Rosetta Stone to help with Spanish?

Anonymous
My child is in his third year of Spanish in his private school and is currently struggling. He can go to his teacher for extra help and will be doing so. Because we are going to start him on Study Skills tutoring, to deal with his somewhat disorganized approach, I do not want to hire a Spanish tutor. ( Too much tutoring). But I would like to supplement what he gets from his regular class plus the extra work with his teacher. And I speak no Spanish.

Has anyone bought Rosetta Stone, or something similar, for this? P.S. I have a tough time working with my son bc he is casually defiant in the ADHD way. I enforce good manners, good meals, etc., but trying to convince him as a younger kid, not to do his math in pen, brings out the yeller in me after a few rounds of explaining.

Help!
Anonymous
You might want to look at Power Speak -- an online program geared more towards students. Rosetta Stone is good but not sure it would map to school very well (it was great for me when I was trying to remember some Spanish before a trip). Good luck!!
Anonymous
Try quizlet.com (I'm a teacher).
Anonymous
DUO ;LINGO
Anonymous
Maybe ask his teacher for some recommendations. I'm not familiar with the approach of Rosetta Stone. Although it's supposed to be good it may not match up well with what your son needs.

Good luck!
Anonymous
My son found that for learning a brand new language (middle school age) Rosetta Stone was great, but for reinforcing a language he was studying in school not so much. The program is very picky about accents, and would not always give credit for right answers spoken in a slightly different way, which was incredibly frustrating (and he has a good enough ear to identify the problem but couldn't quite match what the program wanted).
Anonymous
Rosetta Stone is good for learning conversation skills.
Anonymous
I don't know how old your son is but watching tv shows/movies with the closed captions on works wonders for me. I either watch the shows in spanish with the spanish captions on or watch the shows in English with the spanish captions on.
Anonymous
I'd move to Puerto Rico and have him go to school there for a semester. Should be cost as much as Rosetta Stone.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:DUO ;LINGO


Duolingo is great. I use it for another language and it does a good job of reinforcing vocab and grammar. It's free and it tracks your progress so you can go back anytime and pick up where you left off.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:My son found that for learning a brand new language (middle school age) Rosetta Stone was great, but for reinforcing a language he was studying in school not so much. The program is very picky about accents, and would not always give credit for right answers spoken in a slightly different way, which was incredibly frustrating (and he has a good enough ear to identify the problem but couldn't quite match what the program wanted).


I've got Rosetta Stone for Latin American Spanish and I think it's great--I do agree that sometimes I could not get past the program when repeating things, but you can turn that feature off (or maybe make it allow less precision; I can't remember what I did but it's fine now)

That being said, I thought this short TED talk was helpful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yGdNEWdn0
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My son found that for learning a brand new language (middle school age) Rosetta Stone was great, but for reinforcing a language he was studying in school not so much. The program is very picky about accents, and would not always give credit for right answers spoken in a slightly different way, which was incredibly frustrating (and he has a good enough ear to identify the problem but couldn't quite match what the program wanted).


I've got Rosetta Stone for Latin American Spanish and I think it's great--I do agree that sometimes I could not get past the program when repeating things, but you can turn that feature off (or maybe make it allow less precision; I can't remember what I did but it's fine now)

That being said, I thought this short TED talk was helpful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yGdNEWdn0


If you go to settings, you can adjust Rosetta Stone to be less picky about accent.
Anonymous
Thank you-- for everything! Will try Duo-lingo and maybe Spanish kids' shows. That will take some searching. I have already been using Quizlet but i like hearing a teacher recommend it. ?
Anonymous
Smiley face, not question mark at end. Hit wrong button.
Anonymous
Another teacher here: I second quizlet and duolingo. Most libraries have a free online language subscription to programs similar to Rosetta Stone. In Loudoun, you can access mango languages for free at home using your library card. It's better than Duolingo if you've passed the basics. Duolingo is a great review.

They need to make video games in Spanish or hell maybe you can buy one in Spanish language.
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