Anyone Heard Of Or Used Rosetta Stone Learn Thai ?

[1927]

Seen an advert on telly for them and looked on their website to find it costs a hefty £160 here in UK

anyone heard anything on it ???

[brahmburgers]

I tried it a few times, about four 40 minute sessions, and didn't like it.

[walterego]

Yeah I like it but it is very boring (not as borring as other mediums though) and worth a look.

It is easily purchasable at most Thai software markets. eg: pantnip. the comp etc.

another one i like is called Thai trainer wich has a free trial and a free basic thai starter available for download. google it.

It is possibly one of the most succesful language software packages ever produced in the world.

[harrry]

If you do use it be prepared to spend a lot of time and do all of it. I think if you do you will probably learn quite well and have learnt to read by a recognition method too. If you are not prepared to spend the time, and it can be quite boring, one of the quicker methods may be more suitible,

[RPCVguy]

I bought the system before retiring here, but the CD must be in the drive to access the program. The problem with the CD is that the copy protection is located on a little accessed track that must be tough on the CD-ROM drive. Does the Pantip version have that copy scheme cracked? The system is time consuming but valid for learning via context rather than "translating" mentally. That is also why it is repetitious and tiring. Still, what I learned while using it has stuck internally better than many other phrasings I've learned. I only wish it caused less grinding of my CD-ROm to use it.

[desi]

Seen an advert on telly for them and looked on their website to find it costs a hefty £160 here in UK

anyone heard anything on it ???

I have it. I don't like it.

Amongst other things (just do a search on thaivisa.com) it's useless for learning how to read Thai.

There are a ton more programs out there that are hugely cheaper and give you more bang for your buck.

[Beacher]

Very lightweight and not terribly effective. Price to value ratio is poor.

I would suggest the Pimsleur material to get up and running with basic conversational Thai quickly. The set has 30-half hour lessons that you can put on your MP3 player and use while strolling along the beach or where ever else is appropriate. They use a building block method and do it quite well.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Beacher

[hiero]

I'm thinking of selling my rosetta thai and pimsleur if anyone is tempted give me a pm, they served me well but not really needed now. Shame they never made a pimsleur thai 2 and 3 or rosetta 2 and 3.

Edited August 6, 2009 by hiero

[JaiDamJungLoei]

Rosetta Stone works good if you can stick with it. It is boring and repetitious, but if used regularly you will learn to speak Thai good enough to start talking to Thai people - where you will get your real education. The Thai language disc only comes with version 2 of the run software, which is very old and runs in a small VGA window. I usually change my screen resolution to 640x480 when using it. It also makes Vista look like XP when it's running, the video requirements are too old to run in Vista properly. The DRM on the CD is very sensitive. Minor scratches and finger prints will render the Thai language disk useless, unless they can be cleaned or polished out. The disc can be copied with the right hardware and software, but it's not easy. Google lists many forums with tips and requirements.

It is impossible to learn to read Thai from Rosetta Stone, unless you have a basic understanding of the written language and pronunciation. I recommend Teach Yourself Thai (book and CDs) to start, with Rosetta Stone a follow on to improve your comprehension - if you can stand to use it for long term. I found Rosetta Stone in a mall for $75, which I think is an OK price. I don't think it's worth the $200+ list price.

Pimsleur Thai is good for spoken Thai, but is also boring and repetitious to use. I can find the first 10 lessons (out of 30) on CDs in book stores in the US for $30.

I find the best Thai teachers are kids. I learn more now from my two year old grandson than I ever have been able to get from my wife in seven years of marriage. My 4, 5,6 year old nieces and nephews and their friends love to spend hours teaching me Thai words and phrases. Reading children's books out loud with a Thai is also a great way to practice reading Thai.

Edited August 7, 2009 by JaiDamJungLoei

[butterisbetter]

I used it for about a month before I came to Thailand. The problem is that Thai is a tonal language, and unless you know to listen for the tones, you won't notice them. Rosetta does nothing to point this out, or, for that matter to point anything out. The use of classifiers is another puzzlement they neglected to identify. Basically, it's a total immersion program. Which probably works great if it is teaching you another indo-european language and probably okay for some other languages as well. But, Thai, being so different from english, needs some explanations along the way.

[poldebol]

As some posters have already discussed. Problem with most methods is that they ommit a few of the main problems of the Thai language, like tone and classifiers. IMHO that makes them useless, even when they are expensive.

I am not clever enough to realise this simple idea: a piece of software that shows a split screen. On the left one sees the graph of a perfectly pronounced Thai vowel. On the right screen one can try to produce the same graph by speaking in the microphone. I think it is the only possible way.

When you learn from a small group of native speakers, please do not forget that you train them as well in talking a simplified Thai. I manage to communicate with most of the people I meet regularly on basic things. But when I meet Thai people who are not used to me, I can not even order a bottle of water.

[WaatWang]

Very lightweight and not terribly effective. Price to value ratio is poor.

I would suggest the Pimsleur material to get up and running with basic conversational Thai quickly. The set has 30-half hour lessons that you can put on your MP3 player and use while strolling along the beach or where ever else is appropriate. They use a building block method and do it quite well.

I agree with Beacher. I started out with Rosetta Stone in my first attempt to learn Thai. First thing I really learned to say was 'the man fell off the horse', which only came in handy one time (so far) in real life. It did cover numbers and colors early on, too which were good to learn.

However I am a very analytical person and didn't like seeing the words without also trying to figure out what letter was part of what word, and what it translated to in English. So those people who said it's impossible to learn to read Thai with Rosetta Stone was not true in my experience. I bought a Thai-English dictionary, and also used thai-language.com in conjunction with Rosetta Stone, looked up the words I knew to see which letters meant what (ie what part meant 'man', 'horse', 'fall off', etc.) and practiced writing them as I learned the words. VERY slow but I liked it, and it was really effective in me learning what sound each character makes, and how words are put together. It wasn't until I started writing them that it started to come together more quickly for me.

However I wanted to pick up more conversational Thai, so I bought the Pimsleur Comprehensive 30 hr program Beacher mentioned. That has been worth every penny. I have learned so much from that, and I can truly use what I've learned when I'm in Thailand. If you're just starting and want a package like Rosetta Stone, I highly recommend using Pimsleur method first. Good luck!

[kolohe]

I would agree that full retail for Rosetta is over priced. I have used it though and it works but like what's been said, you have to be prepared to do the whole thing to the finish. I like it for the speaking and listening, for the reading/writing I wasn't so fond of. I bought some other supplemental material (mainly to learn the alphabet) and it greatly improved what I got out of Rosetta.

With Rosetta I was able to retain quite a bit, just about everything. The problem is its not conversational, which is why you have to go all the way though it. You first learn what a dog, cat, boy and girl are. Then you learn what a ball, airplane, car, etc. shortly after you learn how to say "the boy is under the airplane" and "the girl is running". If you're looking for conversational Thai where you can start asking right away things like "where is the bathroom" then one of the others is will be a better option.

If you want to try out Rosetta, go to their website and download their demo. It will give you a pretty good idea on what their software will do for you.

[HarriB]

If you can purchase it in Thailand, which I did, then it's worth the money.

I paid 800 Baht for it. My girlfriend improved her English quite a bit by using it daily for a few months and

I like to use it once in a while to learn a little more Thai. (better than watching TV that's for sure)

It comes with 26 different languages and can come in handy.

Hey, other people play stupid computer games all day.

[charlie10]

I tried to learn with Rossetta but didn't get far with it. In fact I've got a whole shelf full of books and dictionaries and they're all pretty tough going.

I recently bought a book and DVD learn Thai product which is actually pretty good. The book comes with a 3 hour DVD that covers all the words and phrases that appear in the book. There's a real focus on learning how to pronounce and hear tones which I think is really very effective - this area is covered far more comprehensively than any other learn Thai products I've bought. I've always had problems actually saying a tone at the correct pitch and I think this has now been sorted.

The phonetic system used is uncomplicated and does seem to accurately reflect the word pronunciation, and the language content is really very practical. I'm hearing the words and phrases I've learnt spoken all the time around me, and am actually using them a lot myself. So, I think this book and DVD is really a very good step forward for me, and may be a good solution for anyone else trying to get their head around the language. They also do a Learn Isaan Thai version which may be worth checking out.

Check out this website (learnspeakthai.com) for more information. They have a neat look inside book and dvd facility so that you can see exactly what you get.

I hope this is helpful.

[Rionoir]

I personally thought Rosetta Stone was ridiculous. They claim their method is the way children learn... but children do NOT learn to read Thai just by seeing pictures of Thai words and memorizing them. That may be how Chinese people memorize their characters, I don't know, but it's a ridiculous way to learn Thai if you want to read and write.

For learning to speak, I still thought it was poor... not my favorite method. I'm not a child, and I don't learn like a child.

I have used Pimsleur for several languages and always got complimented on my accent afterwards... they are very clear in explaining the tones. I did the complete Pimsleur course for Thai before moving to Thailand (lessons 1-30), and it was FANTASTIC for getting a good foundation in Thai. You're still not going to be able to have a conversation about anything after that course except for simple greetings and introductions... but it is a good foundation.

[Tod Daniels]

It was certainly worth the 300 baht I paid for it at Pantip Plaza, BUT

I'd never recommend it nor pay the real retail price for it.

FWIW; the Rosetta Stone version I bought had the following languages;

Danish, English UK, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, Thai, Vietnamese and Welsh

I'd give it a pass unless you can pick it up for under 10US

I recently bought a book and DVD learn Thai product which is actually pretty good.

It seems the poster known as "charlie10" is doing his best to plug the 'learnspeakthai' book/dvd combo in his oh-so subtle yet infomercial like post located in several places on the language forum.

I watched two women trying to sell the book to foreigners dining in the food court at Tops Market last week. They stopped at my table but after looking at the book; IMHO it's about as worthless as tits on tomcat. Factor in the insane price they want for it, and believe me there are FAR cheaper, far more useful and informative books out there to be had.

BACK ON TOPIC:

I'd pass on Rosetta Stone at anything but pirated pricing. Once you understand spoken thai or reading thai it can be useful to quiz yourself, but as a stand alone learning resource, it is not the best.

[Groongthep]

I did the complete Pimsleur course for Thai before moving to Thailand (lessons 1-30), and it was FANTASTIC for getting a good foundation in Thai. You're still not going to be able to have a conversation about anything after that course except for simple greetings and introductions...

It's difficult for me to understand how after going through 30 lessons of a language course and still not being able to have a conversation other than simple greetings and introductions it can be described as "FANTASTIC".

Edited September 1, 2009 by Groongthep

[Rionoir]

Some people just like to be a dick about anything I guess... *cough*

It's 30 HALF-HOUR lessons that you do in your car. For what it is, it is a FANTASTIC start on the language. I had a lot of vocabulary and I got many compliments on my tones and was easily understood. 15 hours of studying is not going to allow you to have a "conversation" with a Thai person unless they are talking to you like an infant. I'm sorry, Groongthep, I thought most people could figure that much out for themselves. It gives you plenty of phrases you can say though, more than Hello and My Name Is...

[EndofDays]

Seen an advert on telly for them and looked on their website to find it costs a hefty £160 here in UK

anyone heard anything on it ???

I used it for spanish and italian and now will use it for thai. you can get cheaper copies in thailand, if you know what I mean. I think it is the best system out there. that is what the U.S. Army uses for their Defense Language Institute.

[desi]

For what it is, it is a FANTASTIC start on the language.

I agree. It also gets your ears used to Thai, a tonal language. When you first start listening to Thai, it is all a jumble. If that's the way you learn, then Pimsleurs helps in a big way.

[SoftWater]

For what it is, it is a FANTASTIC start on the language.

I agree. It also gets your ears used to Thai, a tonal language. When you first start listening to Thai, it is all a jumble. If that's the way you learn, then Pimsleurs helps in a big way.

Yep, I went through Pimsleur long after I had actually started learning Thai and found it useful, especially for the tones. Like Rionoir says, its 'a listen while you walk/drive/wash your undies' kind of thing. My trip to work via walking, songtaew and skytrain takes just over 30 minutes each way, and I found it great to do each lesson on the way to work and repeat it on the way home.

In fact, even now, it probably wouldn't be a waste of time to review it. My pronunciation has slipped from understandable to garbled babble in recent times.

[SoftWater]

The problem is its not conversational, which is why you have to go all the way though it. You first learn what a dog, cat, boy and girl are. Then you learn what a ball, airplane, car, etc. shortly after you learn how to say "the boy is under the airplane" and "the girl is running". If you're looking for conversational Thai where you can start asking right away things like "where is the bathroom" then one of the others is will be a better option.

I've heard of Rosetta Stone but never seen it, but this comment strikes me as interesting. As a language teacher, my opinion is 90% of the Thai learning materials being published or promoted these days are are wholly misconceived from a pedgagogic point of view (much much better are the oft-maligned 'old-fashioned' ones like Ghetings, Cambell's 'Fundamental of Thai' and (as I recently discovered the FSI reader which are eminently sensible in their approach and structure. ).

The reason I say much modern material is misconceived is because it is designed primarily to sell effectively, and not to teach effectively. Situational material (how to order food in a restaurant, how to buy a postcard, how to direct a taxi) are great hooks for book buyers but, I'm afraid, little better than pointless as real introductions to proficiency in a language.

What is said about Rosetta above (i don't know if its true, or if they do it well) is precisely the right pedagogic approach. If you learn to build the language from its basics, not from 'situations', you may start off slower, but you will advance far quicker, and (importantly), get a bootstrapping into becoming autodidactic. If you're not convinced, go into your local bookshop and look at the professionally published English language learning books (like those published by Oxford, Cambridge, McGraw Hill, Longman, Pearson etc), you will not see any of these reputable publishers teaching 'situational English'. Rather, they teach English by building a foundation that allows the learner to progress in discrete steps and with increasing independence; situational learning ties you to the content of the book/cd/website, and gives you little in the way of developing the essential skills to inferentially construct the language from experience.

Like I said, I don't know how far Rosetta Stone goes down the way of executing this properly, but the comments made here about basic building block and (as was also pointed out) repetition and consolidation are the key techniques of real effective language learning (yes, to a certain extent, language learning is repetitive and therefore boring - the sooner we get over that fact and accept it, the faster we will progress).

Edited September 5, 2009 by SoftWater

[SoftWater]

As an aside, I once had the idea of using my own learning notes for Thai as the basis of a book built on the same pedgagogic principles as professional English language teaching material. I even went so far as to find an excellent native Thai co-author, whose ability to explain complex ideas in simple language (both English and Thai) is quite remarkable. What put me off seeing this project through was i. discovering over the last few months the wealth of freely available thai learning resoures on the web (Ok, i now they're not organised into a neat program, but given they are free, we can manage to do that for ourselves, right?) and ii. opinions from publishers that a 'serious' text book in thai has such a small market its hardly worth their effort publishing it. The sad truth is that 'situational' learning materials like the ones I complain about above are so common because they are popular - the majority of buyers are not interested in learning thai script or developing proficiency, and those of us that are...well, we have the internet and the locals as free sources...

[DavidHouston]

Softwater,

I am not a pedagogue and I have a great deal of respect for what you say. Question: can't the two methods you describe be combined, that is, teaching via a basic building block approach but using real life, familiar situation vocabulary and syntax as examples in conveying the basic building blocks?

[Nicky72]

I have also used Rosetta Stone in the past for some other languages and I liked the approach with the audio and pictures but as people already mentioned I found the sentences sometimes not really down to earth and RS does not teach any practical phrases.

Some time ago I came across a software called L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai Professional which is much cheaper than RS and since it appears to be a lesser known option in the market for learning Thai, I thought I would give a more detailed explanation. If you like it just google for "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" and you find a free trial version in the internet.

How does L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai works

The Personaltrainer uses a multi-media approach towards language learning by integrating audio, text and images into an integrated framework.

However, L-Ceps Personaltrainer is not a full immersion based software like Rosetta Stone but also offers translations to all words and sentences. The translations are available in English, German, French and Spanish.

The Personaltrainer Professional offers 55 lessons which cover approximately 2000 words and sentences. There are 5 special lessons on common phrases and dialogues which enable the learner to very quickly do basic conversations. The other lessons are step-by-step building up a basic foundation of the language. The software offers five different exercises which are called Training mode, Guided Quiz, Picture Quiz, Translation Quiz and Writing Quiz.

Bottom Line

What I like:

• Very comprehensive and affordable language learning program
  
• Effective and fun exercises
  
• Easy to use user interface
  
• Multimedia approach with pictures and native speaker audio make the Thai words really stick in your brain
  

What I do not like so much:

• Only available as download → so you have to print out the textbook and flashcards yourself
  
• No speaking quiz
  
• No explicit explanation of Grammar and Thai Letters
  
• You need Java runtime installed
  

[SoftWater]

Softwater,

I am not a pedagogue and I have a great deal of respect for what you say. Question: can't the two methods you describe be combined, that is, teaching via a basic building block approach but using real life, familiar situation vocabulary and syntax as examples in conveying the basic building blocks?

For sure, David, of course, and most of the decent books actually do. You can 'theme' the material around anything that interests the students. It's not really that most books on Thai take one approach to the exclusion of the other (I was probably over-stating the case to make my point), its a question of to what degree they balance the content (lets' say 'making a phone call') with reusable language units (i.e, resuable in different contexts), new vocab items, consolidation of previous vocab and grammar structures, and with demonstration, practice and extension.

The majority of Thai learning materials pay no, little or not enough attention to pedagogy depending on which material we're talking about. At the worst extreme are the many cheap offerings which make big claims on the cover but are nothing but lists of example sentences with not a single exercise. If you're "lucky" they might throw in a CD with nothing on it other than someone modelling those sentences.

A good contrast of how it should be done with how it shouldn't can be seen in two different offerings from BP Becker. Her 'Thai for Beginners' pays reasonable attention to pedagogy; her 'Speak Like a Thai' pays NO attention to pedagogy; it is just a cash cow exploiting the reputation gained by the 'beginners' series. There are all too many materials that are more like SLT and less like TfB.

Edited September 6, 2009 by SoftWater

[SoftWater]

I have also used Rosetta Stone in the past for some other languages and I liked the approach with the audio and pictures but as people already mentioned I found the sentences sometimes not really down to earth and RS does not teach any practical phrases.

Some time ago I came across a software called L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai Professional which is much cheaper than RS and since it appears to be a lesser known option in the market for learning Thai, I thought I would give a more detailed explanation. If you like it just google for "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" and you find a free trial version in the internet.

How does L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai works

The Personaltrainer uses a multi-media approach towards language learning by integrating audio, text and images into an integrated framework.

However, L-Ceps Personaltrainer is not a full immersion based software like Rosetta Stone but also offers translations to all words and sentences. The translations are available in English, German, French and Spanish.

The Personaltrainer Professional offers 55 lessons which cover approximately 2000 words and sentences. There are 5 special lessons on common phrases and dialogues which enable the learner to very quickly do basic conversations. The other lessons are step-by-step building up a basic foundation of the language. The software offers five different exercises which are called Training mode, Guided Quiz, Picture Quiz, Translation Quiz and Writing Quiz.

Bottom Line

What I like:

• Very comprehensive and affordable language learning program
  
• Effective and fun exercises
  
• Easy to use user interface
  
• Multimedia approach with pictures and native speaker audio make the Thai words really stick in your brain
  

What I do not like so much:

• Only available as download → so you have to print out the textbook and flashcards yourself
  
• No speaking quiz
  
• No explicit explanation of Grammar and Thai Letters
  
• You need Java runtime installed
  

Don't know it, but it sounds well-thought out. The one area they have not paid attention to is the marketing. You can't effectively sell a product with a clumsy title like that! (I can't even remember what it is called already....)

[Nicky72]

I have also used Rosetta Stone in the past for some other languages and I liked the approach with the audio and pictures but as people already mentioned I found the sentences sometimes not really down to earth and RS does not teach any practical phrases.

Some time ago I came across a software called L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai Professional which is much cheaper than RS and since it appears to be a lesser known option in the market for learning Thai, I thought I would give a more detailed explanation. If you like it just google for "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" and you find a free trial version in the internet.

How does L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai works

The Personaltrainer uses a multi-media approach towards language learning by integrating audio, text and images into an integrated framework.

However, L-Ceps Personaltrainer is not a full immersion based software like Rosetta Stone but also offers translations to all words and sentences. The translations are available in English, German, French and Spanish.

The Personaltrainer Professional offers 55 lessons which cover approximately 2000 words and sentences. There are 5 special lessons on common phrases and dialogues which enable the learner to very quickly do basic conversations. The other lessons are step-by-step building up a basic foundation of the language. The software offers five different exercises which are called Training mode, Guided Quiz, Picture Quiz, Translation Quiz and Writing Quiz.

Bottom Line

What I like:

• Very comprehensive and affordable language learning program
  
• Effective and fun exercises
  
• Easy to use user interface
  
• Multimedia approach with pictures and native speaker audio make the Thai words really stick in your brain
  

What I do not like so much:

• Only available as download → so you have to print out the textbook and flashcards yourself
  
• No speaking quiz
  
• No explicit explanation of Grammar and Thai Letters
  
• You need Java runtime installed
  

Don't know it, but it sounds well-thought out. The one area they have not paid attention to is the marketing. You can't effectively sell a product with a clumsy title like that! (I can't even remember what it is called already....)

Hi Softwater, I found your comment about the title name quite interesting. However being not a native of the English language, could you please explain why the Title "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" sounds clumsy? For me it sounds alright (maybe not as catchy as TalkNow! or that kind of products).

[SoftWater]

Hi Softwater, I found your comment about the title name quite interesting. However being not a native of the English language, could you please explain why the Title "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" sounds clumsy? For me it sounds alright (maybe not as catchy as TalkNow! or that kind of products).

Done well, marketing (= product awareness) is a two-way street: on the one hand, it maximises sales for a company and on the other hand it lets those that need/want something know how and where to get it. A key to effective marketing is making titles that are easy to remember and mention/pass on to others.

The whole construction "L-Ceps Personaltrainer Thai" is neither grammatically nor semantically regular, and so you have to make a conscious effort to actually lodge it in your head. The title contains only one word that is relevant to the market it is aimed at ('thai') - "L-Ceps" is an artificial construction that is meaningless to anyone but the company who came up with it, and 'Personal trainer' is a concept more readily associated with 'fitness'. All these factors combined mean the product's identity could easily be 'lost' or misconstrued by people who are not directly interested in it themselves, but who might mention it/see it/ bring it up in discussion with others that are. Good marketing gets people talking about (and remembering) product names even when they aren't potential customers - it increases the chances of those who are of finding out about it.

If you think about all the famous products and brands you know, few are ever longer than two words long, and even then they are often compounded into one (including 'ThaiVisa'). Now compare that with 'L-Ceps Personal Trainer Thai' and maybe you can see what I'm driving at.

Edited September 6, 2009 by SoftWater