Please note this is a sponsored post and I will be compensated if you click any links. However, the opinions are my own and I have bought my own Russian Rosetta Stone to supply these opinions.

Let me tell you the story of a 23 year old woman trying to get a bunch of older Filipino men to listen to her. Picture it. 2008. A cruise ship in Alaskan waters. A young stage manager. And a stage crew of close to thirty Filipino men who were maybe listening and maybe weren’t. Supposedly they all spoke English, and certainly some did, but the vast majority of the time, it was Tagalog you would hear onstage.

After an entire year of futile “please speak English, guys,” my then boyfriend surprised me with a Tagalog Rosetta Stone for Christmas. I had tried some of the free programs and even bought a book at Barnes & Noble in an effort to teach myself some Tagalog, but other than a few questionable swear words I’d learned from my stage crew, I wasn’t really getting anywhere.

I committed 30 minutes a day to that Rosetta Stone and in about 3 months I started to notice I had a general idea of what they were all saying. Around 6 months, I was catching 80% of the gist. I had an incredible payoff moment when I asked them to set up something for the next day before leaving for the night and one of them turned to the group and, in Tagalog, said they should all get dinner and then come back and do it. I was halfway up the steps out of the theater when I turned around and yelled “it will take like five minutes! Do it before you eat please!”

I’ll never forget the looks on their faces. Worth every second of Rosetta Stone effort.

And here’s the thing about Rosetta Stone effort – it’s not so bad. Learning is learning, and like anything else, there are definitely some types of lessons I like more than others, but I’ve never found my 30 minute Rosetta Stone goal times to be particularly painful. That small time commitment has had more effect than years of trying to teach myself any language.

Heck, it’s been more effective than 3 years of Spanish, 1 year of Italian, 2 semesters of Russian, 2 semesters of Hebrew and 1 semester of Greek in high school and college ever were.

You might be wondering, why bother? My crew were supposed to speak English, so why not just force them to speak English?

Hopefully, as a stage manager, the reason is already clear to you. We try to be the types that go above and beyond to create a good work atmosphere, right? I could tell those guys “English, please” until I was blue in the face, but if one of my best carpenters barely passed his English exam and really only knows like 10 words… guess what, guys will translating for him in Tagalog.

But let’s move on from this example for a bit, as a stage manager, knowing more languages makes you much more employable. It’s no secret on this site that one of my goal companies to work for is Cirque du Soleil and while it’s possible to stage manager there without speaking French, if you do speak French, it’s a major bump up with them.

I’ve seen listings on all the job boards where fluency in a second language will put you ahead of everyone else in the running for a job.

You might think my Rosetta Stone days are as behind me as my cruise ship days, but I still work in all kinds of environments where knowing another language is incredibly helpful.

Personally, I’ve been working on my Russian again because if you want to work for a circus, Russian and Spanish are two great languages to know. Circus performers come from all over the world (and actually, Chinese wouldn’t hurt either), but knowing those three languages will give you a leg up on communicating with your cast. This year we have a large Russian contingent joining us and it seemed like a good time to brush off the Rosetta Stone.

Foreign languages aren’t just prevalent in the circus. Are you really into opera? Learning Italian and German should be high on your to do list.

Here are five things that I feel set Rosetta Stone apart:

1. Super easy to navigate system. You don’t have to read anything about how it works. You literally start the first lesson and the whole things runs in an obvious way.
2. Full immersion in the language while you’re working on it. The language classes only use the language you’re trying to learn.
3. You can learn on your laptop and mobile phone at the same time. This means I can sit down and focus on a big lesson on my laptop and then work some vocab or easy phrases on my phone the next time I’m waiting in a line somewhere.
4. The cost. Now, I know the cost is where most people flinch and I do totally get that. To me though, the cost of a Rosetta Stone is way cheaper than most other language programs that really work and by spending money on the program, that pushes me to actually use it.
5. Its kind of fun. The majority of lessons feel a little like a game to me and I’ve never once felt the same way I did as a 15 year old sitting in Spanish class and counting the seconds until the bell rang.

So if you’re looking for ways to invest in yourself as a stage manager and picking up another language is appealing to you – you can check out Rosetta Stone here and have a new line for your resume before you know it.

And, of course, over here on brokeGIRLrich, we’re all about budgets and staying on top of your numbers, so what exactly does this cost? Check out the prices:

Rosetta Stone also offers a Military discount that you can learn about here and a Student discount you can learn about here.