Rosetta Stone

I got a nice little package in the post this week, and managed to open it for the first time today.

I have been trying on and off to learn German for years. I have at stages tried to learn Italian, Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans. With 8 years of formal schooling in Afrikaans, I am only relatively fluent when I have had 'een of twee te veel', (one or two too many).

I am convinced you only learn a language through immersion. My cousin popped over to South America after school and on returning home forgot her bag on the plane. In a panic, she poured forth to one of the guards to let her go back on to get the bag. He had no clue what she was saying. It took her a while to realise she wasn't speaking English (She was back home in South Africa). When you really learn a language you think and even dream in it.

I would love to learn other languages, as I am convinced the way we think, feel and even act is tied closely to the way we express ourselves. I think there are some emotions the French have that South Africans aren't even capable of because we don't have the word for it!

Anyway, I think Rosetta Stone are on to something and I am going to give it a try. They don't do any translation, but use pictures, sound and voice recognition to put words in context and build up slowly. It is actually a lot of fun.

Let's see how it goes.