.gif)
Rosetta Stone (software)
Encyclopedia
Rosetta Stone is proprietary
computer-assisted
language learning
(CALL) software developed by Rosetta Stone Inc
. Both its title and logo refer to the Rosetta Stone
, an artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion
to decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
. The company is headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia
.
The Rosetta Stone software uses a combination of images, text, and sound, with difficulty levels increasing as the student progresses, in order to teach various vocabulary terms and grammatical functions intuitively, without drills or translation. They call this the "Dynamic Immersion method". According to the company, the software is designed to teach languages the way first language
s are learned.
By 1992, CD-ROM
technology made the project possible and they formed a company known as Fairfield Language Technologies in Harrisonburg, Virginia
. Allen and John brought on Eugene Stoltzfus, Allen's brother, as company President and CEO, and released their software product under the name The Rosetta Stone. In 2003, the company came under new leadership with the announcement of Tom Adams as President and CEO, a businessman with international experience. The company changed names in 2006 to Rosetta Stone, Ltd., and with it came a change from an S Corp
to a C Corp
and the sale to investment firms ABS Capital Partners
and Northwest Equity Partners. On September 23, 2008, Rosetta Stone Inc. filed an Initial Public Offering
with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
. Lesson topics range from grammatical
concepts such as verb
tense
or mood
to specific topics such as color
s, hot and cold and associated words or the use of money
.
Within each lesson there are sets of exercises testing listening, reading, and speaking (for which the computer must have a microphone
). For languages using the Latin alphabet
, there are also writing exercises. The writing exercises for non-Latin scripts use a substitute, on-screen keyboard. All sets except reading and speaking offer four exercises each; there are two reading exercises and one speaking exercise. They are identified by the software as A, B, C, D, and E.
The user is offered either text, sound or image (and later, video), to match against four possibilities. With a mark and/or sound chosen by the reader from the preferences menu, the program indicates whether the right or wrong choice was selected. A score from 0 to 100 is kept; it is visible during the exercise in practice mode but not in test mode. The first choice in a group of images nets four points for a correct answer, the second three, the third two and the last one.
In all units, the last lesson is a review of the previous lessons, with each predecessor represented by one group of images. There are no formal grammar guides or instructions included with the software. The only documentation is a manual with written versions of the phrases and a word index.
The version 2 application cannot read the language discs for version 3.
Version 3 applications cannot read the language disks of older Rosetta Stone installations (Version 1 and 2). Those who have multiple versions of Rosetta Stone need to have both applications installed in order to use the language packs of both versions.
, iPod Touch
, and iPad
.
This version also features new copyright protection to reduce piracy. The software is able to determine whether it is running from a disc or mounted image, although it cannot tell the difference between a user-burned and original disk.
In April 2011, James Madison University
was the first university to partner with Rosetta Stone to offer the Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe as an accredited Conversational Spanish I language learning course. The program teaches Spanish through a series of images that, when clicked on, show the vocabulary word. The student will speak into a microphone and speech recognition software will correct mispronounced words, according to Reilly Brennan, Rosetta Stone's Director of Public Relations. The course is available to adults who want to complete a degree for teaching and non-degree seeking students are eligible to take the class. The Rosetta Stone TOTALe accredited offering is a 16-week, intensive language-learning program. The program is accessed completely online and follows a syllabus approved by Rosetta Stone and James Madison University.
packages except the homeschool version contain two CDs, one with the application software and another with the instruction. The homeschool version also consists of disks for a server program and a student management program.
In Version 2, most languages were offered with only two levels, though a few were offered in a third:
In Version 3, languages have from three to five levels, though what they cover for each language is different; there is more of a focus on conversation and less on complex grammatical topics.
The four units in Level 1 are:
The four units in Level 2 are
The four units in Level 3 are:
communities engaged in language revitalization.
Organizations that contract the Endangered Language Program to develop custom software own the sales and distribution rights over their final product, allowing communities control over this language resource and respecting indigenous intellectual property
rights. These versions are thus not marketed via the usual outlets such as bookstores or commercial websites.
Based in Harrisonburg, Virginia
, the Endangered Language Program began offering a corporate grant program in 2007 to underwrite development costs for awarded communities. Rosetta Stone Ltd. offered the first awards of the grant program to the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana and the Navajo Language Renaissance coalition.
The Endangered Language Program also offers paid internships to graduate and undergraduate students interested in contributing to the work of the program.
offered a special military version of Arabic to help troops deploying to the Middle East learn the language for conversations and phrases important in a military situation. It was available to all US Army personnel, US Military Academy cadets, contracted US Army ROTC Cadets and other special guests with a sponsor.
The United States Army "E-Learning", a SkillPort product, offered the full Version 3 Online, with the exception of only a few languages. The Army E-Learning web site was accessible by most Army members with a valid AKO (Army Knowledge Online) e-mail address or CAC (Common Access Card). The contract ended in September 2011.
Other branches of the U.S military also offered Rosetta Stone software. The United States Air Force
also offers a similar version to company-grade officer
s. The United States Marine Corps
also offers an online version of all the languages that Rosetta Stone offers through their MarineNet Distance Learning portal.
The U.S. Department of State uses Rosetta Stone (version 3 as of 2009) as a companion to their in-class and distance learning language programs provided through the Foreign Service Institute
. It is free for civil and foreign service employees.
area near the company's headquarters at the time in Harrisonburg
, Virginia
. In the most recent version, there have been some modifications to the picture set for certain languages or regions.
Furthermore, while the program was well-received for teaching various nouns by matching pictures with words, it is considered harder to learn from a grammar and syntax perspective.
Another frequent issue was the use of more formal vocabulary than that regularly used by native speakers. MacWorld
reviewer Cyrus Farivar noted that the Persian CD he had been using used khodrow for "car", although most native speakers use a French loanword
, ma:sheen. The same course did not teach words that would be important to someone learning Farsi, such as "bread" and "tea," however it very curiously included the word "elephant" in a basic vocabulary lesson. Perplexed by the question of why the word "elephant" would be taught in a language where it might never be used (there are not many elephants in Iran), Farivar called the Rosetta Stone, Ltd. He was told that the company makes four different picture sets: one for Western languages, another for Asian languages, and two sets unique to each Swahili
and Latin
. The Farsi CD was using the Western picture set, which explains why the images were not culturally-relevant.
Version 2 in 1997, Mark Kaiser, director of the Language Media Center at the University of California, Berkeley
, called the program "woefully inadequate for a number of reasons". Not only did he cite the lack of cultural context, stating that the images contained in the program were not only clearly not Russian, but that they contained such objects as paper towel
s, which Kaiser attested to never having seen on any visit to Russia at that point, and its lack of any way to test conversational skills. He also noted the tendency of some words and phrases to be too English-based.
"The entire package lacks any pedagogical foundation," he concluded. "Rather, it utilizes the glitz of the multimedia capabilities of the computer, a dearth of quality foreign language software, and clever marketing to create an economically successful product."
had been far kinder to the German
Version 2, calling it "very good, but with some reservations." In contrast to Kaiser, he called it "good pedagogy and extremely effective. The authors of the program never lose sight of solid teaching methodology."
In 2007, Rosetta Stone representatives informed public libraries across the United States they were discontinuing library online access. Rosetta Stone's licensing agreement states their CD-ROMs are "for individual use only and can not be lent out for multiple use".
(COICA), a bill whose opponents argue amounts to censorship.
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
computer-assisted
Computer-assisted language learning
Computer-assisted language learning is succinctly defined in a seminal work by Levy as "the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning"...
language learning
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
(CALL) software developed by Rosetta Stone Inc
Rosetta Stone (company)
Rosetta Stone Inc. is an American software company that develops Rosetta Stone, a language-learning software.-Corporate structure:Rosetta Stone, Ltd., formerly Fairfield & Sons, Ltd. d.b.a...
. Both its title and logo refer to the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
, an artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
to decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
. The company is headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal capital district. On February 27, 1801, the United States Congress organized the area as a subdivision of...
.
The Rosetta Stone software uses a combination of images, text, and sound, with difficulty levels increasing as the student progresses, in order to teach various vocabulary terms and grammatical functions intuitively, without drills or translation. They call this the "Dynamic Immersion method". According to the company, the software is designed to teach languages the way first language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
s are learned.
History
According to the company, Allen Stoltzfus had learned German through immersion while living in Germany, and found it relatively easy. In the 1980s, Stoltzfus began learning Russian in a classroom setting, but discovered it to be much more difficult. He wanted to simulate the German experience, and he decided to use computing technology to create a similar learning experience. He enlisted the aid of his brother-in-law, Dr. John Fairfield, who held a PhD in computer science.By 1992, CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
technology made the project possible and they formed a company known as Fairfield Language Technologies in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
. Allen and John brought on Eugene Stoltzfus, Allen's brother, as company President and CEO, and released their software product under the name The Rosetta Stone. In 2003, the company came under new leadership with the announcement of Tom Adams as President and CEO, a businessman with international experience. The company changed names in 2006 to Rosetta Stone, Ltd., and with it came a change from an S Corp
S Corporation
An S corporation, for United States federal income tax purposes, is a corporation that makes a valid election to be taxed under Subchapter S of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code....
to a C Corp
C corporation
C corporation refers to any corporation that, under United States income tax law, is taxed separately from its owners. It is distinguished from an S corporation, which is not taxed separately. Most major companies are treated as C corporations for U.S. income tax purposes.-C corporation vs...
and the sale to investment firms ABS Capital Partners
ABS Capital Partners
ABS Capital Partners is a venture capital firm focused on investments in companies across a range of industries, including technology, business services, health care, and media and communications.The firm, which is based in Baltimore, was founded in 1990...
and Northwest Equity Partners. On September 23, 2008, Rosetta Stone Inc. filed an Initial Public Offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Versions
The latest version is version 4 TOTALe. Not all of the languages offered are available in version 4; some are still in version 2 and 3. The version appears on the exterior of retail packages.Version 2
Instruction takes the form of a unit of lessons consisting of ten groups (more in some of the later units of Level I) of four images each, with an associated word or sentence both written and spoken aloud by a native speaker of the language, except for those languages that are no longer spoken natively, such as LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. Lesson topics range from grammatical
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
concepts such as verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
or mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
to specific topics such as color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
s, hot and cold and associated words or the use of money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
.
Within each lesson there are sets of exercises testing listening, reading, and speaking (for which the computer must have a microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
). For languages using the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, there are also writing exercises. The writing exercises for non-Latin scripts use a substitute, on-screen keyboard. All sets except reading and speaking offer four exercises each; there are two reading exercises and one speaking exercise. They are identified by the software as A, B, C, D, and E.
The user is offered either text, sound or image (and later, video), to match against four possibilities. With a mark and/or sound chosen by the reader from the preferences menu, the program indicates whether the right or wrong choice was selected. A score from 0 to 100 is kept; it is visible during the exercise in practice mode but not in test mode. The first choice in a group of images nets four points for a correct answer, the second three, the third two and the last one.
In all units, the last lesson is a review of the previous lessons, with each predecessor represented by one group of images. There are no formal grammar guides or instructions included with the software. The only documentation is a manual with written versions of the phrases and a word index.
The version 2 application cannot read the language discs for version 3.
Version 3
Instruction takes the form of four units per language level. Each unit is then subdivided into four core lessons. Each core lesson is approximately 30 minutes followed by sublessons. Sublessons take the form of Pronunciation, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar, Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Reviews. At the end of each unit is a Milestone, which reviews the material covered in that unit in an interactive activity.Version 3 applications cannot read the language disks of older Rosetta Stone installations (Version 1 and 2). Those who have multiple versions of Rosetta Stone need to have both applications installed in order to use the language packs of both versions.
Homeschool Edition
The homeschool edition introduces additional features that keep track of time spent per lesson, scores achieved on lessons, lesson plans, and instructional objectives. This edition also includes a supplemental CD which has workbooks, quizzes, transcription of lessons, and exams. As opposed to the personal edition, where reviews of previous lessons are suggested, the homeschool edition does not recommend review lessons. Aside from the minor differences, the homeschool edition is essentially the same as the personal edition - except for the supplemental CD with written exercises and lesson plans. The language discs in both editions are identical and are interchangeable. Some may have 3 discs and some may have 5. Much of the information on the supplemental CD is available online from Rosetta Stone.Version 4 TOTALe
Version 4 TOTALe was released on September 14, 2010. Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe comes with the standard Rosetta Course found in previous versions. The new features exclusive to Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe are Rosetta Studio, Rosetta World, and TOTALe Mobile Companion. Rosetta Studio uses native speakers to tutor users in a live online setting. Rosetta World is a new social gaming community. At the same time TOTALe Mobile Companion is available for the iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
, and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
.
This version also features new copyright protection to reduce piracy. The software is able to determine whether it is running from a disc or mounted image, although it cannot tell the difference between a user-burned and original disk.
In April 2011, James Madison University
James Madison University
James Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...
was the first university to partner with Rosetta Stone to offer the Rosetta Stone Version 4 TOTALe as an accredited Conversational Spanish I language learning course. The program teaches Spanish through a series of images that, when clicked on, show the vocabulary word. The student will speak into a microphone and speech recognition software will correct mispronounced words, according to Reilly Brennan, Rosetta Stone's Director of Public Relations. The course is available to adults who want to complete a degree for teaching and non-degree seeking students are eligible to take the class. The Rosetta Stone TOTALe accredited offering is a 16-week, intensive language-learning program. The program is accessed completely online and follows a syllabus approved by Rosetta Stone and James Madison University.
Packages
Several different packages of lessons are available. The full course in each language is separated into three levels. All retail softwareRetail software
Retail software is computer software sold to end consumers, usually under restricted licenses. Until the emergence of the Internet, retail software represented, until the 2000s, the vast majority of all end consumer software used and was referred to as shrinkware because software almost always...
packages except the homeschool version contain two CDs, one with the application software and another with the instruction. The homeschool version also consists of disks for a server program and a student management program.
Levels
All languages, except Latin, use the same set of words and sentences in the same order, with the same images. Some of the material is reused from lesson to lesson to invoke long-term retention. Version 4 includes three to five levels of instruction for each language. Each level can be purchased separately as or bundled at a discount.In Version 2, most languages were offered with only two levels, though a few were offered in a third:
- Level 1 consists of eight units, starting from simple vocabulary such as "boy", "girl", "man", "woman", moving up through numbers, the past and future tenses and concluding with a unit on giving directions. Units 1 through 4 have 10 lessons plus a review lesson, units 5 through 8 have 11 lessons plus a review lesson. 92 total lessons in level 1.
- Level 2 offers units 9 through 19; however as a practical matter there are only nine units devoted to instruction since units 18 and 19 are "glossaryGlossaryA glossary, also known as an idioticon, vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms...
" units devoted to single words having to do with a particular topic (school, nature, automobiles etc.). Level 2 units consider more advanced grammatical concepts, as well as specific subjects like banking, shoppingShoppingShopping is the examining of goods or services from retailers with the intent to purchase at that time. Shopping is an activity of selection and/or purchase. In some contexts it is considered a leisure activity as well as an economic one....
and travelTravelTravel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
. These exercises also use short video clips in QuickTimeQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
format to illustrate some verbs. Units 16 and 17 consist solely of old Saturday Evening Post cartoonCartoonA cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s and their captions. 118 total lessons in level 2. - Level 3 is no longer offered on version 2 products, but when it was, it used longer video and writing passages to expand the level of instruction.
In Version 3, languages have from three to five levels, though what they cover for each language is different; there is more of a focus on conversation and less on complex grammatical topics.
- Level 1 consists of four units, each with four thirty-minute lessons and a number of five to fifteen minute activities. The level, which is supposed to "build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure," takes about 24 hours to complete following Rosetta Stone's recommended course. Starting from simple vocabulary such as basic greetings, "boy", "girl", "man", and "woman", moving up through numbers, comparisons, adjectives, nouns, verb conjugation, and telling time. Each unit also contains a ten-minute simulated conversation called a "Milestone."
The four units in Level 1 are:
-
- Language Basics
- Greetings and Introductions
- Work and School
- Shopping
- Level 2 offers a total of about twenty-four hours designed to teach the user to "navigate your surroundings as you build on the vocabulary and essential language structure in Level 1." More grammar is covered, including past and future tenses, and imperative forms. Topics such as giving directions, writing letters, workplace terms, apologies, discussing emotions, and criticizing art are also covered. As in Level 1, each unit is followed by a ten-minute "Milestone."
The four units in Level 2 are
-
- Travel
- Past and Future
- Friends and Social Life
- Dining and Vacation
- Level 3 offers instruction designed to help "connect with the world around you by building on the language fundamentals and conversational skills you developed in Levels 1 and 2." In addition to expanding upon grammar learned in Levels 1 and 2, Level 3 teaches more in depth vocabulary, including botanical terms, culinary terms, how to express detailed opinions and judgments, and how to discuss politics, religion, and business. As in the first two levels, each unit contains a ten-minute "Milestone" activity in which the user participates in a simulated conversation.
The four units in Level 3 are:
-
- Home and Health
- Life and World
- Everyday Things
- Places and Events
- Levels 4 and 5 are currently available for the American English, British English, Latin American Spanish, Chinese Mandarin (Only version 4.0), French, Italian, Russian, German and Spanish (Spain) languages. Levels 4 and 5 teach more complex sentence structures, higher verbal tenses, more irregular verbs, and introduce more vocabularies.
Other packages
- An Explorer package consisting basically of the first three units from Level I was available for a much cheaper price than the full Level I. This product is no longer available from the publisher.
- A Traveler version, consisting of several lessons focusing on basic terms as well as vocabulary important for travel, was produced in the late 1990s and is no longer available.
- Free Demos are available directly from Rosetta Stone, Ltd.
- Audio Companion was released on June 9, 2008 and reinforces what is learned using the computer software. It is portable and is played on a CD or MP3 player.
Languages
The following 31 languages are available :| Language | Version | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | Audio Companion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... (Modern Standard) |
v4 | ||||||
| Chinese (Mandarin) | v4 | ||||||
| Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language... |
v2 | ||||||
| Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
v4 | ||||||
| English (American) American English American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.... |
v4 | ||||||
| English (British) British English British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere... |
v4 | ||||||
| French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... (Parisian) |
v4 | ||||||
| German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
v4 | ||||||
| Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
v4 | ||||||
| Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... |
v4 | ||||||
| Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi... |
v4 | ||||||
| Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.... |
v2 | ||||||
| Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of... |
v4 | ||||||
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
v4 | ||||||
| Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... |
v4 | ||||||
| Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing... |
v4 | ||||||
| Latin | v3 | ||||||
| Pashto | v2 | ||||||
| Persian (Iran) Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence... |
v4 | ||||||
| Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
v4 | ||||||
| Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... (Brazilian Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay.... ) |
v4 | ||||||
| Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
v4 | ||||||
| Spanish (Latin America) | v4 | ||||||
| Spanish (Spain) Castilian Spanish Castilian Spanish is a term related to the Spanish language, but its exact meaning can vary even in that language. In English Castilian Spanish usually refers to the variety of European Spanish spoken in north and central Spain or as the language standard for radio and TV speakers... |
v4 | ||||||
| Swahili Swahili language Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia... |
v2 | ||||||
| Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
v4 | ||||||
| Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... |
v4 | ||||||
| Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively... |
v2 | ||||||
| Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... |
v4 | ||||||
| Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam... |
v4 | ||||||
| Welsh Welsh language Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa... |
v2 |
Endangered Language Program
The Endangered Language Program was created in 2004 for use by endangered languageEndangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
communities engaged in language revitalization.
Organizations that contract the Endangered Language Program to develop custom software own the sales and distribution rights over their final product, allowing communities control over this language resource and respecting indigenous intellectual property
Indigenous intellectual property
Indigenous intellectual property is an umbrella legal term used in national and international forums to identify indigenous peoples' special rights to claim all that their indigenous groups know now, have known, or will know....
rights. These versions are thus not marketed via the usual outlets such as bookstores or commercial websites.
Based in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
, the Endangered Language Program began offering a corporate grant program in 2007 to underwrite development costs for awarded communities. Rosetta Stone Ltd. offered the first awards of the grant program to the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana and the Navajo Language Renaissance coalition.
The Endangered Language Program also offers paid internships to graduate and undergraduate students interested in contributing to the work of the program.
| Language | Organization | Version | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | Audio Companion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chitimacha Chitimacha language The Chitimacha language is a language isolate historically spoken by the Chitimacha people of Louisiana, United States. It went extinct in 1940 with the death of the last fluent speaker, Delphine Ducloux.... |
Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana | v3 | ||||||
| Inuktitut | Torngasok Cultural Centre | v3 | ||||||
| Inupiat Inupiat language The Inupiat language, also known as Inupiatun, Inupiaq, Iñupiaq, Inyupiaq, Inyupiat, Inyupeat, Inyupik, and Inupik, is a group of dialects of the Inuit language, spoken in northern and northwestern Alaska. The Iñupiaq language is a member of the Eskimo languages group. There are roughly 2,100... |
NANA Corporation | v3 | ||||||
| Navajo Navajo language Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the... |
Navajo Language Renaissance | v3 | ||||||
| Mohawk Mohawk language Mohawk is an Iroquoian language spoken by around 2,000 people of the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada . Mohawk has the largest number of speakers of the Northern Iroquoian languages; today it is the only one with greater than a thousand remaining... |
Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa | v3 |
U.S. government use
In December 2007, the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
offered a special military version of Arabic to help troops deploying to the Middle East learn the language for conversations and phrases important in a military situation. It was available to all US Army personnel, US Military Academy cadets, contracted US Army ROTC Cadets and other special guests with a sponsor.
The United States Army "E-Learning", a SkillPort product, offered the full Version 3 Online, with the exception of only a few languages. The Army E-Learning web site was accessible by most Army members with a valid AKO (Army Knowledge Online) e-mail address or CAC (Common Access Card). The contract ended in September 2011.
Other branches of the U.S military also offered Rosetta Stone software. The United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
also offers a similar version to company-grade officer
Company-grade officer
In US military usage, a company-grade officer is a Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, or Captain.In the Army, company-grade officers are typically assigned to a company as a platoon leader or executive officer or as a commander . They may also be assigned as staff officers. They may preside...
s. The United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
also offers an online version of all the languages that Rosetta Stone offers through their MarineNet Distance Learning portal.
The U.S. Department of State uses Rosetta Stone (version 3 as of 2009) as a companion to their in-class and distance learning language programs provided through the Foreign Service Institute
Foreign Service Institute
The Foreign Service Institute is the United States Federal Government's primary training institution for employees of the U.S. foreign affairs community, preparing American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas and in Washington...
. It is free for civil and foreign service employees.
Awards
Rosetta Stone has won a number of awards from software magazines and associations concerned with language learning such as textbook publishers and homeschooling magazines, among them the Gold Awards for Best CD-ROMs Used in School and Best CD-ROM for Language Learning i-Magic Awards in 1996 and the Best Software in Second Language Foreign Language Learning Program annual awards by ComputED magazine in 1994 and 1996.Reception and effectiveness
Frequent criticism of the program arises in its lack of sensitivity to the differences between the various languages it comes in and their respective cultures. Early versions of the software presented the same concepts in the same order, using the same images taken mostly in the Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
area near the company's headquarters at the time in Harrisonburg
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. In the most recent version, there have been some modifications to the picture set for certain languages or regions.
Furthermore, while the program was well-received for teaching various nouns by matching pictures with words, it is considered harder to learn from a grammar and syntax perspective.
Another frequent issue was the use of more formal vocabulary than that regularly used by native speakers. MacWorld
Macworld
Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...
reviewer Cyrus Farivar noted that the Persian CD he had been using used khodrow for "car", although most native speakers use a French loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
, ma:sheen. The same course did not teach words that would be important to someone learning Farsi, such as "bread" and "tea," however it very curiously included the word "elephant" in a basic vocabulary lesson. Perplexed by the question of why the word "elephant" would be taught in a language where it might never be used (there are not many elephants in Iran), Farivar called the Rosetta Stone, Ltd. He was told that the company makes four different picture sets: one for Western languages, another for Asian languages, and two sets unique to each Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. The Farsi CD was using the Western picture set, which explains why the images were not culturally-relevant.
Russian
In a review of the RussianRussian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
Version 2 in 1997, Mark Kaiser, director of the Language Media Center at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, called the program "woefully inadequate for a number of reasons". Not only did he cite the lack of cultural context, stating that the images contained in the program were not only clearly not Russian, but that they contained such objects as paper towel
Paper towel
A paper towel is an absorbent textile made from paper instead of cloth. Unlike cloth towels, paper towels are disposable and intended to be used only once. Paper towels soak up water because they are loosely woven which enables water to travel between them, even against gravity...
s, which Kaiser attested to never having seen on any visit to Russia at that point, and its lack of any way to test conversational skills. He also noted the tendency of some words and phrases to be too English-based.
"The entire package lacks any pedagogical foundation," he concluded. "Rather, it utilizes the glitz of the multimedia capabilities of the computer, a dearth of quality foreign language software, and clever marketing to create an economically successful product."
German
A few months earlier, Donald McRae of Brock UniversityBrock University
Brock University is a comprehensive university located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Brock offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs that include co-op and other experiential learning opportunities to an enrolment of over 17,000 full-time students.The enabling legislation is...
had been far kinder to the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Version 2, calling it "very good, but with some reservations." In contrast to Kaiser, he called it "good pedagogy and extremely effective. The authors of the program never lose sight of solid teaching methodology."
License
Rosetta Stone software's End-User License Agreement is non-transferable, as quoted below, and also actively enforced.TRANSFER: You may not sell, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, assign or transfer your rights in the Rosetta Stone Software.
In 2007, Rosetta Stone representatives informed public libraries across the United States they were discontinuing library online access. Rosetta Stone's licensing agreement states their CD-ROMs are "for individual use only and can not be lent out for multiple use".
Support for the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act
Rosetta Stone was among a group of companies signed to a letter supporting Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits ActCombating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act
United States Senate Bill S.3804, known as the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was a bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy on September 20, 2010...
(COICA), a bill whose opponents argue amounts to censorship.