web-based language-learning software

Summary

Babbel is reportedly the most popular online language-learning platform in Europe for Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian and Dutch.

This is no surprise to us here at Free Language – we see that the website has a user-friendliness and effectiveness that could appeal to anyone who wants to start or dig deeper into a language. Though the language courses at Babbel are based on tried-and-true print materials and are written and designed by language education experts, they in fact take full advantage of advanced technology and use the internet and mobile devices to teach in a way that accelerates your progress.

For example, Babbel has developed a state-of-the-art pronunciation trainer with speech recognition that encourages you to talk out loud (taking away any need to feel shy around other speakers!). It incorporates an algorithm that analyzes how close your pronunciation is to that of a native speaker, and you can keep repeating it until you’ve made yourself understandable. This feature, unique in the online language-learning world, is available online on the Babbel website and on Babbel’s new and improved free app for iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, also available via the website.

Another feature that distinguishes Babbel from other online language software is the Review Manager. It keeps track of your individual progress and detects where your difficulties lie. So, according to what kind of errors you’ve made (or successes you’ve had) in the past, it will prompt you to review certain items at optimized intervals so you’ll commit vocabulary to long-term memory. The Review Manager keeps track of your personal vocabulary – that is, everything you’ve studied so far – and makes it accessible online at Babbel.com and also on-the-go synchronized with the app.

Update: Babbel is now available for Brazilian Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Turkish, Indonesian and Polish along with English, French, German, Italian and Spanish!

Summary

Babbel is the bomb. Not babble or Babel but Babbel! It's a website with slick tools and a smooth interface (modeled after a video game console) geared primarily towards learning and retaining loads of vocabulary terms and key phrases through audio visual.

Summary

This resource is fantastic! Truly one of the top language-learning resources available online. Indeed, it may well be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, well-organized and FREE resource for learning languages online. And if Alexa.com would have its say, it is one of the fastest-growing language-related websites in the world. (No, I am not in on the take!)

Mango Languages offers an amazing amount of totally free lessons and courses for learning a growing number of languages. At the time this article is going to press, these include Brazilian Portuguese, English for Polish speakers, English for Spanish speakers, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Pig Latin!, Russian and Spanish.

The lessons are organized, friendly to the eyes, useful (from a language-acquisition perspective), colorful, feature-rich and are comprised of large amounts of quality learning materials including color-coded text and audio, which allows the learner to hear and see the target language simultaneously.

With the large and active Mango Team working hard on their next steps, MangoLanguages.com will surely continue developing quickly and actively.

Be sure to check out their forum, blog and press sections.

From Website

Mango beta is an online language learning system freely available to everyone. Learn at your own pace with a suite of features that make language learning more engaging and fun.

Visit MangoLanguages.com