As more and more baby boomers start to retire, and travel the world, I suspect the desire to learn another language might become more prominent.

I have certainly felt this desire, and when I contacted the kind folks at RosettaStone, they were kind enough to offer The Roaming Boomers a trial subscription of their TOTALE system,  so that we might try it and share our results with you.

When we returned from our Hawaii trip, I found the bright yellow RosettaStone TOTALE box at my front door.  As I began to explore, I learned that the whole TOTALE system is online, and that my yellow box contained only a headset microphone, and audio CDs for practice on the go.

When I logged-in to the RosettaStone TOTALE website, I found that their system is divided into three different sections:

• The RosettaStone Course – this is where I can learn to speak, read, listen and write in their award-winning program.
• The RosettaStone Studio – here I can practice online in their live online sessions with a native-speaking Studio Coach.
• The RosettaStone World – here I can play games and practice speaking with other learners and native speakers in their online community.

Not being shy, I decided to jump right in and try out Level 1, Unit 1: Language Basics.  What surprised me right off the bat was that there was no introduction about what we might be doing in this course.  It was immediately sink or swim.  Albeit, the waters were only ankle deep.  RosettaStone calls this their Dynamic Immersion^® method.

The on-line course presented me with Spanish text, audible renderings of the text, and beautifully presented photography to represent each of the phrases.  Although I can’t speak a lick of Spanish, I was soon speaking some very basic phrases, matching the phrases with corresponding photographs, and even found myself able to match a Spanish spoken phrase, with no text, to its proper photograph.

My first course was divided up into five sections:

• Pronunciation –  I scored 95%
• Vocabulary – I scored 96%
• Grammar – I scored 93%
• Reading – I scored 96%
• Writing – I scored 92%

In just a short 30 minute lesson, I found myself able to properly pronounce a few basic phrases, and am off and running to speak a new language.

I must confess, my wife is already growing weary of me looking at her and proclaiming, “La mujar bebe” (the woman drinks) in my most sexy voice.

I will be posting a few more posts about my use of RosettaStone’s TOTALE language learning system over the coming weeks and months.

Stay tuned…