Language Learning Software Gets Axed

Due to budget cuts, Harvard’s Language Resource Center will no longer offer students free memberships to Rosetta Stone, a self-study language computer program.

Year-long subscriptions to the program, which had been available free of charge exclusively to students for the past two years, will now be available to both students and staff for $110, 20 percent of the $539 market price.

According to Associate Dean Robert G. Doyle, free access to Rosetta Stone had not previously been available to staff because funding only covered students.

The LRC had been willing to pay full price for the second year of subscription for student access, but because of the 15 percent FAS-wide budget cut, the service had to be terminated.

Of the 50 discounted subscriptions purchased so far, three have been purchased by students.

Doyle said that if too few memberships are purchased, the program will have to be canceled because the LRC cannot afford to lose money.

According to a survey conducted at the end of the ’08-’09 academic year, 105 of the 379 students who signed up to use Rosetta Stone logged in more than one hour per week.

Doyle said that primary use for the program seemed to stem from graduate students who needed to refresh their memories in order to prepare for their Ph.D foreign language exams.

Undergraduates said they were interested in using Rosetta Stone to practice languages for travel.

Marino F. Auffant ’10 was one of those students.

Auffant signed up for Rosetta Stone’s Korean program because he was going to be traveling to Korea over the summer and wanted to review what he’d learned before and during freshman year.

Although he said that he would recommend the program to those interested in being introduced to a new language, he added that “it was helpful, but only at an elementary level.”

On the other hand, Rebecca K. Gilmore ’12 said she thought the program was effective. She said it was a great program, especially for those with enough dedication to log in on a weekly basis.

Gilmore took Italian through Rosetta Stone because her undergraduate course schedule would not allow her to take any more languages.

Though she said she understands why the funding for free access to Rosetta Stone had to be cut, she said that she “would like to be able to think that when things have stabilized, even if it’s after I’ve graduated, they’ll bring it back.”

—Staff Writer Beverly Pozuelos can be reached at pozuelos@fas.harvard.edu.