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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Teacher Taught
I've taught French for 30-odd years and have always wanted to learn an Asian language. No, I'm not looking for a compendium of useful phrases for travel, but rather a working knowledge of the language. Oh, and as a proud autodidact, I want to do it on my own. I've been at it for a couple of weeks now, using Rosetta Stone as my core tool. I've supplemented it with a grammar, a dictionary, and more patience than I thought I had. I'm finding the Rosetta Stone approach necessary but not sufficient -- it's much more useful for speaking and listening comprehension than for reading and writing, the Thai alphabet being what it is. the For the latter two skills, I'm in search of a tutor, not so much to teach but to fill in any ambiguities in the written texts. All in all, given the "at mother's knee" philosophy of Rosetta Stone's method, I cannot imagine the pedagogy being carried off any better. I wish only that there were level II and III versions!
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This is genius
Even though i've only gotten to start a few lessons now, I think that this program is exactly what i've needed to learn Thai. Starting without explicit instructions, each lesson takes you through learning Thai in the way you learn your first language - pictures, sound, repetition, and associating words together through context instead of pre-determined vocabulary lists. The way they designed the program is genius! I highly recommend this instead of over-used language tapes and workbooks.
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This is the way to learn a new language...
I live in Thailand and have tried various phrase books, language media, as well as an English-Thai dictionary (which i still use for reference) and feel the need to give RossettaStone its just due. After reading the other reviews i could not understand what the problem was. RosettaStone does not use translation (which is the worst way to learn a new language!)but instead uses a "mothers tongue" or acquisition approach. This approach may take some getting used to but once the learner feels comfortable using the RosettaStone method one should see progress rather quickly. Yes Thai language is very different from English such as different sentence structures, lack of tenses, adjectives following a noun instead of preceeding a noun, a whole set of personal pronouns that change depending on the sex of the speaker, and then a whole seperate set for royalty, etc, etc. but this should not discourage a person from learning Thai. I will agree that to shell out the money for RossetaStone may not be practical if one is just visiting Thailand on holiday, a phrase book would meet this need just fine since you probably wont get the tones right anyway but hey its Thailand and Thais are very tolerant. If you are planning on spending more than just a holiday,( like if you live in Thailand)then RossettaStone can be of benefit as well as taking a formal Thai language course. It's also important to keep in mind that the RosettaStone programs are not designed to learn a new language in a week which would be totally unrealistic but more like several months to a year.
Rating: 
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Can't possibly teach you how to speak in Thailand
I'm going back to Thailand for vacation and wanted to learn a little more Thai this time around. I've tried several different things and Rosetta Stone was the worst.
Learning Thai from scratch requires a base knowledge of sentence structure and tonality rather than just vocabulary. Take tonality for example "maa" said three different ways, it can mean three different things. It can mean: to come, a horse, or a dog based on a slight tonal difference.
Thai sentence structure is "backwards" from most English, so I don't see how they could teach that either. For example in English you say "Is this your house? in Thai you would literally say "house you isn't it?" Asking and answering questions is simply different than how we speak English and this program doesn't teach those things.
Even plain vocabulary is difficult with this program. The local speaker speaks so quickly, it's difficult to catch on to what they are saying. A lot of the vocabulary is useless for day-to-day tourist interactions if you're just planning a visit there. So what if you learn "the man is riding a horse", or "the boy is under the table."
Thais also seem to shorten what they are saying and don't make long complete sentences like we would.
Pimsleur audio is another alternative, but after repeating what I learned on the CD to a friend living in Thailand he laughed and said, people don't talk like that here! Way, way too formal.
What's worked for me is Thai for beginners book, with the CD (I don't see how you could do it without the cd) as a guidebook. I then hired a thai tutor living in Thailand to teach me via voice chat online. Her hourly rate was very inexpensive, and I got loads more practical language skills than any software program.
Bottom line, don't waste your money on this program if you're wanting to learn for travel.
I do agree with the other positive reviewer in that if you are planning on studying Thai indepth, possibly to live there this may help build your vocabulary.
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Did Not Work For Me
We both tried it. Too obtuse an approach. We believe in immersion learning but had no idea what the words were we were learning. The photos show too much activity and conflicting items/images. Some of the speakers were slower and more distinct in their diction than others. We gave up. Instead we will proceed to Thailand and live with a non-English speaking Thai family for three months while we are in language school. However, we can now say "hello" with the proper hand and head bowing greeting thanks to the Buddhist monks in our local wat.
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