My mother is an ESL teacher and the college where she teaches uses Rosetta Stone as an important and very useful tool in their curriculum.

I used it for Portuguese years ago and was able to hold my own in Brazil after about 6 months of Rosetta Stone and private lessons before my trip. I even got my hair cut in Rio, negotiating the style and price and carrying on some sort of small talk with the stylist. I did not continue with Portuguese, however, so I could not hold a conversation now.

I have RS for Spanish and will be starting it up this winter for another trip to South America. I already can understand Spanish fairly well, but I really want to get better at speaking it.

I am fluent in French, but that took years of effort, daily conversation (my ex is French), a six-week immersion program in France, and 6 months of living over there and doing everything in French. All that was in addition to French classes from fourth grade through college. It was well-worth it, though, and it's such a wonderful experience to be bilingual. Although I no longer speak French on a daily basis due to a change in family situation, I still read it regularly and had no problems sliding right back in to speaking and thinking in French when I visited France last year.