Help please! My Japanese dream has been torn apart.

[HaruhiSuzumiya]

I have been wanting Rosetta Stone or that RocketLanguage program for forever. And before school started (really, it was right after summer started), my mom told me that if it was what I wanted that she would get it for me for Christmas. But now she is telling me she thinks its a waste of money, and this morning she was seriously raising a storm about it. I mean, she says she'll still get it for me, but the thing about my mom is that when she doesn't want to do something, but she does it anyway, she is gonna be real b-chy (lol. sorry. I'm on a pact) about it for atleast a month. And she's real scary . Any advice? Should I tell her I still want it (cause I still do. A LOT!!!!!!), or should I just give up on it? Maybe ask for something else, like..................see! I've been wanting my japanese stuff for sooooooo long I can't even think about what else I might want! I guess a gift card to Rue21? I am so lame. Help if ya can.
P.S. keep in mind that these programs have been what I want for about 6 months now. its kind of hard to even think about letting them go. *sigh*

[yuriyuri]

Originally Posted by HaruhiSuzumiya

But now she is telling me she thinks its a waste of money

She's right.
Don't get it.
You probably won't learn any decent Japanese from it, and if you do it will take an extremely long time.
If you must have something Japanese for Christmas, ask for some films or something, they will help you much more in the language than that awful piece of software.

If you want to learn Japanese go here, for a free much better start in the language than Rosetta Stone.
Grammar Guide | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

[Harumaki]

Do like most people do: Work yourself for it. Dont expect to get anything from anybody. Serious, you think life is nice? lol!!!

[RobinMask]

Originally Posted by yuriyuri

She's right.
Don't get it.
You probably won't learn any decent Japanese from it, and if you do it will take an extremely long time.
If you must have something Japanese for Christmas, ask for some films or something, they will help you much more in the language than that awful piece of software.

If you want to learn Japanese go here, for a free much better start in the language than Rosetta Stone.
Grammar Guide | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

This user is probably right. I've heard that it's incredibly hard to learn from Roseta Stone as there's no explanations; so - for example - because Japanese has so many counting systems it could give you a counting excercise, and you'd forever get it wrong, not realising you need to use a different system. For £300 it's a *lot* of money and I can see why you're mother may be annoyed, you could buy a new console or about ten presents for that price

I'd recomend certain textbook/CD courses, particularly where you use the two in conjunction with one another. A textbook/CD combo - very good ones too - can be brought online for only £12 from some sites, a *huge* difference, and you not only get the language but detailed explanations, grammar pointers and sometimes tips on the culture of Japan itself. There's even sites online which will teach you for free, like GenkiJapan or NHK (NHK being the better).

[darksyndrem]

Oh No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, for one, it would be a waste of money. Even if you could learn Japanese from it, it's way over priced. You can go download the thing, and all the Japanese lessons that are out for it. You're bad at this

Though you could get it for free, I would still go with what YuriYuri said. That's the best place I know of for Japanese grammar. There's much more resources for learning Japanese that you can find here, and they'll all help you learn more than Rosetta Stone will.

[Salvanas]

Originally Posted by HaruhiSuzumiya

I have been wanting Rosetta Stone or that RocketLanguage program for forever. And before school started (really, it was right after summer started), my mom told me that if it was what I wanted that she would get it for me for Christmas. But now she is telling me she thinks its a waste of money, and this morning she was seriously raising a storm about it. I mean, she says she'll still get it for me, but the thing about my mom is that when she doesn't want to do something, but she does it anyway, she is gonna be real b-chy (lol. sorry. I'm on a pact) about it for atleast a month. And she's real scary . Any advice? Should I tell her I still want it (cause I still do. A LOT!!!!!!), or should I just give up on it? Maybe ask for something else, like..................see! I've been wanting my japanese stuff for sooooooo long I can't even think about what else I might want! I guess a gift card to Rue21? I am so lame. Help if ya can.
P.S. keep in mind that these programs have been what I want for about 6 months now. its kind of hard to even think about letting them go. *sigh*

Forget Rosetta Stone, and go and get yourself some Japanese handbooks. That'll benefit you much more.

[Mortry]

I agree with the rest here, you shouldn't spend THAT much money for something you can get better and cheaper, and even 4 free if you look around in this forum

Here are a couple of sites that I've collected while browsing through JF (& Internet):
YesJapan Japanese Lessons & Video Site - Main Page (I recommend that you buy the text/workbooks for more lesson material)
Grammar Guide | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
Nihongo o Narau - Learn Japanese
Japanese Lesson From Basics (if you have problems displaying the characters, change your encoding to EUC-JP
Study Japanese Online in Two Languages: English and Indonesian.

[Megabyte117]

YouTube - Alternatives to Rosetta Stone Japanese

But seriously, Rosetta Stone is a waste of money. I tried out someone else's for Spanish (I'm assuming it's the same for Japanese) and to learn anything concrete from it would take a long amount of time. Rosetta Stone will not magically teach you Japanese (or the written language for that matter).

[darksyndrem]

Google

You clearly don't use it if Rosetta Stone was your Japanese dream.

[Hatredcopter]

You can spend $30 total on used copies of Genki 1 and 2 and learn far more from those two books than you'd learn with Rosetta Stone. If that's not enough, ask for a subscription to JapanesePod101.com. Those two combined are a lot more than Rosetta Stone can offer.