Comments on: Livemocha Aims at Rosetta Stone – and Pulls the Trigger!

By: Danny9313

Danny9313 — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:02:00 +0000

This site looks like it may be a scam copycat site. Is there a way to verify?

By: Safgad

Safgad — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:37:00 +0000

http://www.rosettastonestone.com

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:39:00 +0000

Interesting post! I’ve been playing with LiveMocha for a couple of months now. I think the reason LiveMocha is taking aim at RosettaStone (aside from the fact that RS is the market leader) is that the latter has moved heavily in the direction of profit over public service. For example, RS used to offer a product to public libraries via a site license. Anyone with a library card could learn another language for free. A few years ago, they pulled this product from the market, just before launching into a broad public marketing campaign and putting up sales kiosks everywhere. The message? If you want to use your computer to learn a language, you’re going to have to pay for it. LiveMocha is also looking for paying customers, of course, but the basic ethos of the system is peer-to-peer, and they offer a lot that is free. The concept of “freemium” is taking over Web commerce, and RosettaStone would be wise to find a way to play in that space, or they will be overtaken by another company that is already there. RosettaStone isn’t even close, and based on the job opening they’re currently listing for an International Web Manager – which appears to be all about eCommerce, and not at all about offering Web-based learning experiences – they don’t plan to be moving into that arena anytime soon. http://jobs.rosettastone.com/jobs/406457-International-Web-Manager.aspx

By: Juleen Keevy

Juleen Keevy — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:40:09 +0000

Interesting discussion of LiveMocha, Rosetta Stone, and Koichi for learning a foreign language http://bit.ly/epaRG0 Opinions, anyone?

By: lingosteve

lingosteve — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 03:35:39 +0000

Kirsten,

Long time no talk. Congratulations on the success of your blog.

I think a lot depends on the goals and learning approach of the learner. I largely agree with Koichi that RS is not worth the price. I would go further and say that I would not want to learn the way RS wants you to learn, that is in a way that requires you to be engaged with a computer for long periods of time.

I realize that I might be old school, but I am a fairly committed input based learner, although not as extreme as Krashen. I mostly listen and read, and then devote some time to reviewing the new words and phrases that I find in my input activities, using flash cards. Listening is my main activity, and is something that I can do while sitting in public transportation, driving, gardening, exercising, and washing the dishes. I would not have learned Russian and Portuguese over the last 4 years if I had not been able use these "dead hours' to learn. I am now embarked on Korean with the same purpose and method.

I also believe that a lot of online talking or writing correction, as offered by LIvemocha, while fun for some, is not necessary, nor as efficient nor convenient a way of learning as exposing yourself to a lot of comprehensible and interesting content. If the brain gets enough comprehensible input, it will figure things out, and when you are ready to speak, you will surprised at how well you do.

There is research that shows that even totally passive exposure, with a little bit of deliberate learning, is better than full time deliberate learning. And listening to, or reading, interesting content is not really just passive.

So RS? No!

By: KirstenWinkler

KirstenWinkler — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:06:13 +0000

Good point.

By: KirstenWinkler

KirstenWinkler — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:05:57 +0000

I really need to do a comparison. No time right now, though

By: Mike Tao

Mike Tao — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:54:46 +0000

I have used both to study numerous languages at different levels and have consistently found RS to have a stronger andragogical basis. I frequently come across words or phrases in LM that are pulled directly from phrase books. And if a language has masculine/feminine/neuter forms? At LM you are supposed to inherently know them. Whereas RS will teach each word in enough context to discern the gender of the word in it's different forms.

By: Zaldy Co

Zaldy Co — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:22:19 +0000

"Rosetta Stone gives you CD-ROMs. Remember those? From the 1980s?"

Clearly, distorted writing on the part of the LiveMocha blogger. CDs are from the mid-1990s and peaked in the 2000s. The RosettaStone CDs still has features that are not yet available on the web. With a microphone, you can record your dialogue and it graphs your tone and intonation which you can compare with that of the on-CD native speaker.

RosettaStone also has a huge community of members with whom one can connect and practice with in SharedTalk. So a deliberate omission on the part of the LiveMocha blogger.

Clearly, the LiveMocha blogger is not being honest.

By: KirstenWinkler

KirstenWinkler — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:28:51 +0000

I had this talk with Clint Schmidt, VP Marketing & Product of Livemocha , told him that I should change this blog and write about the NSA, CIA and FBI because it's easier to get information out of them .
But generally all of them are quiet about numbers etc.