Features:  

Rosetta Stone Japanese has an excellent progress tracking feature that compiles records of your performance into one screen that easily lets you see where you have been and how well you have done. This helps you identify where you need the most practice. Rosetta Stone also gives you full control of which lessons you do and in what order, which is nice if you know exactly where you need the most work.

One of the few disappointments of using Rosetta Stone is the lack of compatibility with mobile devices. Many other language programs allow you to put lessons on a PDA or MP3 player, but Rosetta Stone has yet to offer such a function.

Fundamentals:  

All the basics are covered when you use Rosetta Stone to learn Japanese. The program uses an intuitive mix of images and voice clips from native speakers to teach vocabulary and how it should be used. By having you discover these words in context, you retain the meanings better and learn faster. The Rosetta Stone speech recognition system then lets you practice pronunciation and conversation.

Ease of Use:  

This is where Rosetta Stone soars above the competition. Rosetta Stone is so simple that you probably won’t need to watch the tutorial to understand how the interface works. Each exercise has a set of limited options, and you can easily return to the main menu at any point.

Teaching Tools:  

The Rosetta Stone curriculum for learning Japanese only uses a few tools for teaching. It doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as other language programs, instead focusing on making a few tools more efficient.

Rosetta Stone primarily uses images and sound clips of native speakers to help you associate words with images and ideas, just like the way you learned English. Then Rosetta Stone incorporates word recognition activities and speech recognition to practice new words and concepts. The system works very well without the program ever needing to translate something or give explicit grammar lessons.

Word Tools:  

This is the only area where Rosetta Stone is lacking. Rosetta Stone doesn’t include much in the way of glossaries or grammar texts. Arguably, the Rosetta Stone teaching system makes them obsolete, but some people still like the reassurance of a dictionary.

On the other hand, there are easy ways to display and learn the three alphabets of the Japanese language, hiragana, katakana and kanji. These features help you learn and practice them so you can read as well as speak Japanese.

Tech Support:  

The manufacturers of Rosetta Stone Japanese include plenty of information for solving problems or learning how to navigate the program. The Rosetta Stone user manual and the FAQ answer most questions you will have, and there are email and phone support channels if you have bigger technical issues.

It doesn't have to be hard to learn Japanese, and Rosetta Stone Japanese proves it. Rosetta Stone is well worth the price because it makes the learning process so simple and intuitive.