What are thoughts on Rosetta Stone? I've been using it for about a year now and I can hold basic conversations and (with the help of a dictionary for stroke orders) can write/ read basic sentences. For the most part, I like RS very much due to the fact that there is not a single word of English spoken in the program and I like how the program is structured so that each section uses the last as a base while it adds much new content each section. Also, it is nice that it forces you to formulate your own sentences and speak them (which is essential to learning any language.) What I don't like is how the images can be very unspecific (like it would show an image of two people standing together and talk about height while you have no clue whatsoever what they're talking about) and the fact that it teaches you nothing about writing kana or kanji. In fact, the only thing that I could find that really helped with that was the $20 JP dictionary app for my iPod touch.