Choose which language you wish to learn from Pimsleur or Rosetta. Rosetta Stone offers instruction in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, European and Latin American Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh. Pimsleur offers these languages, with the exception of Welsh and Hindi. Pimsleur also offers Egyptian Arabic, Eastern and Western Armenian, Croatian, Cantonese, Czech, Persian (Dari), Hungarian, Gaelic, Lithuanian, Modern Standard Arabic, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Pashto, European Portuguese, Romanian, Swiss German, Tagalog, Twi, Ukranian, Urdu and Haitian Creole.
Choose which level you wish to study. Rosetta Stone rates its instructional materials by the levels one-through-five. Some languages, such as Spanish, will have all five levels. Other languages, such as Indonesian, will only be available in Level One. Level One covers basic conversations, greetings, shopping and simple questions and answers. Pimsleur offers a broad range of programs, from an Express 45-minute program aimed at quickly teaching simple vocabulary and conversation to three levels of comprehensive instruction. Some languages are available in all levels, others only have a basic or compact course, while others may have a Level One comprehensive course but go no further.
Order your program. Pimsleur and Rosetta programs are both delivered on CDs. At the time of publication, most Rosetta Level One programs were available for $179, and Pimsleur Comprehensive Level One programs were available for $345. The most inexpensive program available through Rosetta is a Level One program; the most inexpensive program through Pimsleur is a single CD Express program for $11.95.
Start the instruction. With the Pimsleur method, all of the instruction is audio-based. Each lesson is 30 minutes long and only one lesson per day is used. The Pimsleur method uses a "graduated interval recall," a memorization method particular to its system. This program emphasizes developing quick conversation abilites. With the Rosetta Stone method, most of the work will be done on a computer, although audio CDs are available with some programs. This method focuses on immersion; the only language used while studying will be the language under study. The software includes a voice recognition feature that allows students to compare their pronunciation to that of a native speaker. Lessons are short, so students can study just one or several per day.