I am learning Mandarin Chinese to hopefully give me more career opportunities after college. I haven't heard great things about Rosetta Stone so hopefully some of you have some experience learning the language.

Ryan,

Pimsleur has an interesting course. The
Pimsleur Conversational Mandarin is one of the most popular programs they have.
http://www.pimsleurdirect.com/s.nl?sc=15&category=316&gclid=CMOPrbK71IwCFQJUZQod1HGRtA

I tried Rosetta Stone for Spanish. It does not have any translation, grammar or conjugation instructions though so it will be very hard to go beyond the basics with it. There is no way to be fluent with it. Their program is based on the same thing where you see these 4 pictures over and over again. I was disappointed especially for the price I paid.

My college uses a software called TeLL me More, by Auralog. It covers not only the basics, but also intermediate or advanced level. It is also a lot less repetitive. My goal was to become fluent so it was perfect for me. It has a lot of different activities: picture/word association, videos, dialogues,..., includes also grammar and conjugation. It has also more content than any other language software. Their speech recognition is great so you can have a dialogue with the computer. You can check out their website at http://www.auralog.com for a free demo and compare too. You can check out independent reviews on the web too http://www.toptenreviews.com or about.com websites.

The best way to learn a language would be through immersion, visiting these countries. Learning a language will require some time. In addition to software, you can have books which are useful as well. Audio CDs like Pimsleur for instance might help you out but you cannot get any feedback on your pronunciation so I did not like it so much