Summary

Lang-8 is a free, unique and popular website for learners of many languages to come together and correct one another's writing. Native speakers review writing submitted by learners who wish to improve. You can help and be helped!

The free tools provided in the interface are straightforward and tuned in such a way that it's quite easy to correct another user's writing, as well as to see exactly how others have corrected yours.

Lang-8's interface also provides social tools for interacting amongst users, including a way to find language matches to suit your needs.

Lang-8 has a large user community, coming from over 180 countries around the world, and together they provide access to help in some of the more exotic languages for which it's often hard to find resources, much less free help. Yes, there really are plenty of people out there willing to help you improve your writing for free! In turn, you can choose to help others as well.

Also available is a mobile version of the website.

From Website

Real Interactions

Learn from real native speakers excited to help you with the language that you are learning.

International Community

Community members from all over the world make Lang-8 a fun, social experience.

Keep Track

Tag and keep track of the things you learn from native speakers. Refer back and remember!

See Results

By using Lang-8 you will get better, make friends, and see real results. There’s no better help than native speakers.

Lang-8 Intro Video

Visit Lang-8.com

Summary

Babbel combines multi-media visual and auditory learning, social networking interactivity, sound educational methodology, mobile apps (for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad - Babbel Mobile) and desktop goodies (Babbel Refresh) in a one-stop integrated platform for learning Spanish.

They've very recently expanded their platform by adding loads of new features to the Web interface as well as mobile and desktop apps to enhance your Spanish learning efforts online - and take them mobile:

Babbel Refresh: Bite-sized units catered to your individual Spanish learning program, spaced out appropriately and delivered to your via a free desktop app! (Free, works with Windows and Mac.)

Babbel Mobile: Synchronizes your Babbel account with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, allowing you to study Spanish on your mobile device - even if you're offline! Babbel Mobile is free to download for everybody, and access to the Vocabulary is available for free for those who already are subscribers to Babbel. If you're not on Babbel, you can purchase the vocabulary as a stand alone app, which has 3000 words and phrases, for a onetime $7.99 USD.

Babbel's interface is the definition of eye candy, works on any modern Web browser, loads quickly and runs solidly. The dynamic learning system reviews you on terms and phrases you've learned while seamlessly incorporating new ones on topics you select. This guarantees you'll be interested in what you're studying - and that it will be the most applicable to your specific needs and goals.

Part of the Babbel learning system involves media-rich (and user shared) virtual flash cards. The flash card stacks are organized into "packages" (groups of cards) that treat common themes (eg, youth hostels, winter sports, restaurants and eating out, fruits and vegetables, clothing, standard greetings, giving and receiving compliments, etc). With input and contributions from the users, these packages get consistently better as more contributions flow in.

Furthermore, an intelligent system organizes all the vocabulary words you've learned. You get a comprehensive overview of everything you've studied - and it signals which are your problem words so you'll know you need to practice them again. This syncs seamlessly with the Babbel Refresh desktop application as well, using your personalized Vocabulary list to calculate reminders for what's best to review next and how often. Wow - talk about helpful!

Add to all of this Babbel's social networking tools, including the ability to hook up with other users interested in sharing and exchanging language skills, and you have a dynamic Spanish-education platform that covers all the bases.

In addition to Spanish, Babbel is available for learning Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian and Swedish.

So try a Babbel lesson free and see if it works for you. You can select one of various options for your free lesson, too (the Travel pack is great). Chances are you'll be up and learning in no time, making friends to share with, quizzing yourself on the go and progressing more quickly than you thought possible.

Treat yourself and have some fun learning Spanish - go Babbel!

Free or Subscription?

Wading through the options for learning Spanish online (and off) can be difficult. The free resources for Spanish can be jumbled and, in our humble opinion, ultimately incomplete. Thus it's well worth subscribing to a paid service to truly open the doors to your virtual classroom.

Having tested many free and commercial options for learning Spanish, we feel that Babbel sits right at the top of your options - it's incredibly fun and intuitive, offers online and offline solutions, mobile options and is amazingly fairly priced: between $6.62 and $11.95 USD per month depending on your subscription option. (Compare that with $539 for the full Rosetta Stone Spanish course, for example. You could use Babbel for 67+ months - that's over 5 years - at that price!)

For most people's needs, we recommend the 3-month option which runs $7.95 per month. It's a great way to leap ahead.

Summary

Welcome to Free Language's whirlwind tour about learning Spanish online for free. This is the third video screencast about learning languages for free. See all of them here.

This video will take you through some top essential resources for learning Spanish for free online. View the links below the video to access the resources highlighted in this video.

Here we cover places to find general resources, where to get learning materials, finding plenty of content online to expose yourself to the language and recommend the SpanishPod podcast for audio on-the-go as well as community atmosphere.

Spanish exercises, kid's games, interactive tools, news sources, radio stations, Web TV... it's all here. Enjoy!

Screencast Video

Helpful Links for this Screencast

General Resouces

http://freelanguage.org/spanish
http://freelanguage.org/learn/spanishpod

Social

http://www.palabea.net/spanish
http://www.italki.com/learn-spanish/en-us
http://www.livemocha.com

Lessons

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/tv

Radio, Podcast

http://freelanguage.org/learn/spanishpod
http://www.listenlive.eu/spain.html
http://www.learn-spanish-help.com/Spanish-radio.html
http://www.radiotower.com
http://www.rollingrs.com/category/free

More Practice

http://www.studyspanish.com

Kids, Child, Games

http://onlinefreespanish.com

More Links

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/1-6-4-7.html
http://teachinglearningspanish.blogspot.com/2009/08/20-free-online-resources-for-spanish.html

Newsletter

http://freelanguage.org/the-free-language-letter

Summary

From beginner to advanced levels, SpanishPod101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning Spanish. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the Spanish language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require.

Since SpanishPod101.com is web-based, you can access your personal Spanish Learning Center from anywhere, and it's really easy to download the podcasts and put them on your mp3 player (iPod, Zune, etc) or mobile phone to take them with you for practice and learning on the go.

One of the most important things when learning a language is good content - and SpanishPod101.com has this, and a steady flow of it. This constant flow of fresh content regards cultural aspects of Spanish you will want to know, interesting tidbits about navigating in Spanish society (whether on vacation or living abroad), practical information about getting by and much more.

Your Spanish Learning Center brings together audio podcast lessons, lesson notes and checklists, transcripts, PDFs, video lessons, vocabulary training with flashcards and quizzes plus a Spanish dictionary, grammar bank, a verb reference and plenty more.

And if you enjoy asking questions and learning from and helping other learners, a forum is available for all users.

It's simple to try it for free and upgrade if it works for you.

From Website

At SpanishPod101.com, our goal is to make learning the Spanish language easy and fun, while also incorporating culture and current issues into our lessons. We believe that the more you speak, the quicker you learn, so we have designed our program to get you speaking right away. Situational Spanish is heavily stressed, and our team role plays various situations to demonstrate the proper form of Spanish to use when speaking with friends, customers, executives, and so-on. Knowing the proper form to use separates good speakers from great speakers.

SpanishPod101.com was developed with the hope of showing the world how fun and easy learning Spanish can be. Here at SpanishPod101.com, we truly believe that learning can be fun, while at the same time convenient. We know how busy you are and that each day brings unexpected surprises. That is exactly why we bring the lessons to you and let you decide when they start.

Our innovative, fun, and easy to use language learning system is designed to get you speaking and interacting from the very first lesson. Learn Spanish at your own convenience and pace with short, effective, fun daily lessons and a comprehensive, state-of-the-art Learning Center that provides you with the tools to take your Spanish to the next level! Our interactive learning system consists of free daily audio podcast lessons, accompanying PDF materials, a Premium Learning Center, and a vibrant user community.

Our Method

SpanishPod101.com offers a unique learning experience that cannot be found in conventional classrooms. In addition to offering lessons that can be completed on your own time, we approve all of the content we release through a government certified Spanish teacher. Here are just a few of the revolutionary advantages of our method:

Exposure to native speakers and many different kinds of voices and speaking styles…

SpanishPod101.com aims to have you speaking Spanish after just one lesson! Our lessons focus on pronunciation and listening comprehension, so that you can start practicing what you learn from our professional teachers. Inside the PDF you will find the necessary tools for reading comprehension, and thorough explanations of phrases and key grammar points, in addition to segments on cultural insight. To address speaking practice, we have state-of-the-art software to allow you to record your own voice so you can compare your pronunciation to our teachers and continue to refine your speaking skills.

When all the aspects of SpanishPod101.com are put together, this program provides students of Spanish with ultimate self-study learning course. In addition, we often provide conversations between three people to more closely simulate real-life situations.

Fresh, up-to-date content...

Many Spanish teachers who live overseas have been out of the country for a long period of time and can be “out of the loop” on current words, culture, etc. This is another major gap that we fill. Lessons are carefully crafted to include current events, words, celebrities, and so-on. This is very dynamic content.

Borderless education on-demand...

We also fill a definite demand in remote locations. Our lessons provide you with a mobile classroom, as we bring you Spanish on Demand. Spanish lessons wherever you may be.

SpanishPod101.com offers our listeners a unique learning experience that delivers cutting-edge, dynamic content to be accessed at your convenience. With the inclusion of our lesson notes and Learning Center, we offer a full solution that provides the material, guidance, exercises, and testing to really make the knowledge your own. And it doesn’t even stop there - our vibrant and extremely helpful community provide each other not only quick answers to questions, but also give each other a sense of encouragement and motivation that is often lacking.

We focus on Spanish, and Spanish only...

Just Spanish! All we do is Spanish. SpanishPod101.com is not a generic package language learning course, such as some of the other big name language learning programs out there. Many other programs “scale” their solutions across several languages, simply recycling the same material over and over - the same pictures, the same conversations, just in a different language. But each language is unique, and at SpanishPod101.com we pride ourselves on developing a system that’s only about the Spanish language and Spanish culture!

One stop studying...

Have you ever found yourself lost on the information highway? Sometimes it’s like trying to drink from a fire hose! Hundreds of bookmarks, all with varying levels of quality and credibility. You finally find a great site, but it only updates once a year! SpanishPod101.com offers users one stop studying. The learning center has been carefully designed to provide you with the resources you will need to take your Spanish to the next level.

Visit SpanishPod101.com.

Summary

The BBC is such an amazing resource for learning languages online for free that we've done a 6-minute video showing how you can effectively use this resource to learn at least the basics of 36+ languages.

BBC offers materials for the following languages: Albanian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian (FYROM), Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian

Enjoy and please leave comments to help us focus our efforts!

Screencast Video

Helpful Links for this Screencast

http://freelanguage.org/learn/bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/english
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/greek
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix