Oh how I am going to be saving my pennies for this program! This past week I took advantage of the Rosetta Stone free trial. I am still figuring the exact differences between the online version which I had access to and to the CD version that we will most likely get. But at it’s heart I think it is an apples to apples comparison.

I love the immersion aspect of this program but up front I will say it is a bit easier if you (as the parent) have some familiarity with the language your children will be studying. The one thing that the online version doesn’t seem to have is a dictionary for translation though the alphabet was available. This seems odd to me because while *I* know that “la mujer lee.” is translated to “the woman reads” that won’t necessarily be true for all. Indeed there are a few verb differences between the Spain Spanish that I learned and the Latin American Spanish I was reviewing for the children. It would be nice in the instances where I am not quite certain what the picture is representing – to be able to look up the verb. There are extra materials with the CD version so perhaps they include a language dictionary. If you know the basic introduction of the words are: man, women, girl child, boy child most languages are “understandable” even when you don’t speak a word of them. I loaded up the Chinese (Mandarin) with Simplified Chinese and was able to understand for the most part that we were practicing phrases like the man drinks water and the woman drinks tea or the children eat.

The boys found the speech recognition portion of the program to be hilarious and fun. Both were interested in seeing if they could get the phrase pronounced properly enough to “pass”. We didn’t have a headset so just utilized the built in microphone on my mac. When we actually purchase this program we will be sure to get a headset. While it is fun for a bit to shout at the computer to get it to hear us, we would be much more successful with a headset. Lil’B can even work this program though I think he  is mostly using his ears when it comes to the phrases and his eyes to find the right picture. For fun I loaded up the vocabulary review for level 1 Spanish and when through it with him. He was able to correctly identify a significant percentage of them (man=hombre, woman=mujer, boy=nino, girl=nina) along with a few verbs that he’d heard in the lesson while Jr. was working it. Jr. easily navigates this program and with some focus would quickly be learning a lot. Even in our unfocused playing he picked up a few new verbs and a few new words. The reading, vocabulary and speaking are all easy to see being successful on the computer. The writing, for me at least,  is one that I would also want to practice away from the computer. Though the “pick the correct word” is a nice way to introduce the grammatical concepts for the young child.

I can see two things that will frustrate some people 1. the cost and 2. its all on the computer. The computer is not an issue for me as the boys don’t have that many things they consistently do on the computer at the moment. We also have one available for thier use so they won’t be competing for my computer. The cost is a daunting. Especially for the small budgeted homeschooler. I am figuring that we will not actually purchase this for another 6 months while we save up the $600 dollars we need to purchase all three levels at once.

Why the CD version $550 (est) when I can get the Online for $300 a year? Though I am previewing via the free trial the Online version it doesn’t seem to be suited for multiple students. And in fact on the Rosetta Stone website it is only available under the “Personal” tab not the “Homeschool” tab. I will easily have two if not four people working through this program. I want to be able to track the boys’ progress and not have it altered by my own progress. That means I need to be able to have multiple students with separate tracking. The other thing is that I’d be more inclined to pay for the online version IF you got access to all the languages. I can spend $550 for all three levels of a single language OR I can subscribe for $300 a year for a single level of a single language?? Yeah it didn’t make much sense to me either. If Rosetta Stone Online was an annual subscription to all the languages and all the levels well then I’d jump at the opportunity even without the tracking of multiple students. But a single language and single level doesn’t make sense for a small budget like mine. I can get more bang for my buck if I purchase the CD version in the package deal with all three levels for a single language.