Do those language learning tapes work?

I’ve had pretty good luck with the Pimsleur progarms – they are mostly oral. I did the Italian for Beginners before spending a month in Italy and was able to have basic conversations with people right away. I’m doing the Spanish II now and think it’s pretty good too. The downside to those is that they are pretty pricey.

I started using Rosetta Stone (for Russian) a few months back. I took Russian for a long time when I was younger, so I am trying to re-learn it. I love the program. The way it is presented is more of an immersion type of set-up, which I think is the best way to learn a language (i.e. go to the country). So far, I haven’t forgotten any of what I’d learned, and I haven’t been all that great at keeping up with it (I’m a grad student, “stuff” gets in the way…) But I would recommend to you to do some research and see what you would like the best. The downside of Rosetta Stone is that you can’t take it in you car with you (like a “book on tape” kind of thing). You have to have it at your computer. It is pricey, though. I think for both levels of Russian, it set me back around $300. But the way I thought of it was that is less that it would cost me to take all the required college courses, so it was worth it. Happy hunting!

Yea, Rosetta Stone is quite good. I’ve tried learning French, but I think I should do some advanced English too.

I’ve also tried a learning disk (not from the corp. that made Rosetta Stone) for learning German, but I didn’t learn much.

You should try watching Spanish soap-operas with English subtitles. It helps.

Tapes can be good practice and ear-conditioning. Also useful can be internet chatting with native speakers.