Creatures Caves

I'm still practicing Spanish every day (and have developed a taste for Mariachi music as a result) and I'm finding that every teaching method I sample teaches different vocabulary and uses different methods. Real quickly, I wanted to put this little thing together to share my experiences with different learning tools.

Rosetta Stone focuses on immersion which, I suppose, works for some people. Also, the voice recognition is, pardon me, absolute garbage. If you don't use their special headset, chances are, saying the word properly might not work and sometimes, saying a different word (my husband is an excellent distraction from my study) will register successfully. By the way, many people say that Rosetta Stone is best used to compliment an existing curriculum and doesn't do well standalone. I have to agree. It took me a while to learn the difference between "Hay" and "Tiene" before I gave up and looked it up online. Crazy given how expensive it is.

Duolingo, I'm finding, actually teaches the the written language very well but doesn't do the listening and speaking portion much. At all. I'm starting to feel that I can write a Spanish novella but ask me to buy tomatoes at the local Mexican market and I'll stumble through "Por favor". You probably think I'm kidding. I suppose I shouldn't complain because it's free. Actually, I wish it taught Japanese, too.

I've also tried the sample for Pimsleur (which is absurdly expensive, I might add, hence only trying the sample) and it's lovely at forcing you to speak words. I always thought that was one of the most aspects of learning a language - speaking it. XD

However, it teaches drastically different vocabulary than Rosetta Stone and Duolinguo both. For example, instead of "espanol" I'm taught "castellano" for "Spanish" and instead of "americano" for American (USA) I'm taught "norte americano" for North American. (I'm not sure how to use accent marks on this keyboard and Pimsleur doesn't teach spelling as it's audio only).

I haven't exactly developed a preference but I'm actually finding that using the three of them together works -alright- at developing a language core. It still feels like I'm dragging my feet because I struggle with questions and I haven't learned yet how to say "My name is" or how to ask how someone is doing. Oh, but "the sky is blue"? I've got that down. Thanks learning, tools. XD