Thread: Rosetta or Accelerator?

Hi all...Been tearing my hair out a bit, deciding if I should go with Russian Accelerator Method or the Rosetta Stone program...Just looking for some opinions.
All input appreciated!

Hey MoscowB a friend of mine was in Accelerator and said it was pretty good, prob. going to check it out myself here shortly. Here is a review of the top three Russian language courses if it helps. Good luck. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dddhr865_0gx8fkmdh

I wouldn't do either! Well, not if i had to pay for them anyway. If you have the money to throw away then get both, plus get Pimsleur Complete Russian. If you less money to throw away then just get Pimsleur. If you have no money to throw away then go to your library and see if they loan out Pimsleur there! You can always try the file sharing sites.

Personally, I think Pimsleur is way overrated. I think it's decent for pronunciation -- as is any course that has audio of native speakers -- but it's good for little else. There's ton of posts on all the forums picking Pimsleur apart, so no need to rehash here.

To answer the poster's Q, Rosetta and R.A.M. seem to be for different styles of learning. I haven't gone though R.A.M., but the course seems awesome for beginners, especially that Russian Destroyer thing they're tossing in, to learn Cyrillic. My experience, meanwhile, with Rosetta was generally positive, but the meaning is rarely clear from context. That's a huge problem, even though you are getting tons of exposure to the language. I think of a Rosetta as a supplement to a real course.

Originally Posted by MJenkens

Hey MoscowB a friend of mine was in Accelerator and said it was pretty good, prob. going to check it out myself here shortly. Here is a review of the top three Russian language courses if it helps. Good luck. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dddhr865_0gx8fkmdh

If Accelerator really has something like “My favorite sabaka is a German Shepperd" ... well... Are the others really even worse? "Моя дог загнала соседского кэта на дерево." Maybe I'm also too picky about mocking of Russian pronunciation with available Latin letters adapted to English pronunciation, and students can't pick up vocabulary without this weird spoonfeeding?

Originally Posted by russianfan

I think of a Rosetta as a supplement to a real course.

To be sure, they are ALL supplements to good books like New Penguin Russian Course. But I find Rosetta slower than Pimsleur because Rosetta, though having the opportunity to tell you right away what a word means, makes you watch hours and hours of video until you finally figure it out. A complete waste of hours in this day and age, when they could have just added the meanings somewhere in there, as Pimsleur does. My advice to people is just to do "everything" you have available and can find, and do it a lot. BUt you do need to understand the case system, (books) and you do need to use some kind of oral listening system. (MP3 player so you can use it often) You can't ride the metro of bus or bicycle or drive a car or jog with a laptop!

I think the "spoonfeeding" of Russian words is going to work well with me. Like Jenkins wrote, I also know -- just from reading that review -- what a sabaka is (even if my pronunciation is off at first, at least i know the word now.)...Accelerator uses native speakers, so I'm not worried about getting pronunciation. It's the learning of words quickly and efficiently that I'm after. And I totally agree with DDT: Rosetta seems like it takes for ages until you learn a word, and even then, everyone says *you're not really sure* of the meaning. Ok, it's settled then: This newbie is tryin' Russian Accelerator...and DDT's New Penguin Course...juuuust to be safe!

I am soooo psyched to be finally taking the Russian plunge, you guys!!! Next summer: Hermitage, Red Square, eating some red caviar outside Lenin's tomb...I want the whole experience, and if i can actually speak and use some Russian while I'm there, I'd be ecstatic.

Thanks all for the advice! Will be checking in frequently to practice on you guys, if that's ok!