Experience with Rosetta Stone?

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm finally starting to seriously consider learning a second language - specifically, I'm interested in German. But I'll need a good language tutoring software to do it with, since I don't have any opportunities to take in-person classes. Obviously Rosetta Stone jumps to mind as the 800-pound industry gorilla, but has anyone here actually used it to learn a language? Anyone that can give advice or critiques of RS, or if there's a different program that worked better for them, to suggest looking into instead?

[Kuroneko]

I have Rosetta Stone for both Japanese and Gaelic. I've used it more for Japanese. It's all based on image and word recognition, which helped me a great deal because I'm very visual; but since I'd had a semester of Japanese in college way back when, I sometimes found it a bit frustrating, because the picture didn't always offer a clue why they were using a particular verb tense. I still find it useful for vocabulary, though I have two other language programs/systems for Japanese that I now use more. The first is Rocket Languages, which is fantastic. You purchase access at any number of levels and get life long access to the online interface. It contains language lessons, self testing (oral and written), pronunciation evaluation, conversations, culture lessons, flash cards (including ones you can make yourself). They regularly have incredible sales for the product and it's much cheaper than Rosetta Stone. I also have Living Languages for Japanese and French, a set of books which I really like for writing the language. Plus, it comes with CD's that I can use in the car on the long drive to and from work.

I'd suggest looking at Rocket Languages over Rosetta Stone, personally. I found it's really helped me improve my conversation skills.