Lingualogue Blog

Introducing the new Rosetta Stone Totale, the  latest package to be released by the language learning Leviathan. The Totale is aimed at serious language learners and is considered by the company to be a complete, revolutionary language learning system. But is it really?

The Totale comprises the regular Rosetta Stone  software package that many language learners will already be familiar with, but also includes live sessions– where you can talk online to a native speaking tutor or other students– and access to Rosetta World, an online community where you can play games and make friends with native speakers.

I haven’t managed to get my hands on a copy of Rosetta Stone Totale yet as it costs a tidy $999, but you can get an excellent review from the reliable Wall Street Journal to get a better idea of how it works.

As soon as I get hold of a copy I will do a proper review, but I have to say I am a little sceptical from the start. Rosetta Stone is an excellent language learning package, and the added online interactivity does seem at first glance to take it ahead of the competition. However, I am still not yet convinced: $999 is an immense amount of money, and although Rosetta Stone makes a persuasive argument that this is by far cheaper than hiring a personal tutor, it is certainly not the cheapest method out there. I also don’t think it is particularly ground breaking.

There is a free online resource called LiveMocha which has been around for some time, and does virtually everything that Rosetta Stone Totale is claiming to do, but for the immensely more attractive price of zero cents. Even the software exercises are similar. I have a feeling it is the likes of LiveMocha that has prompted Rosetta Stone to release this new Totale offering in the hope that their recognisable brand name will sell a package that is already available (if not globally known) for free on the internet, and catapult them to the front of the pack.

With Live Mocha, you join a community to help you learn a language–native speakers help you by correcting assignments, or just chatting with you to help you practice what you have learned. You in turn help them to learn your language. You meet new people, learn new languages, and maybe even make new friends–all for free. This has got to be better than forking out $999.

As I said before I cannot comment on Rosetta Stone Totale properly yet as I haven’t used it, but if you are thinking of buying it, I would urge you to try LiveMocha first and see if you can do what you want to do there, and save your cash for something else.

You can read a brief review of LiveMocha on the Lingualogue Free language courses page.

Learning a language for many people is more of a chore than  a pleasure  and most will dive into it with enormous initial enthusiasm, only to give it up shortly after ‘where is the post office’ and ‘my souvlaki has too much salt’.

Enter the Nintendo DS and Ubisoft’s My Coach range: My Spanish Coach, My French Coach, My Japanese Coach, and My Chinese Coach.

Now these certainly aren’t the first games to be made to help people learn languages, they are not even the only ones available on the Nintendo DS, but they are without a doubt some of the most effective language learning games on the market.

Finally someone has made an engaging, enjoyable, and most importantly, an effective game to make learning a language fun and easy. And these games are not just for kids; they will appeal to anyone who enjoys computer games. Let’s face it, if you have a DS already, you like games, and I am pretty sure you will like these.

Each game comprises about 1000 interactive lessons and mini games which can be played through from the start for newbies, or begun at the appropriate level for more experienced linguists. This is achieved by an initial quiz to gauge your level with quizzes popping up throughout the game. Overall the game does an excellent job of teaching vocabulary, grammar, and even pronunciation with its voice recognition software, and does it well enough to make a quality, stand up, language learning suite feel like playing a game.

I don’t understand why it has taken so long for game designers or language product designers to marry the two formats together so well. We all know the importance of learning foreign languages, and we all know how much we like playing games. To me it seems an obvious combination; my Coach combines them seamlessly. I hope we see many more language games on the market in the future, available for all platforms, and as consistently good as these are. This is an ideal way to learn a language

Hats off to you Ubisoft.

Welcome to the very first post of the new Lingualogue language learning blog.

Up until this point, Lingualogue has been very simply a website for helping native English speakers to learn that elusive second language. We have done reviews, posted links, and added material to aid people’s learning as much as we can. We have always striven to post as much new content as possible, but sadly we have not always been successful in this aim and have not been as frequent with new material as we might have liked.

Enter the Blog!

Blogs are an interesting medium for transferring information. They allow the writer to express thoughts, ideas, and opinions and then publish them immediately, at the touch of a button, to the waiting world. Blogs allow more abstract content than more regular webpages and basically allow content to be posted at a faster rate.

The idea behind the Lingualogue Blog is to run in tandem with the Lingualogue website but provide content on a more regular and frequent basis, but also often of a more personal nature. We will post opinions about language learning, difficulties with other languages, and the joys and pitfalls of living abroad. As well as a lot of other stuff I haven’t even thought of yet. The blogs will be personal viewpoints of the writer, whether they be from Lingualogue or a member of the public and will give anyone wanting to learn that second language a blunt insight into what they can expect.

I wish you luck with your language learning and hope Lingualogue Blog will be of help to you.

Neil Breakwell