Thirsting for Knowledge: Dictionaries and Rosetta Stone

Tutoring lessons are working out well for me. But they go pretty slow since I can only meet with my tutor once on the weekends. One chapter a week for acquiring language is decent, but I want to learn faster.

One way I’ve done this is to purchase a Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary program for my PDA. Most language dictionaries worth their salt in Korea only go one way, which requires you to buy two dictionaries. This gets pretty heavy to carry around, so I decided to spend the $40 and get one that’s more portable. I would usually just use the internet, but as I don’t have internet access at home, this can prove impractical for when I’m studying at home.

Another way I’m trying to do this is to acquire a copy of Rosetta Stone-Korean, preferably for Mac OS X so I can use it with my laptop. Rosetta Stone is a superb computer language learning program that is used by international businesses and even has the endorsement of the U.S. State Department and Militaries as being an effective way to acquire language relatively quickly.

The problem is, Koreans don’t sell Korean language learning programs on a regular basis. (Yet, it’s relatively easy to find English language programs in the U.S…. Hm…) I’d probably have to go to Seoul to get one. I could just order it on the internet of course, but U.S. sites can’t ship into Korea and to order on Korean sites I need a Korean identification number. (That’s right. Only Koreans can buy online in Korea.)

When I contacted Rosetta Stone customer support from the U.S. site about them shipping it to Korea, they weren’t too helpful. They told me to order it online in Korea (which they apparently don’t know I can’t do as a foreigner) or use the internet version (which is real helpful since I have no internet at home, where I do most of my language studying).

All that’s to say, if you happen to have about $300 to blow on the program and another $30 to blow on shipping, send it on over to me, will you? Just kidding. Don’t. Or if you do, tell me. I don’t want 80 copies of Rosetta Stone. (Then again, I could probably sell them over here…)