If you want your child to REALLY learn a foreign language then you have to be willing to invest in the program

You already know what I'm going to say so I'm just gonna get it over with. Two Words.

Rosetta Stone.

Like I said, I scoured the internet for the best program to teach Little Moe Japanese and he's been using it now for 6 months. YES, he speaks Japanese, and he understands it even better. He just passed his first mile-stone test and at first he was nervous and afraid that he'd do horrible.

But when it was over he said it was easy!

YAY for Rosetta Stone!

Now here is one complaint that I've heard from other homeschool moms who've tried it - it doesn't teach grammar.

They're correct, the purpose of Rosetta Stone is to teach language naturally, through immersion.

It does not make anyone memorize anything.

That is not the point of the program. The whole point is to be able to think in the new language without thinking. I've taken a few weeks worth of the lessons and I can see the process.

You learn by hearing. You will instinctively know which form of the word to use the same way you know that we don't say "he are" in English. We just KNOW it is wrong.

So, that is the concept of immersion. I have to say, this works. I found myself after only a few weeks, knowing which form of a word to use, but I had no idea what the word actually meant. I could guess that it meant something like we or kids or group of random people, but no where do they ever tell you the English translation. I even tried to out-smart them and download the book that goes with the English program, thinking I could match up the lessons and get a translation that way...sneaky me.

Nope. RS had me pegged from the get go, as well as every other control freak out there, I imagine.

The lessons don't match. I got like two words translated out of the whole book and that was it.

I decided to trust that they know what they are doing and just let it go.

The other program worth mentioning in this category is Rocket Languages.

Non-standard languages like Japanese and Chinese are also offered.

I really like the fact that they offer American Sign Language as a language option too. I know there are quite a few homeschoolers who do that, especially with the little ones.

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