I was wondering if Rosetta Stone Level I ever gets beyond the words for apple, bread, eggs, sandwich, boy, girl, man, woman, dog, cat. Does it ever get into useful everyday phrases? It's so repetitive of the same words.

Rosetta Stone alone won't teach you any language, it's only supplementary. I believe it was originally designed as a classroom activity.

Here what helps me:

- Read/watch the local news in Portuguese
- Find Brazilians to talk to on an everyday basis in Portuguese.
- Make sure that everyday you're SPEAKING more Portuguese than English

For me, the tough part about Portuguese is that there are a few sounds and sound patterns that don't exist in English. However once you get these down, it's smooth sailing.

I always laugh when I see the Rosetta Stone commercials where people say they got fluent using it. If that's your plan, it won't work! It will teach you a lot of vocabulary but that's it. The only way to learn it is to take real classes with a native teacher, and or live in Brasil. You will learn more portuguese in brasil in a supermarket than you will learn with any software.

Might I also recommend Livemocha.com at the same time though. It's free, and just as good as rosetta stone if not better, and you can practice your portuguese with real people and help other brasileiros learn english at the same time. It helped me immensely in getting me where I am language wise.

As others say it's a great supplement but in the end immersion is the only way. You could do the entire program course to the tee, go back retest it until you score 100% on everything, but then go and immerse yourself with some brasilian friends in brasil for 2-3 weeks and learn more than the entire course.