Rosetta Stone

Not a very impressive box...

I recently had an opportunity to try out Rosetta Stone and out of all the languages I got to choose, I've chosen Japanese. I actually get to pick two, but I'm starting with Japanese for now because Cyn wanted Japanese, Norwegian wasn't on the list, and I'm currently taking Aikido classes so knowing Japanese may be helpful. There's also this thing where Netflix is acting up and I can't watch anime with English subtitles on the TV in the front room.

So! A lot of reasons to dive in an try to learn Japanese!

There's just one problem. I'm sure that Rosetta Stone works great for everyone else, but I'm having a lot of trouble catching on to what they're wanting me to figure out at times... and I'm still in Unit 1 of Level 1. True, I'm up to Lesson 3, but it's still Unit 1, Level 1.

Maybe Japanese is just a hard language. I've got to learn everything regarding it. I have to learn a new writing system, sentence structure, root words, etc. etc.

It's not like when I tried to learn French or German. English and those languages actually have a lot in common. Japanese comes from a whole different part of the world with different origins.

On the other hand, I am having fun and when I do figure something out.

For my second language, I'm really divided. I really, really wanted to learn Norwegian. Then I considered something like Arabic or Hebrew, but I'd kind of like something similar to Norwegian and I figure something European should be pretty easy after doing something like Japanese. However, Arabic or Hebrew or Chinese would be better for research and writing. After all, if you understand the way a person's language works, you can understand the basic values of the person who speaks the language by the emphasis they place on particular words, etc... and the creativity of their vulgar language (Chinese like to screw people up to the 18th generation while British seem to have a problem with blood and an obsession with testicles).

Either way, it would be interesting to see if it's just the Japanese language that is difficult for me in particular or if, perhaps, I'm not Rosetta Stone's target audience.