Rosetta Stone Vs japanesepod101.com

Duff Man Jr.

For the last few days I've been getting into Japanese via a free copy of Rosetta stone. For anyone who hasn't used it, it has no translations, just matching pictures to phrases. It supposedly mimics how we learned language as a child. Even though I'm picking up a fair bit, I feel like its not the best way to learn Japanese, with the various levels of politeness, masculine and feminine words. It also starts at phrases like "The boy/man/woman is eating/drinking". Greetings and other areas seem like a more natural starting point.

Japanesepod101 looks good, the videos/audio are a bit cheesy but its like something teaching you as opposed to figuring it out yourself. It's $66 for a three month subscription, which seemed expensive at first but I was thinking of maybe getting a one one one lesson once a week to compliment the Rosetta stone program, which I don't think is necessary for this.

Has anyone any experience with either?

DingChavez

Neither.

Rosetta Stone's "mimics how we learned language as a child" is, as you have noticed, not a good thing. Why learn like a dumb kid when you already have a language to back you up? It might make a bit of sense in a similar European language but its not effective in a language like Japanese. You should still use it but only for vocab/reading/speaking review and not learning new things.

japanesepod101.com really follows the template of a noob baiting subscription site. I took a look at the "free stuff" a while back and surprise surprise they just keep sending you messages asking you to upgrade. They seem to want money and nothing else. You can probably find anything on the site done much better and for free on other sites. I don't want to dismiss it outright so you should probably wait until someone who has used it for real shows up. I've seen a few real people sing its praises. But the fact that I say "real people" to differentiate from the fake review sites is another red mark.

Some good stuff:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/
http://www.nihongonotes.com/
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

Sites you NEED to look and are better than anything you could pay for:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
http://www.hellodamage.com/top/kanjidamage/
http://www.hellodamage.com/top/

Learn kana:
http://www.davidhallgren.se/nihon/kanaPractice.asp
http://smart.fm/series/3322

Plugin you NEED:
http://rikaichan.mozdev.org/

Audio/Video programs:
Let's Learn Japanese - great 1980s TV show.
Pimsler Japanese - Teaching you to listen and react
Michel Thomas Japanese - Teaching you to build sentences.

Textbooks:
Genki
Japanese the Manga way
Human Japanese

Duff Man Jr.

Thanks some good stuff there. Looked at japanesepod more closely and definitely much better than Rosetta stone. There is a seven day free trial, so I'll just grab everything I can over the next week.

Is it stupid not to learn to read or write for a year or two when (hopefully) I'll have a good grasp of the language?Way too much information and I think it could do more damage than good at the moment.
I find Romaji helps me to learn easier, is its only purpose to help westerners to learn?

FruitLover

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

It supposedly mimics how we learned language as a child

Impossible, unless you're using it 10+ hours per day and not speaking or thinking in English at all. While immersion is good, trying to emulate how you learned your first language doesn't make sense, and is an inefficient way to learn.

I used japanesepod101.com for over a year, back when you could get pretty much everything for free, and while a bit goofy, I found it pretty good for more natural Japanese (e.g. slang), although I was disappointed at the time at the lack of intermediate-advanced material. I haven't used it in a good while (pointless, as I'm back in Japan now), but they seem to still have a lot of free material available. Go to http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php to skip the registration nonsense.

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

Is it stupid not to learn to read or write for a year or two

Yes. If you're serious about learning the language, you'll severely limit yourself if you don't learn to read it. IMO, the best way to do this is right off the bat, so it becomes second nature. At very least learn kana right away. It'll only take a few days (particularly if you use something like James Heisig's 'Remembering the Kana') and it'll immediately be useful if you go to Japan (lots of signs and menus are written in English, but in katakana). Kanji is obviously a daunting prospect, but if tackled the correct way (Heisig method plus a spaced-repetition program like Anki) you can learn the kanji better than the Japanese themselves.

Seloth

Rossetta stone is handy if your already learning the language.

No no translation bit made it a b**ch though.

Soccertainer

Found japanesepod101 is cool found it thanks to your good selves, not bad for free I tell you. I've been using the collins cd's and oxford course book and cd's "Take off in japanese". Plus a book called japanese for begineers. Thanks for all the tips. Any more would be appreciated.

corblimey

I used JP for a long time, just downloaded the podcasts and listened to them while walking, driving, working etc. I wasn't really picking up how to speak the language, as I was doing other things aswell and couldn't participate in the call and response type stuff, but I truly believe that even just having it on in the background helped me with recognising the Japanese "flow", and I'm sure some of it got in by osmosis. Of course, you'd probably get the same level of understand from listening to J-pop or J-rock or watching anime.

Having said that, I stopped by subscription just before Xmas because I had fallen far behind - there are currently 136 podcasts cluttering up my iTunes and I've started to learn a different way, starting by learning the kana and kanji. I've got a mess of Japanese literature (most with furigana) so once I'm comfortable with that, I'll return to the speaking part.

fitz0

If you have a Nintendo DS you could pick up a copy of My Japanese Coach. I'm only starting to learn now and I'm finding it very useful. It starts off with greetings and some basic stuff but it starts teaching you kana from the 5th lesson.

It teaches you hiragana in blocks of 10 in each lesson with a lesson on other things like numbers, colours, months etc in between. Each lesson only takes around 10 minutes to go through and you get familiar with writing and reading kana through minigames.

Plus it uses the mic so you can hear how you pronounce words against the proper pronunciation.

just-joe

Namasensei's Japanese lessons you Youtube are cool. A bit ridiculous, (lots of bad language), but very funny and you do learn alot!

H2student

I haven't used Rosetta stone so I can't judge.

JPOD101
I have used Japanesepod101 for the last 18 months (roughly). To be honest, you don't really need to upgrade to get most of the stuff. In case you haven't noticed, you can just create a new account every 7 days to get all the audio. I don't do it because I downloaded all the lessons available at the time back in early 2009 and that's more than enough for me to study.

Also at that time, I upgraded to basic for one month and it cost me about 3 euros. In that month, I downloaded all available pdf (nearly 1000). I think that if you're serious about studying using jpod, they're important as due to time constraints, they can't explain everything clearly especially grammar.

However, don't expect the PDFs to be perfect as even they have occasional mistakes, I've spotted a few mistakes regarding kanji reading. Probably due to carelessness when inputting the kana reading. For example, in a lesson dealing with age: they had とし(which means year?)　as the reading for 際　when it should be さい(age). They're usually obvious mistakes though and I'm still using notes from back-in-the-day (2006-2007) so they might be more careful in their new lessons now.

Well after all that rubbish, I'm basically saying it's a good website to use

Namasensei
I watched most of his lessons last year. It was certainly enjoyable and some of his crazy analogies helped me remember the katakana that I was (and still) struggle with. The advantage of his downright outrageous attitude is that it shows us a side of Japan that we can't find in any Japanese classroom, textbook or professional website. I definitely learned a lot about alcohol anyway .

Ninten DS and learning Kanji
I don't know why but I don't really like Japanese Coach. Kind of boring and painful in my opinion. Especially since I hate getting caught up in stroke orders with kanji and kana in the middle of learning new vocabulary.

I do use Kageyama's Kanji writing game. It's in japanese but it's geared towards children and teaching them correct stroke orders so the structure is really simple. Even most of the instructions are in furigana as it assumes you're not able to read most of the kanji. However, it is used to learn stroke order only as it provides no reading or translation for the kanji. It wouldn't be effective anyway as usually kanji have multiple readings depending on context and usage. In boring situations, such as when I'm attending the wedding of relatives that I've never met in my life I would bring it out to play. I don't use it to learn the stroke orders of specific kanji but to recgonise common patterns among kanji. After a while, you can guess the correct stroke order for new kanji as most of them follow certain patterns.

For learning the reading, vocabulary and meaning of kanji I use Kanji in Context and it's workbook. The grammar in the workbook is too advance for me right now and it has no english translation so I'm staying away from it for now, unless I come across an interesting idiom and want to see it in use. The main textbook is just a list of all the kanji on the list composed by the japanese government plus a few more that the author feel were necessary. According to the author, the kanjis are listed in such a way that, as you progress, the previous kanji you learned will help you learn the future ones. (badly explained by me I know). Under each Kanji, they provide the On and Kun reading(s) and frequently used vocabulary used. There might be a better method of learning kanji (suggested to me by people on jpod101 forum anyway) but I'm enjoying this approach as I feel a sense of accomplishment as I progress futher and further in the book and learning useful vocab on the way .

FruitLover

H2student wrote: »

For example, in a lesson dealing with age: they had とし(which means year?)　as the reading for 際　when it should be さい(age)

This is the wrong kanji altogether for age - it should be '歳' (which does in fact have the reading 'とし').

H2student

Crap no wonder I couldn't get the correct reading in my dictionary! Thanks for the correction.

I did write the kanji correctly into my hand-written notes funnily enough

together

DingChavez wrote: »

Neither.

Rosetta Stone's "mimics how we learned language as a child" is, as you have noticed, not a good thing. Why learn like a dumb kid when you already have a language to back you up? It might make a bit of sense in a similar European language but its not effective in a language like Japanese. You should still use it but only for vocab/reading/speaking review and not learning new things.

japanesepod101.com really follows the template of a noob baiting subscription site. I took a look at the "free stuff" a while back and surprise surprise they just keep sending you messages asking you to upgrade. They seem to want money and nothing else. You can probably find anything on the site done much better and for free on other sites. I don't want to dismiss it outright so you should probably wait until someone who has used it for real shows up. I've seen a few real people sing its praises. But the fact that I say "real people" to differentiate from the fake review sites is another red mark.

Some good stuff:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/
http://www.nihongonotes.com/
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

Sites you NEED to look and are better than anything you could pay for:
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
http://www.hellodamage.com/top/kanjidamage/
http://www.hellodamage.com/top/

Learn kana:
http://www.davidhallgren.se/nihon/kanaPractice.asp
http://smart.fm/series/3322

Plugin you NEED:
http://rikaichan.mozdev.org/

Audio/Video programs:
Let's Learn Japanese - great 1980s TV show.
Pimsler Japanese - Teaching you to listen and react
Michel Thomas Japanese - Teaching you to build sentences.

Textbooks:
Genki
Japanese the Manga way
Human Japanese

I am a "real" user using both Rosetta Stone and Japanesepod101, eventhough japanesepod requires registration fee, i must say it is worth every penny. Within a period of several months i have learned a lot without even realizing it. i successfully impressed my Japanese friends and they were shocked with the fact that i now speak and understand Japanese. They way I did it is I downloaded the lessons into my iPhone and listen to them everyday in order from the beginner lessons and onwards. they also taught casual japanese which i think is really crucial if you want to socialize with japanese people.

Rosetta Stone is also important to build your vocabularies and train your reading skills. so it is a good addition to your japanesepod.

These two are sufficient if you want to use it socially, understand movies etc. but NOT for JLPT.

nitrogen

I also have to give a nod of approval to JapanesePod101. I started listening in 2008, and it was a brilliant introduction to the language.

If you sign up for a free trial and download the Newbie season 3 (25 episodes) and also the Beginner season 4 (50 episodes). I used to listen to them before I started cycling to walk, when I walked and got the tube back in 2008 – they got me up to a descent basic level.

I also paid for a period, but just downloaded practically the whole catalogue. The main presenter can get annoying at times, especially if you listen to the same episode multiple times (But there are shorter review lessons which only have a native speaker go through the vocab).

irelandsfuture

I have been downloading japanesepod101 for a good while now, I'd definately recommend it. As one of the other posters said, if you're not paying attention to it you won't get the most out of it and you do need to repay stuff to make it sink in. Somehow I'm still on a free trial after a number of years, highly recommended though.

Just Like Heaven

How exactly do you download the lessons off of japanesepod101.com? i'm on the free trial thing, but everytime i hit download, or download mp3 it just streams the audio.

Is this what you meant by download?

irelandsfuture

Just right click on the download button and hit 'Save as target' as below.

Saying that, I find its much easier to subscribe to the lessons as a podcast on itunes (whether you have an ipod or not). Subsscribe once and then you get all the new content as it appears.

Just Like Heaven

Thanks a million, your not paying for it then are you? I need to go back to like newbie season 1.

irelandsfuture

Yes, still on the free trial somehow. I think if you need to go back to season 1, you might need to pay for it (or check if it's still available on itunes...)

Tommy1975

JPod: I've used JPod for a few months now. I really like it and think it's totally worth the money. I've got a premium subscription, I got it for half price simple by putting 'HALFPRICE' (no quotation marks) in the coupon code area while buying it. There wasn't a half price promotion on at the time but it still worked. I downloaded the podcasts via the 'JPod Premium Feed' on itunes. It's real easy to download and I listen on my ipod. Also I like the fact on their website you can look up grammar points (by JLPT level, etc) and as well as explaining the point it will direct you to lessons where they teach this grammar point.

Smart.fm: This site was free and I loved it for a long time. I was using the Japanese Core 2000 Series (the 2000 most popular words in Japanese) to learn Japanese vocabulary. It thought you a word via translations, putting it in a sentence, etc, and then it tested you on the word, depending how quickly you got the word it scheduled for you to see it again in a few days. The interface on this site was amazing and I truly learned loads of Japanese words. They now closed this site and have switched to 'iknow' a paid for site. I only used 'iknow' a few times but I didn't like it, the reason is in 'smart.fm' you could choose to learn in Romanji, kana, or full modes. In 'iknow' you had to learn in 'full' mode and I'm not ready for kanji yet. They may have changed this since I used it and if they did it might be worth it. However I'm now learning the Japanese Core 2000 Series via Anki - and it's for free.

Anki: I love Anki. It's free and you can download shared lists. As well as making your own lists. I use it to learn vocabulary via The Japanese Core 2000 series (although you can't switch modes i.e. Romanji, Kana, or full mode. You can eliminate cards, or changes cards if you want). I'm also learning Kanji via Heisig's Remeber the Kanji list.

Rosetta Stone: I used it for a few weeks. It's damn expensive but luckily I got a loan of a copy for a while. I probably wouldn't use it to learn Japanese but it's really good fun to test yourself on what you already know.

Kotoba!: This is just a little extra information. This dictionary is free on the itunes store and I'd be lost without it.

Tommy1975

Also I used Kana flashcards to learn both Katakana and Hiragana. I bought them off White Rabbit Press (http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/Kana-Flashcards-p-16159.html). It was totally worth it and I had both scripts off in a few days.