hi everyone, i'm wondering if anyone can help me out....i read a couple posts on here about rosetta stone, but has anyone tried "tell me more" (auralog.com). it's slightly cheaper than rosetta stone but wanted to see if anyone had any feedback on it(i've read some reviews but am a bit wary about them). i'm more of a visual learner so i need to see what's going on, lol. i've been trying to work on my listening by listening to italian radio stations online to help me out a bit (i can understand a bit of italian). i'm more "worried" about my husband who knows ZERO italian. any feedback would be greatly appreciated!! thanks so much

I don't know about Rosetta Stone but I have the "tell me more" CD's. I've also done other CD's with books. I'm also a visual learner (need that book!) To tell you the truth I have taken only one Italian lang course at a local college and without it I would have been lost doing 'tell me more'. I need a book for conjugations, etc. But everyone learns differently. I'm always looking for new ways to learn Italian. I think the best is to take courses and use CD's, workbooks, audio for extra help. Of course the ultimate way is to be totally thrown into it in Italy!

YES!! i definitely agree that the best way to learn is to go to italy, but unfortunately we can't right now that's a good idea about workbooks though. i may wander over to the bookstore and see if they have any workbooks and a conjugation book for sure!! thanks so much for your feedback patg

I, on the other hand have no experience with Tell Me More, but did go through Rosetta Stone. For me one of it's most important features was the ability to record your voice and compare the soundwave with that of a native speaker. This has helped me to sometimes get through conversations without italians realizing I'm American (that is, I don't sound perfectly italian but I don't have a noticeable american accent either.) In reality I did the full Pimsleur 90 lesson audio course, the Rosetta Stone computer app course, and the Idiots Guide to Learning Italian book (great for filling in the technical blanks) all at the same time... and within 3 or 4 months I was comfortably using the language on a basic daily level... For me they each had their strenghts and weaknesses so I wouldn't have been able to get that far along I think with only one or the other. From there it's all about diving into Italian daily life to round it out!

I got started with Rosetta Stone when I was visiting my son at the Defense Language Institute, purportedly the best language school in the world, where he was studying Arabic. In the library there were dozens of copies of Rosetta Stone in the various languages they teach there. Struck me a quite an endorsement.

I have used Tell Me More (for Spanish), Pimsleur Italian, and both the old and new Rosetta Stone. I didn't like Tell Me More much, but Pimsleur is outstanding for getting the flow of the language and learning important phrases. My favorite, however, is the new Rosetta Stone. It develops the language for you so that you begin to understand how it is constructed. If you buy it, be sure and get the new version, it's a significant improvement over the old one.

That being said, I don't rely exclusively on CD's. I also take an Italian class once a week, and since I'm also a visual learner, but more importantly, an analytical learner, I use the textbook "Prego" as well as workbooks I find at Barnes and Noble.

thanks everyone for your feedback! i'll have to look into pimsleur that both of you mentioned (justin and roadlawyer). i've seen it in a couple of posts before. now we must make the time to study but i'm excited about it!!! i hope i can say that in 3 to 4 months i've accomplished enough to hold a conversation!! thanks again!!

Thank you for this thread.

We are getting Rosetta Stone.....I believe we get it free through the army......and I will be taking classes once we arrive in Vicenza.

I'm quite nervous about learning Italian, I had a horrible time with high school Spanish lol, but I want to learn Italian as fluently as possible.

From what I have seen - Rosetta Stone is a little boring.

I went and got a few books and CD's (Italian Now, Learn Italian the Fast and Easy Way, Italian For Dummies - and a couple of others) that are much more fun.

Another thing - Spanish and Italian are very close - I understand most of my fiancee's swear words and other impolite things.

jlsmiles22, you're quite lucky if you're going to be getting rosetta stone for free!! along with the classes that you want to take, i'm sure you'll be speaking italian fluently before you know it!! good luck

I have been using the Tell Me More stuff (from eBerlitz?) and I have to say I'm not impressed. I had 2-1/2 years of Spanish in high school (okay, 20+ years ago) but I am used to the book-way of learning. This is repetition and answering questions - it tells me I said/chose the correct multiple choice answer when I just guessed. How am I learning? The one nice thing is the voice recognition for pronunciation. Unfortunately for me, since I'm obsessive about that already and it's so similar to Spanish, I don't really need that help anymore. I'm looking into taking a class from a person, mainly so I can get a book and be able to conjugate verbs. My 2 kids are taking extra Italian at their school (International School) and know way more than I do. I expected that, but not so soon (3+ months).

quote:

Originally posted by gela11:
hi everyone, i'm wondering if anyone can help me out....i read a couple posts on here about rosetta stone, but has anyone tried "tell me more" (auralog.com). it's slightly cheaper than rosetta stone but wanted to see if anyone had any feedback on it(i've read some reviews but am a bit wary about them). i'm more of a visual learner so i need to see what's going on, lol. i've been trying to work on my listening by listening to italian radio stations online to help me out a bit (i can understand a bit of italian). i'm more "worried" about my husband who knows ZERO italian. any feedback would be greatly appreciated!! thanks so much

Hi there, Gela11:
I know how to speak broken Sicilian, with wrong conjgations and tenses, but the Italians understood me on our trips. I laughed when yousaid your husband knows zero Italian, for that is the case here. When I start to teach him, he states that he needs to kearn it the way he wants, but does not give me ideas of what he wants! lol I am so amazed that he is willing to permanently live there, for I worry about his being bored. Have you used Rosetta Stone? Is it worth the investment, for he will not be too quick at retaining the material, I regret.
Have you ever been to Calabria? We are going in July and I am so excited to see the terrain and see if that is the place for us to search for property next summer.

Hope to hear from you.
MaryAnn

hi maryann, you made me laugh now because you said your husband won't be quick to retain the information because that's what i'm worried about too with him although he is willing and ready!! i have not yet purchased one of the programs i mentioned in the post, i did however go out and get a dictionary,a workbook and a book of conjugations. i do plan on buying one of the programs in the near future! (within the next week i hope). my dad is from the island of ischia, so when we used to go to for the summers,we didn't really venture off the island all that much i hate to say, lol. we did a couple day trips but i'm probably not the one to ask about where to buy property, although ischia is gorgeous
sorry i'm not much help!!!

quote:

Originally posted by gela11:
hi maryann, you made me laugh now because you said your husband won't be quick to retain the information because that's what i'm worried about too with him although he is willing and ready!! i have not yet purchased one of the programs i mentioned in the post, i did however go out and get a dictionary,a workbook and a book of conjugations. i do plan on buying one of the programs in the near future! (within the next week I hope). my dad is from the island of ischia, so when we used to go to for the summers,we didn't really venture off the island all that much i hate to say, lol. we did a couple day trips but i'm probably not the one to ask about where to buy property, although ischia is gorgeous
sorry i'm not much help!!!

So, Gela, tell me, please, and refresh my memory, are you planning to move to Italy? If you are , isn't it exciting? It is great that you most likely have relatives there. I know no one; my heritage in Sicilian and my relatives are most likely deceased. Property seemed outrageously expensive in Sicily, so we are not considering that. I really have to start my husbvand somehow, but it seems to have to be on his terms and then he gets annoyed with himself when he cannot recall. When you do not use something, you forget. I wish you lots of luck with your workbooks. Maybe I should suggest that route. He had tried Berlitz Spanish with a cassette in the car years ago, but... lol I do know that people need to talk to people in a foreign country to be happy and I want it to work out. So, good luck. Would love to hear from you again.
MaryAnn