Learning Mandarin with Rosetta Stone

As the saying goes... “It’s never too late to learn something new.” And I totally agree!

The best part about traveling and experiencing other cultures is the language. So before I travel to any country, I always make sure that I learn a few basic words and phrases from the country I’m visiting that can be useful for my travel. A simple “greeting” and saying “thank you” are the simple words I start to learn. But I guess, it would also be good if I learn more conversational phrases so I would somehow be able to communicate more with the locals.

Travelling is a great way to practice a new language in its native setting. Knowing that Mandarin is the most widely used and spoken language in the world, it’s one of the languages I’ve been wanting to learn. China is the world's most populous country in the world; it comes as no surprise that Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the most used language in the world.

There are many ways to learn a new language. You can read a book, go to a language school, or use a mobile app. The use of smartphones has proved to be an excellent tool to learn a new language, especially if you’re always on the go. As long as your mobile phone is with you and it is connected to the internet, it will always be a valuable educational resource that you can use anytime and anywhere you go.

With the advancement of technology, you don't even need to enroll yourself in a language school or be physically present in a school for you to learn a new language. Recently, I was contacted by Rosetta Stone to check out their product. So, I downloaded their language learning app and subscribed to its Mandarin course. Rosetta Stone is a big name in the world of language learning and I really have big hopes that this is a great tool for me to learn how to speak Mandarin.

Before flying to Taiwan few weeks ago, I’ve already started a few lessons about learning Mandarin using the Rosetta Stone App. I certainly love it because it’s easy to use, and it makes sure that you will learn the basic words you need to learn. Although it is available in their website, I love that it has an app that I can download on my phone and go through the lesson while on the go. It’s perfect for those moments that you have nothing to do - let’s say, while at the airport waiting for your flight, while on the train or at the bus on a long transit, or at the coffee shop waiting for your friends. Since I downloaded it, I often find myself opening the app on my free time and finish a lesson and do the exercises on the app, instead of just wasting my time on some monotonous mobile phone games.

The Rosetta Stone Mandarin Program has 20 units in total. Here is the course outline:

1. Language Basics
2. Greetings and Introductions
3. Work and School
4. Shopping
5. Travel
6. Past and Future
7. Friends and Social Life
8. Dining and Vacation
9. Home and Health
10. Life and World
11. Everyday Things
12. Places and Events
13. Tourism and Recreation
14. Professions and Hobbies
15. At Home and Around Town
16. Style and Personal Wellness
17. Business and Industry
18. Arts and Academics
19. Emergency Situations
20. Family and Community

Each unit is divided into 4 mini lessons which are then divided into core lessons and exercises. Each lesson focuses on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, or listening. The Rosetta Stone app teaches you spoken and conversational Mandarin by way of repetition, visuals and user’s own intuition. Learning is easy and on a linear progression. You will be introduced first with a simple and basic vocabulary, working its way to composing phrases, then sentences to conversational sentences.

I love that it also has review lessons and exercises to re-test your understanding after the lesson. The app teaches you pronunciation where the app speaks words and you have speak back for it to recognize if you did it correctly. It uses TruAccent™ which is considered as “the world’s best speech recognition technology.” For the vocabulary part, there’s picture matching exercises where there are words and phrases that the app will display and you will choose the correct picture that matches the words or phrase. For the grammar part, there’s sentence construction where you will fill in the blanks with the correct answer from the choices given to you. With the exercises, you'll know how much you've learned from the lessons you took - in fun and very interactive way.

What I also like about Rosetta Stone is that, you can download the lessons on your mobile phone. So, even without an internet connection you can still use the app. This is so perfect for those long-haul flights!

As of now, I'm still at the early parts of the program because I always go back to every lesson until I get to perfect it. I'm now on my 3rd week of regularly learning Mandarin with Rosetta Stone App, and I'm really enjoying learning several new Mandarin words and phrases each day.


My goal is to learn to understand and speak Mandarin, even just the basics that I can use in my travels. It’s a work in progress and I know it’s still a long way to go. But with hard work and the help of the Rosetta Stone, I believe, I’ll get there soon. As China is one of the countries I would want to visit someday, this is a great way for me to start learning spoken and conversational Mandarin. It will definitely be very useful on my future travels.

Why not give it a try? If you’re interested in trying Rosetta Stone, you can find pricing options and all of the languages they are offering at their website www.rosettastone.com.