The Rosetta Stone software uses a combination of images, text, and sound, with difficulty levels increasing as the student progresses, in order to teach various vocabulary terms and grammatical functions intuitively, without drills or translation. They call this the "Dynamic Immersion method". According to the company, the software is designed to teach languages the way first languages are learned.
Instruction takes the form of four units per language level. Each unit is then subdivided into four core lessons. Each core lesson is approximately 30 minutes followed by sublessons. Sublessons take the form of Pronunciation, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar, Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Reviews. At the end of each unit is a Milestone, which reviews the material covered in that unit in an interactive activity.
Version 3 applications cannot read the language disks of older Rosetta Stone installations (Version 1 and 2). Those who have multiple versions of Rosetta Stone need to have both applications installed in order to use the language packs of both versions.