Language-teaching firms

Linguists online

Technology is starting to change language-learning

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I have used Rosetta Stone in the past to enhance my language learning, but never as the primary means to learn the language. They do not emphasize issues such as grammar. If you decide to learn more than one language with Rosetta Stone, it becomes repetitive and redundant because you see the same slides and the same stories with the online portion. They just translate them. Additionally, they have not offered unlimited studio sessions since October. They reduced the studio sessions from 50 minutes to 25 minutes each, restrict people to 2 sessions per month, and if you cancel within 24 hours of the studio, you lose a studio for that month. This is a sore point with long-standing individual clients.

Your article appears to be a comparison between old-school language learning in the form of Berlitz and "new-school" learning in the form of Rosetta Stone. There are so many other worthy products that should have made your list such as Rocket Languages, Fluenz, Babbel, LiveMocha, and many more. Other than Fluenz, these products cost less and will also give you the push that you need to begin your language journey. Fluenz parallels the cost of Rosetta STone, but with a more personal touch. Rosetta Stone has become impersonal and suffers from technical support problems, customer service problems, and disorganization. From what I understand, Swad is purely a financial guy who is looking at the bottom line while shooting himself in the foot. Individual customers are still an important source of revenue, and he should ensure that changes are properly communicated to base before he goes forward. There was a group called Rosetta Compass that former head of customer service, Jay Topper, began to get feedback on new products and services as well as changes in the product. Now, that Jay is gone, the company has all but abandoned the group. If Swad is going to focus on the institutional customer, then he may want to limit individual sales because people want value for their money. He does not believe that customers saw value in the unlimited studios, so he just changed it. Not very smart to anger customers who continue to use your product and have recommended it to others.


It's a shame that the article acts as though the big names are the only players in the market, because from the Economist readership's point of view this article could be so much more interesting if it looked at one of the unique characteristics of the language-learning sector: the longevity of small independent schools and self-employed teachers.

There are big names in language teaching, but they don't really have a particularly large market share, with learners instead going to a particular teacher on recommendation from friends.

Good language teaching, despite many peoples efforts, seems to be something that is difficult to reduce to a formula, so a high quality language school is a business that resists all attempts to upscale.

So why focus on the big players online? Those same small players who have always been the backbone of the industry can also be found on the internet, and they offer the same high-quality teaching as always, and usually at a better price than the big names.


This is coming from a gadget freak:

Doesn't everything start with human feelings? Don't we use language to communicate our feelings to other human beings?

Imagine you live in an international family where you speak one language with your wife/husband and another with your children. How about doing business on phone or in-person, what are the clients going to say when you use a machine and talk to it? Moreover, aren't business people simply going to respect even more the actual language learners who go through the trouble to show their personal interest in clients' native culture and value the unsurpassed direct human connection?

It's ludicrous to even begin to think that this sort of machine could bring us closer to each other. A machine simply cannot be used in real life situations like this, thus it bringing us closer to each other globally is a fairly far-fetched notion. The article is clearly written by a monolingual person who has never lived in various countries dealing with complicated cultural problems.

At best, this could be used by cheap companies trying to avoid costs by replacing a relatively reliable interpreter with a risky machine.

My mind is already filled with dozens of crazy mistakes a machine could do without understanding the culture-language combination and what horrible things these misunderstandings could unleash in politics and business.

A machine placed in-between people would make us even more distant from what we are, human.


In Guipuzkoa (Where the languages were broken) the art is regarded as 4 skills
Listening and Speaking and
Reading and Writing
These are different

The unpronouncibility of hemeneutics,that's easy for you to say


Interesting article. However, I highly doubt that the most clever language learning systems are made by the two companies mentioned. Learning languages in principle is easy:
1) Learn the vocab
2) Learn the rules
3) Practice
But finding good ways to help students do the necessary deeds, and to make it as fun, interesting and most of all as effective as possible, is the real trick. For Mandarin, I found Gurulu has a really simple, yet clever and effective system:


A colleague of mine has built a system called Linguisticator ( which distills the process he has used for learning 20 languages. It is aimed at people who want or need to learn a language with a high level of proficiency. His approach is based on understanding how languages work, and then mapping and efficiently internalising the structure of a new language.

It is interesting to me because the majority of learning resources (and I have tried many) take a gradual discovery approach, whereas I want to be able to leverage my knowledge of how other languages work to get up the curve faster . My colleague's course was a revelation because it includes the kind of things I instinctively have been doing, but in a systematic and thorough framework with a bunch of really good techniques.

Tobias Lorenz

While I enjoyed the article's insight into the online language learning industry I missed more information on the more recent and younger players in the industry which strive to convince with a higher focus on strong pedagogy and less on marketing. In our own efforts at we combine high-quality teaching via Skype with strong teaching material and a set of vocabulary tools to further enhance learning. For the price of RS you could learn for a year with weekly private lessons with us.

labreuche in reply to Tobias Lorenz

One feature that all language teachers, online and otherwise, should have in common is accuracy: as a native speaker of French, having just taken a look at your website, I feel like running away when in a vocabulary lesson I read that the French for "the station" is "la gare de train" (lesson 2,, accents or cedillas (fairly basic in French) are missing, "a printer" is "un imprimante" or an internship is "un internat" (lesson 20).
No wonder it's cheap!

Tobias Lorenz in reply to labreuche

Thanks for pointing out these typos. As you are probably aware the vocabulary builder is clearly marked as "beta" and still under development. Furthermore, this is not only "cheap" but part of the free tools that we provide. As a student, your teacher will enter your individual set of words live during the lesson so that you can work with the vocabulary you struggle with most.


You've got to laugh. Rosetta Stone tripled its research budget to adjust something - the material not being appropriate for all students - a teacher with half a brain could readjust in a split second within a classroom setting.
This is something that, for example, ESL teachers are doing all over the world and have been doing for years and I'm pretty sure that the difference in price between bricks-and-mortar classes - which can be easily customised and readjusted - and the RS software pack isn't that big in practice.

There's a huge discussion going on about the use of technology in the language teaching community, a lot of which is available online. Just do an #eltchat search on twitter if you want to get a quick overview or check out Scott Thornbury's lively blog for some well reasoned and researched insights. The reason why the above article reads more like RS PR guff is that it's unclear whether the writer has actually even used a search engine to reflect on these issues or whether he or she merely opened a RS brochure, tried out their starter pack and knocked a quick piece together.


Does the Economist have marketing agreements with their advertisers? Transparency and accountability are necessary for all markets to work properly, so please be honest, otherwise I might have to assume the Economist is a lemon.

No need to add comments as you have summed it up beautifully. The lemon reference made me choke on my tea! Am incerasingly frustrated by companies investing in Rosetta Stone andother products thinking that it will help them export and build relationships overseas. Lack of awareness of the cultural input that is needed. Anyway ... I could go on all day ...


Here is the problem with all things educational. In order to determine if something is of good quality, you have to try it. But then, especially with software, in for a penny - in for a pound. And therein lies the market failure: these companies are intentionally ambiguous and misleading in their advertising. Once you put out all that money for Rosetta Stone, you can't give it back.

I don't think that is true when you have the discs unless they changed their policy. I returned my Portuguese for French but the thought that I was just returning the Portuguese and not taking anything in its place, and gave me the instructions on how to return it and never asked me why I was returning it and were going to give me my money back. I had the program for 6 months already. They may have changed since then. It was about a year ago so I don't know.


This article is an example of really poor work of the author. I wouldn't expect such a direct marketing at the economist site.

1.The internet has offered a lot more interesting tools to learners. Many are directed from a teacher to students, a lot are communities of learners supporting each other, finding partners for language exchange, consulting common pitfalls or good methods. Many are great commercial products, others are covering the free ground. Really, Berlitz and RS are far from the center of the language learning internet. Perhaps it's time to stop acting as if the internet was invented yesterday and these two were the hottest news.

2.RS surelly improved the product by the changes mentioned. But it is still crap compared to other methods. The material you get for the price... well for the same money, you could get one or two good quality courses to get you through the beginnings, some supplementary material like grammar exercise book or a few graded readers, some native material to progress after the beginnings (a few dvds and books) AND the same amount of skype lessons (which would be tailored to your needs unlike those offered by RS).

3.Learning by clicking on pictures and guessing what am I supposed to learn... that is suited to few people. And it is very different to use it for a language similar to the native one and to a very different one using another script on top. On the other hand, RS offers a lot of audio examples which could be of benefit. By the way, have you noticed that all the people in RS commercials tell you how much they learnt but there is not a single example of the person trully speaking, not a single example of a person who got high level of the language and prooved it in a widely recognized language exam?

4.Sorry but using PR phrases like "Kids hate grammar", that is really low level journalism. Where is a study proving that? I know a lot of people who didn't mind grammar at all when they were kids. I know kids who do not mind grammar. Many factors are important here.

5.Have you noticed that RS, despite selling courses in EU countries, doesn't use the CEFR scale to describe the level of courses? Instead, there is a short list of sample topics on the page of each product and a very vague description of what you will supposedly learn.


Not all individuals acquire a new language with the same grade of difficulty. If we want to learn to speak ... a good ear helps a lot. But that also depends on the language. To pronounce understandable English requires a much better ear than if the language was Spanish.

It also depends on the relationship between spoken and written language. Knowing the rules, you can read almost perfect Spanish, but you need to know the pronunciation of each individual word to read aloud in English.

Other point about learning a language ... You have to know what are you going to do with your new language when (if) you are capable of using it. I know many people that learned a language, they used it in their visit to the concerning country ... and never again had any use for it.

There are some facts about learning languages, that are generally ignored by language learners, and not even acknowledged by linguists. Most speakers of Esperanto know that after learning Esperanto, learning other languages become easier, to the point that it takes less time to learn Esperanto and language 3, than learning just language 3 ... whatever language is language 3.

Some people discard Esperanto saying that it is not good because it is "artificial". (We prefer to say that it is a "planned language") Those people seem to ignore that nothing is natural around us. Everything is man made (including "natural" languages) ... and if we had the choice, we always prefer man made things. Nobody likes a "natural" (wild) fruit. We prefer the man made fruits or any other vegetable that we eat.

Because there were many years of preparation, Esperanto is easier to learn, and in many cases is more expressive that other languages. Many books, including classical, have been translated to Esperanto. There are also many original books, some of them translated to other languages, including English. After 125 years of use, Esperanto have developed as any other language.

Some advantages of Esperanto: first, you are going to be able to use it in a small fraction of the time required by other languages. Then, using Esperanto, you may contact people from many countries. Knowing about many countries, will help you chose your next language. The Esperanto speakers of that language, will be very happy to help you learn and practice their language. To see and hear Esperanto in action, watch some of the videos mentioned in these pages:

Good lack on learning your new language!
(Try learning Esperanto first ... you will not regret it)



The article lacks some detail on the benefits to the language learner.
Learning languages by Skype is cheaper than most good alternatives, it costs as little as $7-8 per hour. The nature of Skype means conversational skills are used. Verbal communication is usually one of the later skills acquired in classroom based teaching where reading and writing skills are more advanced. In the case of spanish there is the possibility to speak to teachers from different hispanophones, so the student can experience different accents and learn about different spanish contexts.


The lack of second language acquisition and the obvious advantages seem to go unnoticed in the US. It's amazing how many Americans complain about the job market, yet they are English only and rarely willing to travel abroad, off the beaten path. US school districts have cut world languages from their curricula to save money at a great detriment to students. On line language programs tend to be cut rate solutions doing a poor job, as those instructors may or may not have proper skills, have twice a many students as a classroom teacher(300+ vs 150), and earn half...just remember America, you get what you pay for.

seifip in reply to Ceejinator

I fully agree with your first paragraph. Plus, learning a second language is beneficial even outside of practical uses as it shows that you have determination, makes you more open to new ideas, makes you better understand your first language, and often even changes the way you think and see the world around you.

That said, it's not necessarily true that online programs are all bad. I work for LinguaLift - - and we have lots of very satisfied customers (and I use the website myself). Many of our competitors are also equally good. Of course, there are dozens of really bad products, but the ratio is probably similar to that in the traditional print textbook market.


To a very limited extent I do use English, which probably sounds strange in the ears of someone who has English as the first language. As one normally are able to learn and use the language Esperanto after a few lessons, it is rather astonishing that so few are really interested in this solution. Mostly I am communicating in Esperanto with person who do not master Swedish. Those who are pleading that it is not possible, probably does not have the right motivation for learning the language.

Brian Barker

I am not at all sure that machine translation will solve the problem of a new global language, worldwide.


I do however think that there is a worldwide language problem, which demands a solution.

Which is why I think a non-national language, like Esperanto must be given consideration.

An interesting video can be seen at and a glimpse of the language can be seen at

Ishmael Ben-Israel

In my humble opinion, the article for some strange reason fails to properly describe the scale of the online language learning phenomena. There must be thousands of such schools out there. Many of them owned by small entrepreneurs and giving the big institutionalized ones a run for their money, in terms of competitive pricing and service quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if their accumulative revenues greatly surpass that of the major players on the scene. I should mention that I manage such an online language school, called LingoLearn that provides Hebrew and Arabic courses with teachers in a virtual classroom for international students and a variety of other languages for Israeli clients. Check us out at and


I have learnt several languages, I have tried in different ways. (I was teaching, too). The Rosetta Stone method is good when there is no native speaker available and you want to get precise pronunciation: the voice recognition and comparison software is great (as it is e.g. with Byki). Immersion works - when you are present directly in the environment or when you use immersion tools (e.g. Pimsleur). Alas, you might end up being illiterate (not proficient in writing and/or reading, still understanding sound input and being able to produce the language orally). Well, there is no method "one size fits all", indeed. A learner HAS to use different ways and different books: as Thomas Aquinas wisely told "I fear the man of a single book" - it is true for language teaching/learning methods, too.

Kajal Sengupta

For those who are in the field of online learning of languages I might mention that there are other options available to do so . One of them is the virtual classroom of WizIQ ( ) . The reason why I prefer this virtual classroom is because this allows you to record the class which the students and teacher can view again and again. For students it is like attending same class again and again which is so useful for clearing doubts. Teachers can show the recording to new students thus helping them to make up their mind who might be wanting to join the class.



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