Chinese Language Learning Software - The 3 Best Chinese Language Learning Software Programs Online

1. Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone, having recently upgraded most of their language programs is now significantly better than the old 2.0 version. Rosetta Stone uses word/picture association to teach people Chinese, which is Rosetta Stone's attempt to simulate how we all learned our first language as toddlers, by observing an action and the word that is connected to it. It works mostly, only sometimes do the pictures seem a little ambiguous. The biggest drawback to Rosetta Stone is the price, being over $500 puts it out of reach for most people. It's great if you can afford it.

2. Fluenz Mandarin

Fluenz is a newer company than Rosetta Stone, and has been pretty aggressive in it's comparisons to Rosetta Stone, directly challenging the whole, "learn Chinese like you learned your first language!" thing. As for the actual content, Fluenz has about 100 hours of content to keep you busy, the content is intuitively lade out and easy to navigate, and the instructor is very easy on the eyes, which helps:) The only issue is that the price is pretty well identical to Rosetta Stone. Whether you pick up Fluenz over Rosetta Stone really depends on your learning style, as both are great. For a more affordable option...

3. Rocket Chinese

Rocket Chinese is geared straight at the absolute beginner with a budget, which makes it perfect for people that want to learn but can't put a big monitory investment. Most of the course is audio (think Pimsleur) and it also has a couple of flashcard type games and grammatical lessons as well. It's all very well laid out and thought of, and for the price it's hard to see anything really wrong with it, through it probably doesn't have the breadth of content that Fluenz has.

Resources
All of these courses are well worth your time, it's a toss-up between Rosetta Stone and Fluenz for someone who knows a little Chinese already and has reasonably deep pockets, and a clear win for Rocket Chinese for beginners. Here's a little tip: if you go through this Rocket Chinese reseller you can get Rocket Chinese plus some extra free stuff that will help you learn Chinese more easily: Rocket Chinese.