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Rosetta Stone Dutch Personal Edition Level 1

4 stars (a fun way to learn some Dutch) - This is a clever use of a computer. The attempt is to put you in a "virtual" Dutch-speaking environment. To fully utilize the product, you'll need a mouse, keyboard, speakers, and microphone. There are about 3,200 images (many duplicates) shown in groups of 4. You select either mode-A, -B, -C, -D, -E. For mode-A, a native speaker says a phrase or sentence in Dutch, which you also see written on the screen, and you move your mouse into the one of the 4 pictures to which you think the statement applies. You click the mouse and get immediate feedback on whether you're right or wrong. For mode-B, you hear the native speaker's statement but get no writing on the screen (practice in aural comprehension). For C, you get the writing but no speaker (practice in reading comprehension). For D (you'll love this), you get the native speaker, and you repeat what he or she says into your microphone, and you get immediate pictorial feedback on the screen as to how closely your pronunciation matches that of the native speaker. For E, you get the native speaker and no writing, and you get to type in Dutch what he or she says using your keyboard, and you get immediate feedback on whether you're correct. It's clever and a lot of fun if you enjoy studying languages. But ... there's no accompanying book to speak of, just a list of the 3,200 statements without translation provided. Before buying this product, I had previously spent several months studying Dutch grammar (see my poignant review of "Colloquial Dutch" by Donaldson, a fine book by the way). Hence I already knew the rudiments and had a context in which to place those 3,200 statements and make sense of them. I had the fine Dutch-English dictionary published by Routledge, "201 Dutch Verbs" by Stern, and "Colloquial Dutch" by my computer to refer to. I found this course a painless way to review grammar, supplement my vocabulary, and learn to say some useful things by rote. I...
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