It doesn’t work for children for a different reason. You might reasonably ask, “Does Rosetta Stone work for children?” Sadly, the answer is also no. They couldn’t even ask a useful question like “What’s your name?”Ĭhildren learn more slowly and much differently than adults do. When I found people who were trying to learn Spanish, French, German, or some other language with Rosetta Stone, they never could say more than a few words of their new language. I’ve traveled the world and talked with thousands of language learners.Įvery time I met someone who had learned a new language, I asked them how they learned it. What the Rosetta Stone Learners I’ve Met Couldn’t Do Without context, words are just funny sounds. You know two useful things!īut if you learned all six words separately and what each of them meant but didn’t know how to put them together and use them, then you don’t know any English.

If you learn just two phrases, “What’s your name?” and “My name is …” and you know how to use them, then you know a little bit of English. To understand why this is true, imagine being a foreigner trying to learn English. That’s because a big portion of the program teaches you separate words without their context-and without context, words don’t have meaning. You probably won’t learn much with Rosetta Stone. Sadly, Rosetta Stone Spanish rarely works.