Monday, October 10, 2011

Rosetta Stone Pronunciation Activity

So Rosetta Stone has several activity types, one of which is "Pronunciation". To me, the pace of this activity always seems behind the rest. For example, the Pronunciation activity for Italian 1 Unit 2 Lesson 3 includes several words we had to use in Unit 1, including number pronunciation, and the pronoun "we" noi. These sections are on the shorter side. I would suggest increasing their length, but I can see how they wouldn't want to tire out or frustrate people with these sections. I think they should instead have two pronunciation sections for each lesson.

Also, it drives me a little crazy how they break down the syllables all the way for each word. That made sense in the beginning, or it would make sense if you have trouble, but reading each syllable individually for arrivederci before you read it in whole, when we have been using that word continually from the beginning, is really dragging the exercise out. I also don't like the syllable breakdown sometimes, particularly for double letters. After going to the trouble of illustrating the difference between "alle" and "ale", why break them down to "a" "lle" and "a" "le", respectively? They have you try to lengthen the double ll sound in "lle" but I think it misses the sound they emphasize in the pronunciation of "alle". Can't be perfect, I guess.

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