Rosetta Stone (software) - Reception and Effectiveness

Reception and Effectiveness

Frequent criticism of the program arises in its lack of sensitivity to the differences between the various languages it comes in and their respective cultures. Early versions of the software presented the same concepts in the same order, using the same images taken mostly in the Washington, D.C. area near the company's headquarters at the time in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In the most recent version, there have been some modifications to the picture set for certain languages or regions.

Furthermore, while the program was well-received for teaching various nouns by matching pictures with words, it is considered harder to learn from a grammar and syntax perspective.

Another frequent issue was the use of more formal vocabulary than that regularly used by native speakers. MacWorld reviewer Cyrus Farivar noted that the Persian CD he had been using used khodrow for "car", although most native speakers use a French loanword, ma:sheen. The same course did not teach words that would be important to someone learning Persian, such as "bread" and "tea," however it very curiously included the word "elephant" in a basic vocabulary lesson. Perplexed by the question of why the word "elephant" would be taught in a language where it might never be used (there are not many elephants in Iran), Farivar called the Rosetta Stone, Ltd. He was told that the company makes four different picture sets: one for Western languages, another for Asian languages, and two sets unique to each Swahili and Latin. The Persian language CD was using the Western picture set, which explains why the images were not culturally relevant.