Why I buy this one ?
- Rosetta Stone helps you understand everyday language through our proficiency-based listening and reading activities
- You will pronounce words correctly after practicing with our proprietary speech comparison tool
- Find the words you need when you need them Connecting new language directly to real-life images means the words spring to mind when you're in everyday contexts
- Rosetta Stone teaches you to spell and write accurately Language-specific keyboards and drag and drop tiles perfect your writing skills
- Learn to communicate by quickly combining words and phrases into complete sentences and dialogue

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What our customer's say!

"Waste of money!", The "total immersion method" touted for this program is highly overrated. Random Japanese phrases are associated with various pictures and, starting as early as the first lesson, complex phrasing & concepts are introduced with no explanation. They can only be deciphered by using a Japanese-English dictionary, which is exactly what this program says is NOT necessary.

That is the type of hypocrisy that I find annoying. Very often, the pictures are unclear as to what the phrase actually means and the student is merely memorizing random phrases through unending repetition without really comprehending their meaning.

The program does nothing to prepare one to creatively construct ad hoc Japanese expressions customized to what one wants to say.

I, for one, could care less what the Japanese words for elephant & airplane are when I know I will never be touching those topics, but they are contained in the very first lesson. Also, having to fish through a Japanese translation dictionary to decipher the lesson phrases does not enhance the learning experience at all.

All this neglects the different written language systems that are not effectively taught in this program. There are 3 native Japanese written systems, besides the western alphabet transliteration (Roomaji). Rosetta Stone does not teach correct stroke order, etc. for writing these symbols and merely presents them in their completed, typewritten form.

This is yet another area in which this system fails to meet its advertised effectiveness.

I really regret waiting so long to start using the program because now I can't return it & am out over $300. for a useless piece of junk.

If you want a more interesting & useful method of learning Japanese, try Rocket Japanese (from rocketlanguages.com).


"Glad I bought it!", The other reviews for this product were "spot on". There is no hand holding in this learning process which makes it entirely up to you to learn the language. But I did start learning right away. And that's what I wanted in the first place. Don't forget to purchase a cross-translation dictionary, because it will help you to determine exactly what you are saying. Good luck!

"Both more and less effective than I had anticipated", One thing I couldn't figure out before buying the product was how they would manage the writing practice. In case others are curious, here's the deal. For most exercises, you can toggle between romaji (transliterated Japanese using our alphabet), kana (the phonetic syllabaries), or kanji (the way Japanese is really written, a combination of Chinese ideograms and kana). There are some writing exercises where you can just type in the romaji. There are others where they give you panes with different characters on them and you have to click the correct characters in the correct order to create the sentence (you can opt to do either kana or kanji for these). It's a little tedious--I get frustrated spending so much time just scanning the lines for the correct character to click on. Obviously you will never learn how to truly write with correct stroke order or anything from the software, so I definitely recommend a supplemental workbook or two if that is important to you. But, on the bright side, my kanji recognition / reading has dramatically improved.

Also, I thought from reading the system requirements that I would have to buy my own microphone so I ordered one ahead of time. I was wrong--it is included with the software.

Otherwise, I've been both impressed and a little disappointed with the software. It is definitely considerably more interesting than most types of studying, which helps me to use it more often and for longer periods of time. Also, it builds on the vocabulary you have already learned in a really helpful way. Review is naturally built in, so by level 8 you know the vocab from level 2 a lot better than before, rather than having half-forgotten it by that time. There are a variety of options so you can customize the way you study to your learning style and goals--and switch it up somewhat to keep yourself interested. There are some things that I learned quite quickly using the software that I just could not get to stick in my head using other methods (like flash cards or classroom repetition).

On the other hand, I definitely agree with the other reviewer who suggests a dictionary. It can be difficult to follow even with a dictionary sometimes (I may not know the dictionary form of a verb, for example). Sometimes it's easy and/or fun to figure out what phrases are matched to the pictures they show you, but other times it's quite challenging and no translation is ever provided. There has already been at least one time when I thought I was saying one phrase when I was actually saying another. I had to rather painfully unlearn what I thought I knew. I have mixed feelings about the "immersion" method--I'm all for thinking in the new language as soon as possible and not forcing awkward translations into English that don't really work or trying to make sense of everything in terms of grammatical rules that often have a bunch of exceptions anyway. But, on the other hand, as adults already fluent in one language, we're inevitably going to translate phrases into English in our heads regardless, and it seems like it would be useful to be able to check that we're translating them as accurately as possible. And I've heard the theory that the one and only advantage adults have over children in terms of language acquisition is that we can understand abstract rules and systems, so we might as well take advantage of that by learning and applying some grammar rules.

Also, the software isn't as smart as I thought it might be. I had hoped it would remember my strong and weak areas and customize the questions it asked me based on my progress over time. Unfortunately, it only does that in a very limited way and only while you're doing an exercise of one particular type. As soon as you finish that exercise, it forgets everything. There is a test function and you can look back on your scores from past tests, but you have to be careful to log on--the default setting is to study as a "guest," in which case it won't even remember your test scores.

The voice recognition analysis I find to be pretty useless. Most times it gives me the same abysmal rating regardless of whether I'm doing my most precise mimicry of the Japanese I'm hearing, or simply humming monotone or speaking gibberish (I've tested). Sometimes, if I have no other programs running, have no background noise, have the microphone positioned just right, etc., etc., it gives me real readings, but it almost always seems to be those other factors it's rating rather than my actual pronunciation. However, just hearing my recorded voice repeated back to me after a native speaker is really useful and I think has helped me to improve.

Overall, I am pleased with the software--my Japanese is getting better, which is what matters.


"Easiest way to learn a language", If you need to learn a language in a short period of time, here is the solution!

"Good but not what I expected", Having paid about 300 for this I expected this program to not only be a good learning product but also have a well designed user interface. Instead, it looks rather cheap and plain. Considering I've only put about 2 hours in this program so far, I'd say it's pretty good on the learning side of things. However, being Japanese and having somewhat of a background in the language I'd also say that this program might be a bit hard to catch on for anyone who has no experience in Japanese. From the short time I've spent with it, it really does just kind of throw you in the language without any kind of help in english. Keep in mind though, I've barely spent any time with it and I do like it better than every other program I've tried.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Very good product!", I tried the free online version of this on Rosetta Stone's website before opting to buy it.

I have been studying Japanese for about a year and a half and I found that I learned just as many words or more using this software in one night that I might only learn in one week of studying directly from text books.

However, I highly recommend purchasing a Japanese dictionary with it because it's easy to get lost along the way, especially if you have never studied Japanese before. Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary

"So far, so good. ", So far this product has helped me really start to get a feel for the Japanese language. I love being able to hear it how it is actually spoken and so far I really enjoy the lessons where you compare the vocal sentences to pictures. It feels very interactive and although I have been to busy to really advance in it yet, I found after the first week I was able to count accurately in Japanese and although I can't speak yet, I can understand basic words. I'm very impressed and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for me with this product.