Traveling this Summer? 12 Cool Websites to Learn the Language (Mostly for Free!)

Today marks the first official day of summer and if you’re one of the fortunate ones who will be traveling to another country this year you’re in luck. There are more sites than ever to help you learn to speak at least enough of the language to get you out of trouble (or perhaps into trouble!). Lists like this have been put together before but given all the great resources that have come online in the last couple of years we thought it was time for a fresh one:

Rosetta Stone “Lite”

Rosetta Stone is software that you’ve no doubt heard of (at least if you’ve opened a SkyMall Magazine anytime in the last 5 years). They have great products but are also a bit pricey. Fortunately there are a few websites out there that offer lighter weight versions of the type of stuff you’d find in Rosetta Stone:

LiveMocha - LiveMocha now offers lessons in over 10 languages plus has a great network of students available for language exchange.

Mango Languages - While Mango Languages’ Premium Course Subscription costs a bit their Discovery Courses are free and a great way improve your vocabulary and grammar. Plus, their downloadable MP3s are perfect for listening on your iPod during your travels.

Babbel - For the more visually inclined Babbel is a treat. It’s an easy way to improve your vocabulary and listening skills. Plus, you can compete against others in the ultimate war of the polyglots!

Language Exchanges

Know English and want to speak some French? Chances are that there’s someone in France who is in the opposite boat. A number of websites now exist to help you connect with someone and trade off speaking and listening in each others’ language. Most of these services utilize Skype so you don’t have to pay anything to talk. Here are some of the best we’ve found:

italki.com - italki.com is one of the larger language exchange sites and is popular in the Middle East, China and India.

MyHappyPlanet - MHP is a well-designed site that is big in Asia (India, China and Japan) and very popular in Columbia.

FriendsAbroad - FriendsAbroad is one of the longest-running language exchange sites and popular with people in Europe.

Podcasts

The tremendous growth in podcasting over the last several years is a boon for people interested in learning languages. There are literally hundreds of podcast episodes available for many languages and this is a great way to turn drive time into study time and learn without taking any additional time out of your day. Here are a couple of resources for finding new language learning podcasts:

Open Culture - Open Culture’s list is a bit old (October 2006) but it’s a good one. You’ll find a lot of podcasts here for over two dozen different languages.

LearnOutLoud - Our sister site, LearnOutLoud has done a good job indexing language learning podcasts. They currently have 55 different podcasts in their languages category available to download or stream.

Of course, iTunes is a great place as well to find language learning podcasts!

Blogs

OK, this is cheating because there are really a ton of cool blogs out there that will help you learn languages faster. We spent some time tracking down the best ones this week and put it all into a post entitled The Top 21 Language Bloggers on the Web.

Videos

Nothing is bigger on the Internet than video these days. Take advantage of those minutes on your coffee break or lunch hour and watch a video or two in the language you’re learning. It’s amazing how quickly you can pick up a language from video (just ask all those people who learned how to speak English from watching Hollywood movies!).

YouTube - YouTube has a ton of foreign language learning videos. You can search for your favorite videos and then when you find good ones be sure to subscribe so you can be notified when they post new content. In addition, you can find innovative tips for how to go about learning a language including my personal favorite Play Video Games to Learn Languages Online.

(Also, we found that it was time-consuming to wade through YouTube to find the best language learning videos so we assembled the best ones in our videos directory. Enjoy!)

Tutoring

One of the best recent inventions on the Internet is the ability to connect to teachers for one-on-one live video learning. A number of websites have cropped up to help you find good teachers and engage in private tutoring sessions. It might not be free but there’s no faster way to learn a language and because you can find someone from anywhere around the world the costs tend to be lower.

Myngle - Based out of the UK, Myngle connects tutors and students for Skype-based sessions. Myngle also offers free student-to-student language exchanges.

Phrasebase - There’s a lot going on at Phrasebase including the ability to learn words and phrases and take lessons or classes plus very cool “Phrasebooks” that you can access through your mobile device.

eduFire - At eduFire we offer one-on-one private tutoring sessions using a Flash-based video chat system. In addition, we also have a number of other tools to help you learn languages including a fun Flashcard game, a Resources blog and the previously mentioned Videos section.

Indeed, it’s a great time to be a language learner given all the outstanding resources available to you. If you know of other great sites that we’ve missed feel free to add them in the comments.

Thanks and best of luck as you learn to Habla Espanol, Parlez-Vous Français?, etc.!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.