Living the Italian Dream - Madeleine De Villiers Case Study
2007 April, 25
A 26-year-old economist and wine enthusiast has found Rosetta Stone an extremely useful language learning tool.
When 26-year-old economist and wine enthusiast Madeleine de Villiers first travelled to Italy in 2004, she fell in love with the country and its culture. From the vineyards of Tuscany to the ruins of Rome she was truly enchanted by the Italian way of life.
Having spent three years working in London, with regular visits to Italy, Madeleine has now decided to give it all up to follow her Italian dream. She will spend this summer in Perugia, Umbria, basking in the Mediterranean sunshine and learning about the wines of the region.
Her Italian adventure starts at the end of June and Madeleine has decided to prepare herself by learning basic Italian in advance. Having previously attended evening classes and tried language tapes, Madeleine came across Rosetta Stone’s award winning language software and thought she would give it a try.
She signed up for a Rosetta Stone online Italian account (the software is also available on CD Rom) and was immediately impressed by the effectiveness of Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion™ methodology. The software teaches via context, pairing words and phrases with images and regularly reinforcing and building up vocabulary. With no list-learning, translation or grammar drills, Rosetta Stone offers an easy and fun way of learning, and unique voice recognition technology enables the learner to monitor accent and pronunciation.
Madeleine has found Rosetta Stone an extremely useful language learning tool. In particular she enjoys the flexibility it affords – as a busy professional she is able to learn in her own time and at her own pace.
She comments: “Rosetta Stone has really helped me to develop my Italian language skills. At first I was surprised that the lessons didn’t start with the usual greetings and introductions, but this method of slowly introducing new vocabulary and grammar has proved really effective. Rather than learning whole phrases by heart, I am getting a deeper understanding of the way in which the language works – a much more useful technique. I think my summer in Umbria will be more fun and enriching now that I have a grasp of the language.”
