[Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers

Mon Mar 19 14:59:26 EST 2007

Rosetta Stone kind of works like that. They show you pictures, say a phrase,
and you to pick the picture that matches the phrase. They have it written
out as well. That's the basic exercise. It engages looking, listening, and
reading all at once. Then you can do it with just the audio, or just the
written words.

Then they have a voice comparison where the native speaker says a phrase
(with the picture of it up) and you repeat it. It shows their voice print
and your voice print. And you can listen to both afterwards. It's kind of
cool. Just on the first lesson, I realized that there are voice stops in the
German language I never notice before.

They don't concentrate on grammar. They sneak it in on you they way you
learned to speak as a kid.  They give you different situations and the
correct forms to use in those situations. It's interesting.

I'll write back in a couple of months and let you know how it went.

   - Jay

On 3/19/07, Russ Crum <rrcrum at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Jay,
> It will be interesting to see what you think of Rosetta Stone. I have seen
> it advertised.
>
> We tried "Before You Know It", from Transparent Language, for both Spanish
> and italian and liked it.It is a flash card system for learning words and
> simple phrases, not really "learning" a language. That is the approach we
> have used in the past anyway except with flash cards we made up and an after
> dinner exercise. An additional thing I liked about BYKI was that they have a
> Palm program component so your list can also be on a Palm PDA, which was
> handy rather than having to be at our computers.
>
>
> Russ Crum
> rrcrum at sbcglobal.net
>
> On Mar 19, 2007, at 11:23, Jay Cloidt wrote:
>
> Langenscheidt's is a great dictionary. I used it studying Italian and
> never needed a bigger one until I tried to read literature. I got turned on
> to it when I was studying Russian. Their Russian/English dictionary is
> excellent.
>
> I'm experimenting with Rosetta Stone for studying German. We're going to
> Switzerland, and I know from being there that most people speak English, but
> I want to try to learn some German. We'll be in the Swiss Heartland which is
> German speaking, then we're going to Ticino where I can use my Italian.
>
> I've never had a problem in an Italian restaurant. We went to a little
> local restaurant in Milan once where no one spoke English and I had started
> studying it yet. It was a small neighborhood restaurant that catered to
> locals. We still managed to get seated and order a 3 course meal with no
> major problems using a limited number of Italian words.
>
>   - Jay
>
> On 3/18/07, haggart <haggart at moscow.com > wrote:
> >
> >   Marcia
> >
> > Welcome to UnTours. You will love the experience and you will love
> > Italy. We were in Tuscany and Rome several years ago and plan a return trip
> > to Tuscany and Venice this fall.
> >
> > Getting from place to place is, in fact, reasonably easy to do. Be sure
> > at the orientation to ask if they have a local map. We did this a got a very
> > good one that had a lot of secondary roads not on the other maps.
> >
> > Gas stations are easy to find and the ones that we used had an attendant
> > who did the filling up and took the credit card. But that may have changed
> > and you may run into self serve near the larger cities. Orientation folks
> > can tell you what is available in your area and what their times of
> > operation are.
> >
> > Never used a tour guide in Italy.
> >
> > Language is not a big barrier. We have never actually learned the
> > language of the countries we have visited in Europe, but we do take the time
> > to learn a few useful phrases and of most important to learn to ask in
> > Italian if the person you are speaking to speaks English. People like to
> > have you at least try to speak their language. We also take a phrase book
> > wherever we go and in Italy found a little yellow book called
> > "Langenscheidt's Universal Dictionary" in this case
> > "English-Italian/Italian-English" - which we actually bought in a shop in
> > Italy, but I am sure is available in the USA. It is small enough to fit in a
> > pocket, but is packed with words. This is useful when driving and reading
> > parking signs to make sure that you are parking legally and won't get towed
> > off! Anyway, we found the dictionary to very helpful during our travels. I
> > think this company publishes them in several languages. Check with your
> > local book store.
> >
> > Lastly, look at the trip logs at the Idyll web site to get insights on
> > what places people found interesting.......... but most of all take your
> > time and have fun!
> >
> > Pete
> >
> >  *Peter and Margaret Haggart*
> > * haggart at moscow.com*
> > *-------Original Message-------*
> >
> >  *From:* Marcia Waffner <mwaffner at verizon.net>
> > *Date:* 3/17/2007 3:42:54 AM
> > *To:* idyllchat at lists.untours.com
> > *Subject:* [Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers
> >
> >  Hi
> > We're planning our first trip to Italy in the fall. Untours sounds just
> > 'up our alley' since we don't want to be with large groups and on tour
> > buses, however we were wondering if we can hire guides or ask for
> > recommendations from this group on the 'who, what, where and when' of
> > getting around.  Some questions: 1.  is getting from place to place
> > reasonably straightforward   2. are gas stations easy to find  3.  can we
> > hire tour guides on our own and if so, how 4.  is language a huge barrier if
> > our Italian is limited.
> >
> > Thanks for any help...
> > Marcia
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > This message was sent by IdyllChat.
> > To reply or send a new message, email to:
> > IdyllChat at lists.untours.com
> >
> > Visit the IdyllChat archives:
> > http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/
> >
> > Search Idyllchat Archives for any subject at: http://search.dca.net/sites/untours/main.html
> >
> > >
> > Read real Untourists' candid accounts of their Untours:
> > > http://www.untours.com/triplogs.html To unsubscribe, change to digest
> > delivery, or
> > temporarily pause delivery, visit:
> > http://mailman.dca.net/mailman/listinfo/idyllchat
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> This message was sent by IdyllChat.
> To reply or send a new message, email to:
> IdyllChat at lists.untours.com
>
> Visit the IdyllChat archives:
> http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/
>
> Search Idyllchat Archives for any subject at:
> http://search.dca.net/sites/untours/main.html
>
>
> Read real Untourists' candid accounts of their Untours:
>
> http://www.untours.com/triplogs.html To unsubscribe, change to digest
> delivery, or
>
> temporarily pause delivery, visit:
> http://mailman.dca.net/mailman/listinfo/idyllchat
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.dca.net/pipermail/idyllchat/attachments/20070319/9d78601c/attachment-0001.htm