THE QUESTION:
"What is the best method of learning German?"
MY ANSWER:
"I don't agree with the other answer. Yes, if you want to learn a language you need to put in hard effort and practice, but to say that in order to achieve fluency, you must study strenuously is a little mendacious. I was born a bilingual, and raised speaking my mother tongue (Persian) and English as my second language, both fluently. The only way you can hope to learn any language and become fluent, you must have passion.Is German something that you are passionate about? If so, then the process should not be "boring".Be prudent, however. Being fluent at any language is not something that you can do overnight or in a week.As for German, French, Spanish, Italian, or any language that uses the Latin alphabet, it will be at least 3 years to be able to speak in basic conversations.In order to speak at an advanced/native level as a native German it will be around 5-15 years all depending on how much you study.
To answer your question, I find that if you are not taking a class or tutored, then you can easily use numerous resources from the internet and of course, books. For example, the first things you learn are "Hello", "what is your name", "my name is..", "How are you?" etc, and all that can be found here
http://www.languagehelpers.com/words/german/basics.html
or if you want to have a reference in your hands you can find a German phrasebook (also includes vocabulary), a dictionary or a "501 German Verbs" book at any Barnes & Noble booksellers which is 501 verbs that are conjugated and in present, past, future, etc. I own "501 French Verbs" and it's very helpful in French class and I remember it cost less than $10.
As for language learning software like Rosetta Stone, I've personally never used one before so I cannot speak on behalf of that. However, I will admit I've had friends who used Instant Immersion software and I heard it was good, and it's a better deal than Rosetta Stone.
Instant Immersion German (level 1, 2, 3) is around $20-$40 at Barns & Noble
Rosetta Stone German (level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is $350-$499!
In my opinion that is an extreme price, I recommend Instant Immersion. That way, you won't spend a fortune and you can see if you actually like language software or not and if you do, you can "upgrade" to Rosetta Stone if you wish, once you are at an intermediate level.
Finally, it will help you SO much if you have a German speaking friend that you can practice with or they can correct your mistakes for you. Even the most authentic or reliable websites or books can be wrong at times. When you have a German speaker "coaching" you they can help you a lot more than you think. Like I mentioned before, my mother tongue is Persian, and I am fluent at speaking/writing. The translations presented on "Google Translate" are absolutely laughable.It may be due to the fact that Persian is more complex than the common Romance languages because it uses a different script/alphabet and it is Subject-Object-Verb (ex. "Sarah cooked an eggplant" would be "Sarah eggplant cooked") I know that sounds crazy to English speakers, but it's the same to us Persians when someone says "Mary ate an apple" when we would say "Mary apple ate". Nevertheless, Google Translate's translations were terrible. THE BOTTOM POINT IS that any living, breathing human being that speaks German will be 1000x more helpful than any expensive translators or software. BUT, Google Translate does an OK job for simple sentences and words.
Sorry, this turned out longer than I thought it would. Please have fun, and study hard! German is a beautiful language!"
By the way, the question that I answered this for was resolved when I tried to submit this..sad right?
>>> Is this good advice for anyone looking to learn a language?