Rosetta Stone Software?

[Dot50Cal]

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/

[EvilWays]

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.

[Calpis]

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.