Product Description

Foreign language learning with Rosetta Stone Italian Levels 1&2 with Audio Companion you build a foundation and navigate your surroundings. Begin learning fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure, from greetings and introductions to simple questions and their answers. Gain the confidence and enter the intermediate level where you will be able to talk about your environment; give and get directions, tell time, dine out with self-reliance, shop, enjoy basic social interactions and much more. Now Rosetta Stone with Audio Companion allows the learner to take Rosetta Stone anywhere: in the car, the gym or on-the-go! What is Audio Companion? Audio Companion CDs are activities that correspond to the Rosetta Stone CD-ROM software lessons. The learner can listen to Audio Companion and practice what they’ve been learning on the computer, turning travel time into productive language learning time. Audio Companion lets the student access the power of Rosetta Stone lessons whenever and wherever they want, they can play the CD’s on a stereo, or download them to a MP3 player. It empowers the student and helps reinforce the lessons in any busy lifestyle!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #254 in Software
• Brand: Rosetta Stone
• Model: 21695
• Released on: 2008-06-16
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Mac OS X
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English

Features

• Rosetta Stone teaches you a new language naturally, by getting you to think, live and breathe the language
• Innovative solutions get you speaking new words, right from the start
• Rosetta Stone moves forward only when you're ready--you drive the pace, you set the schedule
• With Rosetta Stone, you'll discover a foundation of key vocabulary that you'll use to build into a whole new language
• Audio Companion lets you take the Rosetta Stone experience anywhere: in the car, at the gym, or on-the-go

Amazon.com
Rosetta Stone Personal Edition contains everything you need to give the voice inside of you a new language. The method used recreates the natural way you learned your first language, revealing skills that you already have. This approach has won numerous awards, and has been adopted by countless organizations, schools and millions of users around the world. Join the language revolution today. Only with Rosetta Stone.

The comprehensive language-learning solution that fits your life.

Learn Naturally
Learn your next language the same way you learned your first language. Dynamic Immersion empowers you to see, hear and comprehend without translating or memorizing. You already have this ability. Rosetta Stone simply unlocks it.

Engage Interactively
Get feedback to move forward. You learn best by doing, and you'll apply what you've learned to get to the next step. Rosetta Stone adapts to your individual needs and skills, because you drive the program with your progress.

Speak Confidently
Start speaking immediately. From the very first lesson, you'll speak. You'll begin with essential basics, which form the building blocks of the language. Soon you'll create new sentences on your own, using words you've learned.

Have Fun
Best of all, Rosetta Stone is addictive. With every entertaining activity, you'll feel success. You'll want to use Rosetta Stone to have that next moment, that next breakthrough. So you'll keep using it, and you'll learn more!

That's language-learning success.
That's Rosetta Stone.

No translation or memorization required.

The most effective way to learn a new language is to be surrounded by it. When you were an infant, your parents taught you this way, by intuitively associating words with images. That's the ultimate language lab, but most language-learning programs completely ignore this.

Think about all of the ways you've tried to learn a language: classes at school, tapes and cassettes, even software that uses your native language as a base for your next one. What do they all have in common? Translation and memorization.

Instead of taking a "direct flight" from your brain to your new language, translation and memorization connects you to your old language. You always have to "fly" from your brain, to your native tongue ... and then translate what you've memorized to communicate.

That might work for a few words, but what happens when you get to a sentence or phrase? When you have to change tenses? You're going to make a lot of "connecting flights." That's why those other methods are so frustrating ... and why they fail.

Enter Dynamic Immersion.
This method encourages you to think like a baby. You'll pair words with vivid, real-life images and make connections between things you know and the new language. Soon, you'll be thinking in a new language, stringing words together into phrases that you create.

Innovative technology.
Rosetta Stone places this Dynamic Immersion method at the core of a suite of software that works with you to develop your skills. The simple, intuitive interface helps to keep you engaged in the solution, while advanced speech recognition technology makes certain that you're speaking correctly and accurately. Best of all, Rosetta Stone never leaves you behind. You'll only move forward when you're ready, when you've become comfortable and confident.

Discover the building blocks and begin your exploration: Levels 1 & 2.
You'll learn a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and language and gain the confidence to master basic conversational skills. You'll move forward and learn to give and get directions, involve yourself in basic social interactions, dine out, use transportation, tell time and more.

Audio Companion
With Audio Companion, you'll enhance the Rosetta Stone experience wherever you go. You'll learn new skills on the computer, and then reinforce what you've learned with Audio Companion. Simply play the CDs on a stereo or download them to a MP3 Player. Each Audio Companion activity corresponds to a lesson in the Rosetta Stone software, so you can turn your travel time into productive language-learning time.

Inside the box, you'll find:

• Version 3 Personal Edition CD-ROM software for Levels 1 & 2 (Windows/Mac)
• Headset microphone
• User's guide
• Audio Companion, a multiple-CD set to play or download to your MP3 player

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Customer Reviews

Phenomenal language learning software


I am an American native speaker, was a Spanish major in college, lived in Madrid for about a year and a half and am (well, WAS) fluent in Spanish. I love Italy and have faked my way through Italian trips with my Spanish for years. And then my husband ordered Rosetta Stone. It's wonderful! I'd heard about it for years, but had no idea that this system was so intuitively exciting. It's more fun than playing Freecell, or other addictive games on the computer!

The system (an immersion approach, with picture recognition and hearing native speakers) is so natural, I couldn't believe it. I've done about half the first level and I find myself out on a walk and making up fun-sounding little italian phrases and sentences in my head. The teaching system is logical, gradual, progressive, challenging, exciting, quickly paced, never boring, and plain fun. I love the tapes for the car. My husband and I are both using it and we both love it.

There are several negative reviews for the Rosetta Stone software (here and on the level 1&2 software), none of which I find substantial. The first here complains, in essence, that you can't steal the software and give it away to your friends! That's fine with me. It's licensed for one computer, but you can have lots of users using that one machine. If you're honest and respect intellectual property rights, that won't be an issue for you.

A second negative review asserts that there isn't much material for level one. First, if you want to buy more levels at the same time, you can get levels 2 & 3 for a reduced price. If you're pretty clear that you want to learn Italian, you might want to start with at least 2 levels. (Amazon has the other packaging options, too.) Second, I suppose you could zoom through all the lessons in level 1 in a couple of weeks, but it's possible that the person who went through the lessons very quickly is skimming over all sorts of built in layers. The software adjusts for increased subtlety in pronunciation & layered appropriation of grammatical structure. Review is critical to the learning process - learning language is like learning to play an instrument. The practice layers available on the software are impressive. This software is constructed as if it were written by Bach! There's a LOT here, even if you just buy the first level and not one of the packaged versions.

The final critique is that the set-up is difficult for MAC users. I have a two iMACS (and am a 25 year PC user who just switched, so I'm completely PC oriented) and have just installed it on one of my machines. The installation was easy, flawless and the software works beautifully. The person who complained had a very sophisticated system and had trouble with some of his intricate settings. I am an Apple neophyte and trust me, for those of us with plug-and-play systems, this is a plug-and-play program. MAC users - don't worry!

Final word: Get the software and start having fun. It's truly amazing stuff.

Awesome approach to learning a language
I've tried other computer programs for learning Italian with no success. The Rosetta Stone offers a unique and logical approach. I am actually learning the language with much better retention then ever before. It isn't a substitute for the classroom but more of an alternative for those, like me, who simply can't fit the rigid timetable of classroom learning into their day. If I have anything bad to say about it it would be concerning the Rosetta Stone's policy of only allowing the program to be activated in 2 computers. I would be able to use it more often if that wasn't a rule.

Ciao!

Rosetta Stone Italian Version 3
Have been wanting to speak Italian ever since I visited the country last year and planned on going back. Purchased Rosetta Stone Italian Version 3, Level 1 & 2 in December, 2008. Excellent product, makes learning a language fun and not boring. Can work at your own pace and go back to each session over and over if you want to. I especially like the voice recognition and listening to my own pronunciation. In the short time that I have used it, I can honestly say I have learned more than I ever expected. The only drawback is the audio companion which I will probably never use. Rosetta Stone should allow people to purchase their product with or without it.