Has anyone used the Rosetto Stone Language CDs and if so do you recommend them?

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Colleen,

I've used them for both German and Italian. They use the immersion approach and start by building up your vocabulary with a lot of nouns and slowly easing in the verbs.

I think they are great for anyone serious about learning Italian long-term. I personally do a bit better with upfront explanations on grammar than Rosetta Stone provides. They are not the best for learning the basics for traveling, either, as they don't teach these phrases straight out. It's good for practicing pronunciation and, again, for planning longer term study of a language, though.

I bought the Rosetta Stone CDs for Italian about a month ago. I can't believe how quickly I have been able to pick things up.

I agree with the posts that it doesn't really address conversational Italian (At least not yet) but I have found if I use my Italian/English dictionary or on-line translation tool like BabelFish...I get even more out of each lesson. I catch myself thinking of the Italian word for things when I see them. Like Cavallo...every time I see a horse!

Good luck in what you decide to do. I leave for Italy in March I hope to have the course finished by then. Hopefully, I will be able to get around without too much stress!

I am currently using Pimsleur for Spanish. I have done the first 2 series in Italian though.

I also have Rosetta Stone or Spanish. The plan is to do all the Pimsleur series in the car and then switch to RS. There is a lot more in the RS program than there is in Pimsleur. My problem with Pimsleur is that you do very little reading. RS should fix that.

The RS programs (and the Pimsleur programs) follow the same format for each language I have done.

In addition to Italian and Spanish, I have done all 3 series of Russian CD's as well. Since I studied Russian in high school (since it was during the Late Middle Ages, I don't remember much), the Russian went more quickly for me than it would for others. Russian is a conceptually more difficult language than any of the Romance languages.

After all of this, the only foreign language I speak with any fluidity is French. I never used any CD's for French because I minored in it in college.