The Rosetta Stone uses English as its basic platform and offers different software to teach several of the world's main languages. These include some of the most spoken languages in the world such as Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish and French. However, other languages such as Filipino, Hebrew and Thai are offered as well.
The overall program for a language is typically divided into three to five courses. Each course can be purchased separately and is designed to teach the language in increasing difficulty and complexity through each course. The first course covers most of the language basics such as pronunciation, vocabulary and conversational topics and sentences. The last course caps off the learning from previous volumes and introduces applications to specific topics such as politics and forming complex opinions. Lessons are mainly presented in an audio format with an interactive screen, but also contain numerous videos of native speakers to help students visualize speaking the language.
Courses are taught in a fairly standardized format regardless of language. This allowed researchers to test the effectiveness of the overall Rosetta Stone process with just one language as the sample. A study was done using the Spanish Rosetta Stone as a sample and in which several students' proficiency was tested using a standardized ACTFL language test. After taking the first course, 69 percent of the students showed one level of improvement and 25 percent showed two levels of improvement when compared to their pretest results.
The Rosetta Stone now holds the biggest market share in the language instruction industry and has achieved national fame. It is also the language software used by the U.S. military as they conduct overseas missions, and has proven particularly effective in eliminating the need for translators in civilian interaction. The Rosetta Stone also consistently wins awards in language learning --- most recently winning first place for foreign language learning at the Practical Homeschooling i-Learn Awards 2010.