I'm not interested in writing or being able to read Chinese, I just want to be able to speak and communicate with people.

The idea of learning a language in a class room environment is torture to me.

My plan is to use the Rosetta Stone for my first semester and study abroad in China during my second semester. I hope that by using the Rosetta Stone I can have a fairly good understanding of the language and when I finally get to China, my Mandarin could only improve even more.

you can't learn a language that is not close to yaours at all from a cd or whatever. you need to get a native person to help you or go to china