Good base, but not nearly enough to learn a language

As someone fluent in Spanish, I went through a few level three lessons after a friend of mine complained he did not feel he was learning the language. For its' price, Rosetta Stone does little more than give you a good starting place for learning a language.

The program never teaches you direct transaltion or grammer. Instead, it tries to teach you the language by having you memorize phrases that accompany a series of pictures. I think it would be very easy for someone not to understand the exact meaning of a word through this method. The method also doesn't take into account the fact that, while the phrase used by the program is correct, there are many ways to describe what is going on in the pictures.

Furthermore, I don't think the program requires you to produce enough of the language on your own. Foreign languages are always best learned through speaking and writing exercises, not lisening and reading exercises.

This program also should have some sort of grammer guide so that users are not limited to only the exact expressions they learn while using the program.

While I did not go through all three level, I think the teaching style can also get quite boring. I would instead recommend getting the Pimsleur audio tapes along with a book on grammer and writing.