Rosetta Stone - the speaking part...

[Friederike in Persia]

Dd is halfway through the level 1 CD-Rom and started the speaking sections. The problem is, that she (or any of the rest of the family) can't budge this lever, that shows how well you pronounced it. It's not broken, cause dh can get "dog" to go into the yellow, but that's it.
Have any of you had that problem? Did you keep going and eventually your pronounciation got better?
We're doing Russian, which isn't that easy to pronounce, but also not that though.:rolleyes:

[Suzanne in ABQ]

Just keep trying. I use the Spanish, and I had trouble at first. Over time, though, I realized that I have to sound *exactly* like the person doing the demo. I even have to match the little quirky things they do with inflection and accent. It helps me to try to visualize what the pronouncer *looks* like when they're saying the word/phrase, then try to make my face look lik them. If they sound like they're smiling, I smile. If they sound serious, I try to sound serious. It's a crazy game.

Don't take it too seriously. Just make a game out of trying to imitate the native speaker. You'll discover little nuances in their voice, inflection, and accent that you didn't notice before.

[Lorna]

Don't take it too seriously. Just make a game out of trying to imitate the native speaker. You'll discover little nuances in their voice, inflection, and accent that you didn't notice before.

I would agree with this. The technology is just not quite there to really assess you on a good natural accent. It just isn't intelligent enough.
We did only a little of this and used the Michel Thomas method to practice speaking (this is available in Spanish, German and Italian). It isn't speech recognition software, it is simply a cd set that gets you really conversing straight away. For French, I practised my accent with a course called Fluent French Audio. This was more a matter of developing an 'ear' for the language by lots of listening and repeat of French native speakers conducting interviews.

[8FillTheHeart]

LOL!!! We tried to get it to move for the English edition and couldn't get it to budge!! I know we are pronouncing those words correctly!! ;) We stopped using it.

[LN in WI]

We were contemplating upgrading, but I guess not!

Ellen

[Vanna]

Just keep trying. I use the Spanish, and I had trouble at first. Over time, though, I realized that I have to sound *exactly* like the person doing the demo... Don't take it too seriously. Just make a game out of trying to imitate the native speaker. You'll discover little nuances in their voice, inflection, and accent that you didn't notice before.

This has definitely been our experience and we've gone about it the same way:D.

HTH!

[Isa]

I'm a native Spanish speaker, and my children pronounce Spanish decently. We were never very successful with the speech function, so we didn't pay attention to it. If I was in listening range, I would correct my children when necessary.

[Shelly in MD]

We've had the same problem. I thought maybe our sound card just wasn't good enough, but from the answers you got, I feel like it's just the software itself. I do like the audio function idea, and I will say we get more practice speaking b/c we are trying so hard to make the lever move!

Thanks for posting this question.

[Friederike in Persia]

thanks for confirming!

[danielle]

Try being a little louder or moving closer to the mic--both helped us. I can get the French into the green range pretty easily, but I was hopeless when I tried Dutch.
Danielle