Rosetta Stone Language Learning Tool Review

About Rosetta Stone

Founded in 1992, Rosetta Stone is a leading language education platform that’s helped millions of people learn to read, write and speak more than 25 languages. In their newest offering, Rosetta Stone Sapphire, the company combines their proven Dynamic Immersion method, advanced speech technology and customizable tools and features that give you everything you need to master a new language, while personalizing the topics and vocabulary you want to learn.

Rosetta Stone Languages

Rosetta Stone currently offers 25 different language courses, including: 

• Spanish (Latin America)
• Spanish (Spain)
• French
• Italian
• German
• Japanese
• English (American)
• English (British)
• Arabic
• Chinese (Mandarin)
• Dutch
• Filipino (Tagalog)
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Irish
• Korean
• Latin
• Persian (Farsi)
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Russian
• Swedish
• Turkish
• Vietnamese

The Rosetta Stone Methodology

Rosetta Stone is rooted in the belief that the best way to learn a new language is through constant exposure, real-life interactions and inductive reasoning. The program uses a language-learning methodology centered around Dynamic Immersion and real-word application, meaning that you’ll be immersed in your new language from day one, and lessons will rarely use your current language. This proven method mimics how you learned language as a child, by seeing something, hearing someone say a word about it, and making a connection between the two.

Through constant exposure, you’ll learn to think and speak in your new language rather than translating from your native language. This approach allows you to progress naturally from understanding and speaking words and phrases to understanding and speaking full sentences and conversations.

Rosetta Stone Sapphire Learning Components

The Rosetta Stone Sapphire program is structured around a few core components. Here’s a deeper look at the pillars of this program:

Learning Paths

This is the core of the Rosetta Stone Sapphire experience, with a unique curriculum divided into units, lessons and activities. Units cover broad topics, such as dining and vacation, while lessons focus on specific subtopics within a unit, like landmarks or ordering food. Activities focus on particular skills within a lesson, like speaking, reading, writing and listening.

Activities in the Learning Path are designed to be bite-sized, engaging and motivating. You’ll start speaking right away and constantly apply your new language in real-life scenarios, helping you gain confidence and build lasting knowledge.

Dynamic Immersion

Rosetta Stone’s lessons use a research-backed method called Dynamic Immersion, with lessons conducted entirely in your new language. By combining contextual images with native audio, you are taught to recognize patterns and intuitively derive the meaning of words without english translations.

TruAccent Technology

TruAccent is an industry-leading speech recognition engine that compares your pronunciation to data from millions of native speakers. It provides instant feedback so you can correct your accent and speak with confidence from the start.

Chat Missions

Chat Missions are Rosetta Stone’s interactive, game-like conversation practices. With these, you’ll engage with a virtual partner in real-life scenarios, such as ordering food at a restaurant or asking for directions. In each mission, you’ll use your language skills to achieve your goals, and your virtual partner will give real-time feedback, along with tips and tricks to help you improve your responses in the future.

Sapphire Studio

This is an innovative new feature that allows you to personalize your learning by generating custom flashcards and study materials like matching games, vocabulary lists and more—all based on your own specific interests and ability level.

Rosetta Stone Membership & Pricing

There are two different membership options for Rosetta Stone Sapphire:

Monthly

• $19.99 per month, billed monthly

Yearly

• $159 per year, billed annually
• Equivalent to $13.25 per month

Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscriptions include:

• Access to all 25 languages
• TruAccent speech tool to help you perfect your pronunciation
• Chat Missions for fun, realistic conversation practice 
• 500+ flashcard sets to learn the words you care about
• Sapphire Studio to create your own learning materials on any topic

Rosetta Stone Customer Service

Rosetta Stone’s customer service team is friendly, professional and helpful. You can contact them at 1-800-788-0822, or complete the contact form on the company’s website to get in touch.

There is also a robust support portal and blog on the Rosetta Stone website, where you can find more information on a wide variety of topics.

Rosetta vs. the Competition

While Rosetta Stone is a popular and well-established language learning program, it’s one of many options on the market today. Here’s a look at how it stacks up against other popular language learning platforms:

Babbel vs. Rosetta Stone

Like Rosetta Stone, Babbel is a very popular language learning program that has a lot to offer learners. But there are a few key differences between these two leading platforms. 

One of the biggest differentiators lies in their teaching approach. Rosetta Stone takes an immersive approach to language education—learners eat, sleep and breathe their target language from day one. There are no translations and very minimal native language use. 

Babbel relies more heavily upon translations, and uses English throughout its lessons. The better choice for you is simply a matter of personal preference and learning style.

There are a few other differences worth noting: 

• Rosetta Stone offers more languages—25, compared to Babbel’s 13.
• Rosetta Stone uses proprietary voice recognition technology to help learners perfect their pronunciation; Babbel does not offer an equivalent resource.
• Rosetta Stone also includes Sapphire Studio, where you can personalize your study materials to the specific topics or vocabulary you want to learn; Babbel does not have a similar feature at the time of writing.

Duolingo vs. Rosetta Stone

Like Rosetta Stone, Duolingo helps people all over the world expand their communication horizons by learning a secondary language. But there are a number of differences between these two leading language learning programs. 

For starters, Rosetta Stone is an immersive language education program, and Duolingo’s program takes a more gamified approach. While Duolingo’s approach may be fun, most learners and educators agree it isn’t quite comprehensive enough to promote fluency. If you’re interested in learning a few key words or phrases in another language, Duolingo may be sufficient. Otherwise, you’re better off going with Rosetta Stone.

Here are a few other key differences: 

• Duolingo does not include a lot of the supplemental features that Rosetta Stone offers, like access to personalized study materials or tutoring. 
• Duolingo offers more languages than Rosetta Stone (37 versus 25). But Rosetta Stone provides a far more comprehensive program for the 25 languages it offers. 
• Duolingo offers a free version and Rosetta Stone does not. But Duolingo’s free option is very high level and won’t lead to language mastery. It also tends to be bogged down with distracting ads.

Bottom Line: Why We Love It

Whether you’re a professional, a student or a globetrotter, if you want to master a new language, Rosetta Stone Sapphire can help you do it. The company offers an expansive list of languages—25 at the time of this review, and an immersive approach to language learning that has proven effective for every kind of learner. Rosetta Stone also offers an intuitive interface, proprietary speech-recognition technology and a variety of advanced features that create a comprehensive and customizable learning environment.