Knowledge in bite sized pieces I am on Spanish level 5 and have learned the imperfect verb tense from this program. They give the conditions under which the imperfect is used in bite sized pieces with one condition per lesson. I am pleased with how my knowledge has grown. Due to the extensive reviews and interactivity I find that I am retaining what I learn better than I have with other methods of learning such as reading textbooks. I only wish there were more levels.

fluenz I have tried Rosetta Stone and French in Action. I feel I am learning quicker with Fluenz. My only criticism is the DVD doesn't give one enough time to think of the reply in French before the answer is given and sometimes I can't understand what is being said.

Great, real world language learning tool I had thought about purchasing other language "learn at your own pace" software for Italian for a few years. I finally decided to go ahead and buy one and stumbled upon Fluenz. I had never heard of it prior to this and was about to buy Rosetta Stone since I had their free demo. Fluenz, had a different approach, however, which was to teach conversational Italian - words, phrases, etc. which would be used in the real world. All the lessons are presented in an interesting way with explanations of why words and phrases are used. I decided I'd buy it and I'm extremely pleased with the teaching approach. It teaches you the language in a way you can use almost immediately with phrases which you will use on a trip to Italy - what you learn is everyday speaking. Definitely would recommend!

Did not work well in China online I tried to use Learn Mandarin in China, specifically Qindao and had both performance problems and an inability to set it up to learn Chinese characters. Now that I'm back in the US, I'll try again, but it was sure a let down not to be able to use the learning while I was in China for 2 months.

Fluenz is a great program for when you're traveling abroad. I have tried many different language courses and Fluenz I thought was a simple course that can be done at any time during my free time. I just spent an hour a day on each lesson and it helped me to learn a lot. Fluenz is pretty similar to Rosetta Stone, but it also has some differences. Fluenz is a good program is you are traveling abroad.