “can…

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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

Thirteen-year-old learns with Rosetta Stone

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I am 13 years old and I knew a pretty good amount of Spanish before I bought Rosetta Stone. I had used many different types of learning before. I finally decided to order Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 2. My goal was to learn past and future tense. It was wonderful! I am so excited to visit a Spanish speaking country! My Latin American friends were very surprised at how well I had improved in such a short time. The way you learn with Rosetta Stone is the best way. I hadn’t even realized I was picking so…

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The International Man of Dance: Has Rosetta Stone Created a Global Superstar?

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The International Man of Dance is on the road to superstardom. His 2012 New Year’s resolution: master the art of movement. Since he loves learning new languages, he hopes to explore new cultures as part of his dance training. Although he’s working very hard to perfect his routine, he still has a little way to go!

You control his dance moves by selecting his outfit, his dance, and the music that he’ll dance to. Remember to share your dance and culture mash-up at the end!

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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

I Can Talk to My Patients

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I can now, not only understand my patients when they tell me their (sometimes quite convoluted) stories of their symptoms, but I can ask questions about the past, the present and future. I can make conversation with them, joke a bit with them and connect with them on a personal level that I could never do before I started Rosetta Stone learning. It is a very natural way to learn. The ER staff who used to have to translate for me is amazed at my progress. I now plan to vacation in Mexico, South America and Spain, speaking the…

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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

The First 5 Percent

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I felt that learning French would be a daunting task as I had no background with the language, and I didn’t understand a single word. Nevertheless, when my Rosetta Stone French Level 1 arrived, I was eager to dive in. A month and a half later, with about 20 minutes of practice three times a week, I’ve completed Unit 1. By my calculations, this is 5 percent of the way through the entire course (four units per level, five levels in total). Putting my progress in this perspective definitely helps because it tempers my expectations, and I just…

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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

I Met a French Nobel Laureate the Last Time I Was in Paris

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The last time I was in Paris, I met a French Nobel laureate. We had a long discussion about how language influences the way we think. One question we pondered was whether English is more rational than French. The Nobel laureate said that languages are closer to animals than to physical phenomena; as animals, they are ruled in part by logic and optimization procedures and in part by history. Our conversation was long and involved. I actually did not understand some of his ideas so I will not try to summarize them. But let me tell you what happened…

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Santa Responds to Your Wishes!

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When we asked you to tell us what you were wishing for this holiday season, we were blown away by the number of responses we got. Of course, we sent them straight along to Santa Claus. In the videos below, you can see what he had to say about your holiday wishes.

Alex Keith Pearce: ik wil een voetbal, kleding, en nieuwe schoenen

(more…)

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Rosetta Stone Language Journeys

The Borrowing Dilemma: How Should I Pronounce a Foreign Word That I Insert into My Conversation?

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The words for “coffee” in English, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish all point to the same thing, and yet their pronunciations differ ever so slightly in each language. These words, called borrowings, all have a common origin, and sometimes it’s easy to figure out the definition of a new word in one language with knowledge of a borrowing in another language.

This phenomenon is fairly common for nouns like place names and people’s names, so, for the few languages I speak—Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and English—I can easily notice those trivial details of diversity. (more…)

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International Santas: Iceland’s Mischievous Elves

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Tiptoe. Tiptoe. It’s Christmas Eve, and a merry soul slides happily down the chimney. He relishes the smell of still-warm cookies, baked by tiny hands that very night. Quickly. Quietly. Through the hallway, around the corner, to the kitchen door!

A nose enters the kitchen first. A plump hand reaches out and grabs the note resting atop the cookie plate. Is it addressed to him? No! Alas, the delicious treats are meant for “Dearest Santa,” just like last year. Dejected, humbled Gáttaþefur, the door sniffer, retreats to another part of the house (but ultimately decides to gobble the cookies anyway,…

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