If you are in the market for learn Italian online software that will streamline the process faster and smoother than any other on the market, Rosetta Stone Italian is a smart choice for you. This program focuses on a learning technique that creates an immersion environment where you learn Italian by associating words with images, in much the same way you learned your native language as a child. This innovative and insightful approach earned Rosetta Stone Italian our TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award.
Unlike many other learn Italian software applications, Rosetta Stone Italian does not use dull grammar drills or provide vocabulary lists for memorization. You also do not have to learn concepts in your native language first, think in your native language and then translate what you want to say into Italian in your mind before you speak.
Instead, the image and word association Rosetta Stone Italian uses is much more intuitive and natural, which makes it easy to get started immediately in speaking Italian. This technique is also intended to help you retain what you have learned.
Rosetta Stone Italian has fewer frills than some products, as seen in our side-by-side comparison with other learn Italian software. However, what you get with Rosetta Stone is an educational approach and essential learning tools that will inculcate a basic and well-rooted grasp of Italian that will serve you well. With Rosetta Stone Italian, the features presented are used to the fullest extent and the process works well.
Among other things, you get an outstanding speech-recognition application with Rosetta Stone that can go a long way toward advancing your learning process. You can easily get feedback on your accent and pronunciation, and you can heighten your ability to speak the language as well as understand it.
Rosetta Stone Italian also has upgraded its products from those offered in the past so there is interactive software that will sharpen your ability to speak, read, write and think in Italian. Rosetta Stone Italian also has upgraded its software to make it is compatible with portable media, which is a handy change for people on the go. Once you are equipped with the program’s CD and your CD player, or get everything loaded on your MP3 player, you can study anywhere.
Another helpful new benefit is that you also can take your learning experience with you using the company’s application for the iPhone or iPod Touch.
One fun new aspect of Rosetta Stone Italian is that you can enjoy live online lessons. These permit you practice speaking Italian with native Italian-speaking tutors. In addition, there are Italian language games you can play that can help expand your ability to understand the language by using Italian in real-life situations rather than just a home-study atmosphere.
Rosetta Stone Italian does an excellent job of tracking your progress and allowing you to customize your learning path. The software catalogs your scores in each lesson and helps you identify the type of activities with which you need the most additional help.
One of Rosetta Stone Italian’s strong points is its ability to help quickly build a person's Italian vocabulary. The software's image and word association feature is not only fun to use, but it is effective as well. For traditional-minded students who prefer to learn rules of grammar first, the grammar sections of this application may be a bit frustrating because the Rosetta Stone Italian's approach does not list rules. Instead, this program is based on a philosophy that teaches grammar using an image-word association technique.
Rosetta Stone Italian does an excellent job when it comes to helping develop your writing skills. It not only focuses on building your written vocabulary, but it uses voice-recognition software to help you build it verbally as well. The speech-recognition function of the software actually serves as one of the most important parts of the intuitive learning experience because you can practice what you know and get immediate feedback.
Rosetta Stone is, without a doubt, the easiest software to use of all the applications we reviewed. The layout is very simple, with individual lesson modules that focus on different skills that you can access from the Menu screen. The lessons themselves are quite intuitive; you simply choose the correct answer from a selection of pictures that match the words you are learning or saying. The program offers a tutorial that is quite informative, but we did not even need it to discover all of the features of Rosetta Stone Italian.
Rosetta Stone Italian relies heavily on a combination of audio and images to create the image-word association learning experience. It makes the learning process extremely simple and easy to follow, but it can also be repetitive.
One of its strongest features is the speech-recognition system that allows you to practice pronunciation and get immediate feedback. The lessons start with pronouncing single words and eventually progress to entire phrases.
Rosetta Stone Italian does not have glossaries, dictionaries or grammar texts, but the program does such a good job of intuitive teaching that the word tools are largely unnecessary.
With Rosetta Stone Italian, you will get some of the best customer help and support of any company we reviewed. There are FAQs and tutorials to help with navigation and basic problems. Although the user manual is very basic, the phone and email support options are both useful and helpful, and you'll receive a speedy response to any questions you might have. You also get the extremely helpful and immediate support of live chat.
If you embrace the language immersion philosophy for learning Italian, Rosetta Stone Italian has made it as simple as it could possibly be for a beginner. Rosetta Stone Italian may not have quite as many tools as other applications, but many students have found its philosophy and approach to be highly appealing and effective in easing them into learning Italian in a way that feels natural and comfortable. If you opt for Rosetta Stone Italian, you will find you have chosen an intuitive way to learn Italian and that you will actually remember what you have learned.
