Since we’re starting our worldwide adventure in South America, it makes sense to learn a little bit of Spanish. If you look at our Wish List, you’ll see that it is also one of our goals.
Up until now, we’ve been investigating free and low-cost options, like Meetup groups, language podcasts, and practice sessions with native speakers. Our goal was to use Rosetta Stone, and we’ve been trying to figure out when we should buy it (now and have a lot of time to practice, perhaps incorrectly vs. later where we can practice with locals). The price is about $500 for 3 levels of one language.
Enter TechCrunch. They wrote a blog post about Rosetta Stone’s TOTALe interactive language learning solution, which is Rosetta Stone on steroids. In addition to the highly rated learning program, there is an online class where students can practice their pronunciation with the teacher and other students. This solves our problem! But then there’s the cost – $1200 (currently $999 as an introductory special). A bit steep for a program we aren’t sure will work for us, but also not outside the ballpark if we compare it to language school.
In the fine print at the very bottom of the TechCrunch post they said they would choose 5 random commenters to receive a one-year subscription for free.
And guess what, lovely readers? My comment was chosen! So we’ll be getting a copy of the TOTALe program soon and we’ll be able to test it out and let you know exactly how it works, if it is worth the extra dollars to have the classroom time, and how fast (and well) we are able to learn Spanish.
In fact, I’ll include a little bit of video as we are learning so you can see how well we are progressing (Warren and I can have a “trill off”!). That way you can make an educated decision about purchasing TOTALe for your own language needs.
One last point before I stop for the weekend: This is yet another in a long line of good things that keep happening since we decided to pursue our dream of travel. It is not that following your dreams makes you lucky, more like the things you need to have happen are more likely to once you put your energy in that direction.
So, if you are waiting to start taking steps toward your dream, please reconsider. You may not find a key piece to your dream as a prize at the end of a blog post, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you did.
Do you speak more than one language? If so, how did you learn? How old were you?
For more information, check out the Rosetta Stone website.
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About Betsy
Betsy,
Congratulations on your win! Your local readers might like to know that you can access full Rosetta Stone program right on your home computer for FREE through King County Library–all you need is a library card. You get an account that keeps track of your lessons etc. Go to the KCLS site and click on their database listings to find Rosetta Stone.
What a great idea, Paula! Anyone planning a trip like this is probably on a tight budget, so the library is the perfect learning spot.
I am also trying to learn spanish, my plan is to walk trough Spain to Santigo de Compostela, there fore I think it would be could to be able to speak some Spainish along the way.
My second language is English, so it´s easy for me to have an “extra” language. My first is Swedish, but here everything is in english on tv and in the cinema and so on so you learn it when you are very young…