Rosetta: its problems, and how to fix them

Although I'm grateful for Rosetta Stone, it does have its problems.  Fortunately, they are surmountable.  Here's a resolution to each.

• It's not a textbook.  Right.  So buy a textbook (duh)
• It's not a grammar book either.  So get one of those.  I'll talk about that later
• It won't teach you kana or kanji.  See my earlier post on how to learn kana quickly and for free.  I'll talk about kanji in a subsequent post
• Sometimes even after getting the answer right I still don't understand the phrase that goes with the picture.  So I type it into Google Translate to get its meaning.  It works most of the time...
• It costs too much.  This is true.  So wait for a sale; no, search for a sale.  (I just looked at the Rosetta site and found two different pricing schemes for the same subscription.  It's worth checking!)  I bought mine for about half off as I recall, did the six-month option, and planned to finish it in time.  I'm almost done, with a month to go

Here are some extras to get the most out of Rosetta:

• Put it on your tablet and carry it everywhere.  It's much more convenient than only doing it at your computer
• If you're learning kanji (we'll get to that), alternate between kana view (when first learning vocabulary) and kanji (when reviewing it).  Sometimes you need the kana to nail the pronunciation
• To get the vocabulary in advance of the lesson, download the PDF transcripts Rosetta provides.  I wish they also just provided vocabulary lists, but ah well
• When vocabulary isn't sinking in... I keep a Word document of all Rosetta vocabulary I want to learn, both Japanese word and English version.  It's like flashcards without having to program Anki flashcards: I just cover up the Japanese, figure from the English version what it is, and then look to see if I was right.  It's work, but it's work pairing Japanese with meaning, so it's OK.  I also use mnemonics, which I'll talk about later
• Your subscription (I recommend the Web-based subscription, not CD's, as it turned out cheaper for me) may well include occasional tutoring sessions with a native speaker.  It can be stressful, but it's also good to make myself a deadline
• Sometimes Rosetta pairs things in the same lesson that are so close together it's confusing.  For example, okoshimasu (wake someone) and okimasu (wake oneself).  Solution:  don't stress on it.  Learn one, and go back later to learn the other
• Dialect:  Rosetta sometimes pronounces the g in the particle が (ga) as "ng" not "g"; it also will change "g" to "ng" inside certain words like えいが (eiga, meaning movie theater).  This is apparently an accepted but far from universal dialect trait.  A native speaker also tells me that "ng" and "g" are cognates here, that is, native speakers don't much notice the difference
• I'm currently in lesson 12 of 12, and I've recently started scanning for a word I know that goes with the picture rather than understanding the sentence.  I try to stop myself from answering till I've parsed the whole sentence

Later on I intend to listen to the "Audio Companion" mp3 files I've downloaded from the site -- simply the audio part of the lessons, I believe -- to keep myself from forgetting so much after my subscription's ended.  I have to admit, I expect it'll be boring.  Maybe I'll be ready for Chi's Sweet Home by then, or NHK NewsWeb Easy.