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This seems roughly the right spot for this:

Has anyone ever tried that Rosetta Stone language learning software? I've read good things about it, but never met anyone who has tried it personally. My wife has a burning need for more Spanish, and frankly it's about time I actually learn German since I'm tired of not understanding half my relatives.

I'm not looking for fluency -- more "Catch the general gist of a conversation, and form primative sentences that get across my burning desire to find someplace that sells beer".

Donde esta la cerveza, punta?

Then when they tell you, you respond:

Chinga tu madre.

Have fun.

Here's a similar thread: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11214.0 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=11214.0)

My short opinion:  Rosetta stone is worth it if you're a very self-motivated person.  It's easy to get distracted when using a computer, and realizing you've barely used that rather expensive piece of software you bought six months ago is a :uhrr: moment.   If you're not so self-motivated, some language classes at a community college/center in your area might be worth looking into.

Thanks! Motivation isn't really a problem, and neither is the price -- I'm about 95% certain that I can get it MUCH cheaper. (God I love being technically a "college student" again. I think I've saved almost as much on software as this bloody degree is costing me).

http://www.radiolinguamedia.com/cbs/www/index.html

Learn Spanish via free Podcasts (though I think they have subscription plan for accompany PDF lessons)…

…bought a bunch of different CD packages but the simple podcast seems to be the most effective at getting basic lingo down…

Hard to find Japanese at the local community college, so just do what I did and don't learn anything. Amazing what you can accomplish when you expect everyone to speak English.

I did look at the web version of the Rosetta Stone software (subscription I think, so you can cancel any time) - much cheaper, and seemed like it'd be worthwhile if you wanted to pick up some basics.

I've not used it, but I did discuss it with a cousin a month ago who did and said it was pretty good. 

Not that I would advocate it, but I'm pretty sure there's a copy of the entire line of software on bit torrent. You know, like every language on the planet, or at least the civilized ones.  In case you need to back up your paid-for copies or something.

Helped me learn some basic French quite easily awhile back. Haven't used much since, so I suck now though.  :-) But it is a good program... I would say especially for anything using a Roman script [obviously...].

Well, I'll be there to check on your performance if you like. I love nitpicking German translations  ;D

Wo ist der hund?

In der stübe!

I'll just call my grandmother up. She's been living here almost 50 years, speaks flawless and quick English, and still reverts to German whenever she wants to express an idea fast.

Although I suspect her and my grandfather (he picked it up while stationed in Germany) speak German almost exclusively at home. It keeps him fluent for their every-other year trip and she likes speaking her native tongue, for obvious reasons.

My brother is proficient -- if barely -- in German. My mother is technically fluent, but needs a good week of being surrounded by German speakers before she speaks it like a native. (She lived in Germany until she was 7. I have no idea why it takes her so long to switch back. Here in America, she apparently does pidgin German. Stick her in Germany, and Germans can place her birthplace by accent. It's weird). My Aunt is fluent, and she's the younger sister. So are two of my three cousins. Hell, I'D speak the bloody language --badly --  if German hadn't conflicted with other classes in High School. (Did Latin instead).

So I've got plenty of people to hassle my grammer. :)

Accents stick around, but even first languages will be forgotten in a decade or two if not used, the same way most people will forget the vast majority of the 4 years of Spanish/French/German they took in high school.

Well, with my mom, I sort of suspect that getting called "Nazi" a lot between the ages of 8 and 11 probably had a lot to do with her burying German while in America. Kids can be cruel, and it couldn't have been more than five years since the end of WWII when she arrived in America.

My grandmother's rather amazing, actually. She got out of East Germany right before the Berlin wall went up and the Soviets got really pissy about border control. She makes the occasional comment about the two or so years she lived under the Russians (the timeline is a bit hazy for me, to be honest -- she doesn't talk about the whole 1935-1950 era too much, for obvious reasons) that reveal her to have gone through a lot more than you'd think of some sweet little old lady.

Has a hell of a sense of humor. She damn near got my grandfather arrested for abuse a few months back. :) She tripped and ended up with a wrenched shoulder, a NASTY black eye, and a cut chin. (Pretty light given she landed on rocks). The nurse asked what happened, and she pointed her thumb at her husband and said "I talked back.".

Fine as well. I just keep calling native speakers who write me bad emails for support calls on it! Its less evil than telling Foreigners that they have an umlaut were none should be.  Which would be hypocritical of me anyway, because I don't use Umlauts anymore. The internet taught me to avoid them long ago  :)

I got the level 1 JP package for Xmas, and...it's no joke. There's a LOT there, and their methods do make sense...sort of. One thing that sucks about their method is that different forms of words are not explained; sure, you can make sense of what they're putting your through, but you don't necessarily know the fine details.

For instance, in JP verbs can have a bunch of different forms, like Jumping up, down, across, and just jumping in general are different words.

I've been lazy about using it, but I think you could do a lot with it if you stick with it. It might be useful to have google at the ready though, to search for explanations of some of the things they do not teach in the program.

Also, at least for JP, they don't (as far as I can tell, in level 1) teach kanji/kata-kana. They make you write stuff, but you're using the Roman alphabet, so it kind of defeats the purpose.

If you just want verbal fluency, the Pimsleur audio stuff is pretty good.  Or at least the Russian, French, and Japanese are, which are the ones I've dealt with.

Rosetta Stone is much stronger for writing, but it's a little slower for verbal fluency.

My recommendation would be for her to get basic fluency with some Pimsleur or author audio system, then listen to a lot of Spanish Internet radio to immerse herself and pick up the pacing and pronunciation in realtime.  Good resources here:
http://www.multilingualbooks.com/online-radio.html