Rosetta Stone/Indonesian?

Question

So I studied Indonesian in high school, where I scored straight A's. I dropped it in my last year of school (five years ago) and recently picked it back up again.

I bought the Rosetta Stone program, a grammar book and a dictionary. I plan on visiting Indonesia next year for about 6-7 months, where I will be attending a language learning school there.

What would be the best course of action to prepare for it? Daily study, broken up into sessions of Rosetta Stone, grammar and phrases?

Will listening to radio help, even if I don't fully understand everything said?

Thanks

Answer 1

I found the Rosetta Stone pretty worthwhile for Spanish.  If you studied Indonesian in high school you'll probably find you remember a lot more than you think.  I got stuck in Austria on my own and hadn't spoken German since highschool about 15 years before - to my suprise I opened my mouth and out flew a heap of sentences I didn't even know that I knew!

Listening to radio and tv will help - you'll get a feel for the flow of the language spoken naturally.  You'll find once you're there though you'll pick it up pretty quickly.  A lot of Indonesians also speak very passable English.  You'll be fine!

Answer 2

Hey... I'm from Indonesia and I moved to Australia 6 years ago but within the first 6 months, I could speak and understand people pretty well. Don't worry, Indonesians tend to add English into their conversation because they're to lazy to think of proper words for something so I think you'll find it quite easy especially with straight A's! Just listen to people... familiarize! Remember... you shouldn't concentrate too much when having a conversation with someone. Just go with it, you'll find the "flow" of the conversation carrying you. Indonesian is a really easy language to learn. Good Luck on your visit! I haven't been there in 2 years and miss it terribly so have fun!

p.s. remember most of the sentence structures are the same but there may be some difference... If you can't cope, speak English! Go into malls (they've got tons of them) and most people who work there knows English