Learning a second language

Honestly, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. When I was in college I learned far more German when I spent a summer in Vienna than in the 3 semesters of classes preceding it.
That isn't always possible though so you have to find the next best solution for your needs and learning style.
I used to work for Rosetta Stone (as an assistant/photographer) and am quite familiar with their method. If you have some time and patience it isn't a bad method I just don't know that it's worth the asking price (to me).
They try to get you as immersed in the language as possible and all the audio is done by native speakers. All the text (other than very basic help text) is in the language you are learning. I do know that they also offer some sort of online community where you can interact with native speakers as well as have actual group lessons with a teacher.
If you can find it used for a good deal (don't buy anything older than V.3) it is probably worth it.
If it was a useless method the Army wouldn't have given them a contract to make a version just for them (which was insanely fun to photograph for a few weeks down at Blackwater). If you look through V 3 or newer you can see the back of my head in a few places. I even got face time in a couple shots for the military product.

*standard disclaimer* I do not work for Rosetta Stone and left an unhappy camper but am trying to give an honest opinion of their software.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jhy7ZQC38

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Originally Posted by Caledonian

Esperanto was a marvelous idea, and deserved to take off once the United Nations got under way, and yet it is practically dead nowadays. Maybe that is because nobody loves it as his own, and I'm sure few people, even among Esperanto speakers, ever got into the habit of thinking directly in it. Look at the way Shakespeare, the Bible, Churchill, Billy Connolly and a host of other sources creep into our daily words. I don't believe that would happen with Esperanto.

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This is why Latin was considered the language of science. It's dead language, not subject to cultural amalgamations.

My only problem with Esperanto is that it's not truly a 'neutral' language. It's very Western European in structure, and those who already speak a Romantic language would have the easiest time learning it. Its presumptions are Eurocentric.

I'm a bilingual in Finnish and Swedish and doing more or less ok in Estonian (more) and German (could be better) too. The point is that if you want to learn a second language then you should be able to use it frequently or you will forget it, at least some of it. Using another language is the best way to keep it going.

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Originally Posted by ChesterCopperpot

This is why Latin was considered the language of science. It's dead language, not subject to cultural amalgamations.

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Latin is so related to many modern languages, say Spanish and Italian, and many anglosaxian languages has words that come directly from Latin. Back in my school days (so damn long ago) we had to study (write, read, speak) Latin for eight years. Now i'm sorry that i never understood to start studying Spanish or Italian shortly after that because it might have been relatively easy. I was only happy that my Latin days were over for good.

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Originally Posted by ChesterCopperpot

This is why Latin was considered the language of science. It's dead language, not subject to cultural amalgamations.

My only problem with Esperanto is that it's not truly a 'neutral' language. It's very Western European in structure, and those who already speak a Romantic language would have the easiest time learning it. Its presumptions are Eurocentric.

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Originally Posted by ChesterCopperpot

This is why Latin was considered the language of science. It's dead language, not subject to cultural amalgamations.

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That, and in the early Western civilization, it was the unifying language, like English nowdays.
Everything that used to be published then was often done in Latin because everyone who mattered could read it. That is why all doctors have to learn the Latin names for all human bones etc.

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My only problem with Esperanto is that it's not truly a 'neutral' language. It's very Western European in structure, and those who already speak a Romantic language would have the easiest time learning it. Its presumptions are Eurocentric.

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To a point you are right. However, if you want to design a language that is easy to learn (especially the character set) the arabic alphabet is much easier to build something with than the oriental ones. And you definitely want to leave out the tonal component, as well as the ambiguity of Japanese pronunciations.