Just curious if anyone here has had any hands on experience with this for learning Japanese. I've been hearing commercials on the radio about it (which is very odd since I listen to a rock station). I did look into it a while back as a possible way of starting to learn however the demo didnt like my system and wouldnt work. Anyway, Can someone say if its a good way to start or not? http://www.rosettastone.com/
I couldn't tell you about Rosetta Stone, but I'm using the Pimsleur audio CDs (ten lesson, six-CD set) I found at Barnes & Noble for $20 and there's a software version for $40 (though I don't know much about that one). The nice thing about the Pimsleur set, imo, is the fact that even in latter lessons, words are re-emphasized that were learned in previous lessons (for example, "understand" is learned in lesson one, and re-emphasized as far as lesson four (maybe later, but I'm not that far yet)). Mind you, this will only allow you to half-ass a simple conversation at best, but it's better than nothing.
My highschool had Rosetta Stone many years ago, it was suited best for flashcard type stuff like kanji and vocab. No software or audiobooks will ever really prepare you for a language, you really need to take a class to immerse yourself somewhat in the language and learn the nitty gritty grammar from textbooks, not just remember phrases, they'll only get you so far.
