I am somewhat scattered as of late. With 2 weeks (omg!) left until I leave the country for a year, I am constantly going over the lists that I've made in my head and on paper to make sure that I have taken care of everything that I need to take care of in this process of packing and readying myself. I pretty much know what I'm taking with me and I don't have many purchases of things I need left to make. Now I am just waiting for everything to be delivered and for the last couple of days to start fitting it all in.
In less than 2 days I will be traveling for the next week. I'll be stopping in Nashville for several days with a side trip to Clarksville to see a friend perform and then I'll be heading to Atlanta to visit my sister, one of my best friends from college and hopefully another good friend from college who will be in town for work. As excited as I am for that trip and all the special memories that I'm sure it will hold for me, part of me is just ready to pack and get on with this adventure so I can quite analyzing and obsessing about packing and organizing for it. (Even now I am breaking to revise my list of things to do/stuff to get). I feel as though the phrase "hurry up and wait" would apply to my life at this time.
As mentioned in my previous post, I have been attempting to learn some Japanese with the help of Rosetta Stone. Santa Clause was good to me this year and delivered that to me and I am really enjoying it. Japanese, as you might imagine, is probably not one of the easiest languages for a Westerner to learn considering you are dealing with characters that represent syllables and sounds rather than the familiar Roman alphabet that we are accustomed to. Even so, in the two and a half weeks that I've been doing my lessons, I definitely feel like I'm learning the language and retaining a good bit of it. (If you want to learn how the software works, keep reading. If you'd like a summary of my thoughts on it, skip to the penultimate paragraph in this post. Happy reading!)
They say that Rosetta Stone is like learning your first language and it really is. As a child we are asked questions and given statements - simple statements - all the time. Usually a visual goes along with it. We point to something and say "this is ___." Or "that___ is blue." Rosetta Stone is like that in that there is no translation involved. You don't have a list of vocabulary to learn and instructions on how their grammar works in English. You have statements and pictures to go along with the statements and you have to match them. You learn to read the characters, you learn to listen, and you learn to speak and pronounce everything correctly. At the end of each unit, there is a "milestone" test to see how much you retain and can actively use. This part always stresses me out because as much as I learn from the lessons and can understand what's being said to me, supplying the appropriate statement within a conversation in the milestone is difficult for me. They give you a series of pictures that tell a story and within that story a conversation takes place between you and the people in the pictures and you have to supply the appropriate words and phrases. Not easy.
Other features that Rosetta has (some that I have explored and some that I haven't) are stories and games in the native language. The stories are only unlocked after you've completed a unit and you can read them on your own, listen to them, or read and listen at the same time. For Japanese, right now there are only 3 games available. The one that is the most useful for me is the "bingo" one. They give you a bingo card and you have to listen to someone speaking and telling a story in the native language. You pick out the words that they've said on your card and when you get 4 or 5 in a row (depending on how big the card is) you win. They then tally up all the word that they've said. If some of the words they said were on the card but you didn't get them, they show up in red. Then you know which words and sounds you are not quite as familiar with.
Finally, there is a tutor session that you can do at the end of each unit. You sign up for a time and you meet, live (in real-time that is), with a real person who natively speaks the language that you are learning. You get 50 minutes with them and they tutor you and help in your understanding of the language. This is something that I haven't taken advantage of yet, but will in the near future, and when I do, I'll let you know how it goes.
All in all, I think Rosetta Stone is a great product. It beats sitting in a class and memorizing words and rules. If you've studied a foreign language before and know the basics of grammar in any language other than English, I think it's possible to learn any language with Rosetta Stone. It can be quite an investment...especially if you get one of the more common languages and you are interested in purchasing all 5 levels (each level having 4 units and each unit having 4 lessons that build on each other). If you are an avid traveler, have the opportunity to go live in a foreign country for a month or more, or simply want to learn a foreign language really bad (and can stick with it) it would definitely be something to consider investing in. If you are traveling around for just a couple of weeks in a foreign country, it would be easier and a better financial option to pick up a phrase book and learn a few key things to say to be polite - most people in this world speak passable English.
I think that's all for now. I'm going to go through my lists one more time before I take a break from the organizing process and watch a movie...perhaps the Black Bear Jamboree 2010 bloopers :) or maybe I should read one of the unfinished books on my bedside table. Hmmm...decisions, decisions.
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