UPDATE: the EIC has learned today from an official at the Calvert Library that they will discontinue their collaboration with Rosetta Stone in the near future.  The library is anticipating that it will switch to Auralog software, which the official said is being used by two other counties in the state and has been described “as good or better than Rosetta Stone.”  We’ll keep you posted.   

I had hoped this year to begin taking French, but my schedule was unforgiving, so I was delighted to find out in late September that the Calvert Library has been offering the critically acclaimed Rosetta Stone language software for free to library card members to access from home.  Sign-up was straightforward: card number, e-mail address, and a password register you for the language center.

Courses available include Mandarin, French, Italian and Spanish.  You can track yourprogress with a detailed activity log – I’ve been spending close to fifteen minutes a day with the software.  Since its introduction, Rosetta Stone has been tremendously popular with users and institutions: the U.S. Army is but one of the company’s partners.  A typical level is roughly $200.

The essence of the software is its “dynamic immersion” – one is immediately thrust into associating pictures, sentences, and sounds to one another, quickly amassing a working vocabulary and sense of grammatical structure.  The curriculum is divided into two levels and further into eight units with ten lessons each.  Each lesson offers a variation of formats, about four to five minutes long, to build listening and reading skills.  Speaking and writing sections are also a part of each lesson.

I’ve certainly been impressed – enough so to question why programs like these aren’t becoming a part of  our foreign language study.

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You can get an apply for a library card online.