Dear Rosetta Stone Team,
I hear that Rosetta Stone is a great language learning system. I appeal to you to create a package that teaches Cantonese. I notice that you support languages like Welsh: number of total speakers: about 700,000. Irish: 400,000. Danish: 6,000,000.
Cantonese is spoken by around 80 million people. Furthermore, there is a substantial diaspora of Cantonese speakers in the Anglosphere–North America, the UK, and Australia, who have children and grandchildren that are a promising market for a Cantonese version of Rosetta Stone.
Yet you do not offer your system in Cantonese, the 18th most widely spoken language in the world?
What’s my interest? I am married to a Cantonese-American woman and would like to have a grasp of the language she uses to speak with her family. I am sure there are enough people in my shoes to support development of a Cantonese product. Stop neglecting this promising market segment.
11 responses so far ↓
@LaurenceTom // Feb 1, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Great plea! Love this. I think some schools in the West Coast started to classify Cantonese as an archaic language.
Jonny // Feb 1, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I mean, if they are supporting Welsh, I would think they can make money on Cantonese which as 100 times more speakers and a substantial USA diaspora. Hope Rosetta Stone is listening.
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Rosetta Stone // Feb 1, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Hi, Jonny.
We saw your tweet to @rosettastone on Twitter; we clicked and it brought us here.
Thanks so much for your message. We really appreciate all feedback that we can get, as it helps us to understand which languages people are interested in. We encourage you to fill out a language request form on our site regarding a Rosetta Stone Cantonese product: http://www.rosettastone.com/global/form/language-request. We love hearing suggestions and use them to help us determine which new products we will come out with next! You can stay tuned for updates on our Facebook Page (facebook.com/rosettastone), on Twitter (twitter.com/rosettastone), or on our Blog (blog.rosettastone.com). And do feel free to let us know about any other suggestions you have or if you have any questions for us!
Rosetta Stone Team
http://www.rosettastone.com
jonny goldstein // Feb 2, 2011 at 11:21 am
Thanks Rosetta Stone Team,
I requested it, as you suggested and will spread the word to other people in my network who I think might be interested in a Cantonese Rosetta Stone offering.
Robby Bryant // Jul 5, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Hi Johnny,
I put out an iOS app for iPhone, iPod, and iPad a week ago that teaches the most frequent 500 characters and their translations in both Cantonese and Mandarin against a Mahjong puzzle game.
I fully admit we haven’t put together a package as enticing as say, Rosetta Stone, but it is a mere $1.99
If you like Mahjong and have an iPhone you might give it a shot. Search for “TileSpeak Mahjong” in the app store.
Again for full disclosure, this is my product. We came across your post when researching Cantonese software alternatives, which I’m still keen on digesting as they become available.
I have a person very special to me who hails from Hong Kong, and we put my app together to help me speak with her parents next time we make a trip
I’ve memorized 72 of the most frequently used characters in 1 week and am already making sense of SF Chinatown. It’s proving to be a rewarding experience. Baby steps.
Best,
Robby
LSG918 // Aug 7, 2011 at 11:36 am
Awesome suggestion! We had an encounter w/ the Rosetta Stone product recently and the representative stated “Cantonese is a dying language.” This statement was far from true but if RS would consider making a Cantonese edition, I know my soon-to-be-husband and I would purchase it in a blink. He and my fanily would be able to actually communicate and I could brush up on it too! Hope they RS considers this product. Take care!
JWT // Aug 8, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I’ve been pestering Rosetta Stone for years to come up with a Cantonese language program but they always give me the runaround saying they’ll take my suggestion into consideration the next time they create a language program but to this day I still don’t see them even make a slight move in that direction. Cantonese is not a dying language! All that stuff you hear about it being a dying language are from people who are either afraid of learning the language and wish it would go away or from die hard Chinese nationalistic chauvinists bent on destroying any form of regional Chinese culture. Yet you don’t know how many non-Cantonese Chinese want to learn it and I’m sure many Westerners too. I’d sure want to learn Shanghainese too but I doubt Rosetta Stone would make a program for that either.
leesean // Aug 16, 2011 at 10:41 am
I’m half-Cantonese on my dad’s side, but he grew up in Taiwan and speaks Mandarin. My grandparents never taught their kids. My current office is in Chinatown, NYC, so I’m definitely interested in learning since I come in contact with the language all the time. I like Routledge’s Colloquial Cantonese for learning.
jonny goldstein // Aug 16, 2011 at 11:17 am
Leesan, JWT, and everybody,
Yeah, it’s strange to me that they support Welsh but not Cantonese. Cantonese has around 80 million speakers and a large diaspora population in English speaking countries who have children/spouses who would like to learn the language.
Let’s keep pestering Rosetta Stone!
Cho // Aug 18, 2011 at 1:35 pm
I think that they should produce Cantonese because there are no good free Cantonese resources around and they have languages that I have never heard of before – where’s Cantonese? As you say, it is the 18th most spoken language in the world and has roughly 80 million speakers! Rosetta Stone are losing a lot of money if they don’t make Cantonese!
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