Rosetta Stone V3: French, Level 1 & 2

For the first time since purchasing a variety of items thruogh Amazom.com, I can say I am deeply disappointed with this product. I purchased it for my daughter. She said she received an error message but when she went to the Rosetta site, there was no way to get support via that website. As she is out of the country, it is very expensive for her to be at a computer AND telephone as the technical support individual mentioned. Therefore, we have gone through considerable expense for her to FEDEX the software to me so that I can return it. I have done that and now I am waiting for the "verdict" from Amazon.com regarding a refund. As I said, this is the first negative experience and I have purchased a number of items and have always been satisfied, even when I needed to return an item. I hope this current incident is an aberration in the otherwise excellent service from Amazon.com.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback.

Irma I. Sprangle

My husband and I have made a commitment to learn French. We are going to France this summer and have been there twice already. We want to be better able to communicate. We received Rosetta Stone about a month ago and have both been impressed with the program. You must wear the headphone which is synced to your individual voice. You listen to the
pronounciation throughout the lessons and then must repeat words and sentences. It has sound indicators to tell you whether you are pronouncing correctly. The program leads you through pictures where you match words or sentences. There are vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and writing lessons. There are also review sections to keep reinforcing the material. It is like playing a game and becomes quite a challenge!
For home based learning without an instructor, we think it is GREAT!
Donna and Ben Lanza

I bought French Level 1&2, and I went through Level 1 so far. For someone like me, with zero background in French and no time for going to language classes, the software does a very good job. If you have realistic expectations and don't think you should be fluent in French after Level 1, the progress is truly amazing. I like the combination of audio, visual aids, spelling and pronunciation drills- add numerous repetitions to the mix, and you will be surprised how much you can learn. I would recommend buying a separate grammar reference book though, as sometimes intuitive learning is not sufficient, and being able to see the whole structure helps a lot. I have tried some other language self-study courses before, and I can say that Rosetta is the most effective one.
Also, I am a Mac user, and I did not have any issues with the software installation (and I am not a tech savvy person!). I think that the problems described in some previous reviews may only relate to network settings, on a single computer the software works just fine.

It is mostly my wife studying French with this for a planned trip to France this summer. She has been very pleased. Rosetta's technique is more of an emersion in the language than the old rote memorization ways we were taught languages in school. (This is a 1969 HS graduate talking.) Highly recommended, but not cheap!

Bought this from Amazon for my wife. It ran for two months then complained it was not activated.
Same machine, same user.
IMPOSSIBLE to speak to a support rep.
Might be OK software, I don't use it, but I'm stuck trying to talk to jackasses who don't answer their phones.