Travelling is always a whirlwind. Learning about a new culture, visiting art galleries and museums, trying new cuisine and getting to know the locals are all exciting parts of visiting a new place. Whether you’re a spontaneous wanderluster or like to stick to a strict scheduler there is one important thing that everyone should do before they board a flight. What is that you might ask? Try to learn the native language spoken in the country you are visiting! Before flying to Venice for an internship with the Biennale, I knew I wanted to brush up on my Italian.
Rosetta Stone is the most trusted name in language learning. I downloaded the Rosetta Stone app not knowing anything beyond “ciao” and “grazie” but my knowledge of Italian quickly improved after a few easy lessons. This award-winning mobile app trains users to associate phrases and images in ways that will be useful when travelling. I found picking up Italian words using Rosetta Stone to be easy and natural. The program is packed with content and lessons developed by linguists and education specialists, and teach core language skills—speaking and listening—without translation. My favourite features on the app so far have been the Phrase book (where you can listen to and learn to speak key phrases used in real-life situations), Audio Companion (where you can Extend your learning experience to where ‘speaking’ is not possible or desirable) and Stories (where you can perfect your pronunciation by reading aloud a full story and compare your voice to a native speaker’s voice.)
In Venice I have been able to ask for directions, order food, shop with ease (which could be dangerous!) and even make friends with locals. The biggest surprise for me has been how easy it has been to express myself in a new language. Not being able to communicate is one of the biggest barriers when travelling and learning with Rosetta Stone helps alleviate this challenge. Of course it is also much more fun to be pick up a new language and it results in a much more authentic travel experience. Traveling is all about learning and making language a part of your foundation is something I would strongly recommend.
I loved learning Italian with Rosetta Stone. I can’t imaging planning a trip in a country where another language is dominant without practicing using Rosetta Sone. You can learn 24 languages with the app Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), English (US), English (UK), French, Japanese, Italian, German, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Korean, Dutch, Tagalog, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Farsi, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese meaning that the learning possibilities are truly endless. Whether you like learning online or offline (with downloadable lessons) you will feel yourself improving each time you open the app. In as little as 15 minutes a day you will be able to feel yourself becoming more comfortable in a new language. Now time to book a flight, plan a trip and start learning whatever language your heart desires!
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