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2012 Language Survey Uncovers Interesting Trends in Language Learning

Busuu, one of the world's most popular online language learning platforms, has just announced the results of its 2012 Language Barometer Survey.

With over 45,000 participants from 230 countries, this survey sheds light on successful and popular learning processes and well as what the future of language education may look like.

From busuu blog

More than 45,000 busuu.com users from 230 different countries responded to our survey, held at the beginning of March 2012. Let’s have a look at our users’ preferred methods for improving their language skills, what encourages or hampers their learning process and many more exciting outcomes!

The future of language learning relies on online methods!

Read more.

This just in from the Babbel blog:

From Babbel.com Blog

There’s always a little bit of anxiety that comes along with traveling abroad, whether for business or for pleasure. Possible scenario, night before — for example — the flight to Berlin, a sudden pang: “Oh right, they speak German in Germany, and I don’t even know how to say ‘how are you’. How am I going to manage to order my morning coffee?!?”

We at Babbel have now developed a stress-reducing linguistic survival kit (and perhaps path to that caffeine fix in a foreign country) for the last-minute language learner: the Mini-Vocab Package. Compiled especially for the spontaneous traveler, it offers essential words and phrases - in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English - to get through that first encounter with the locals unscathed.

For those who’ve got a little more time before the big trip, besides the Mini-Vocab, there are twenty other in-depth packages for all relevant situations while traveling, from leaving the airport to arriving at the car rental desk. There is of course also the opportunity to hook up with someone from Babbel’s now more than 350,000-strong community to chat, trade travel tips or set up a language exchange.

To go directly to the newly compiled Mini-Vocab package, click here. If you are not already registered at Babbel, after a quick and easy registration you will be taken straight through to travel vocabulary. For our press release, click here.

From Mara at Babbel

Hello, Hola, Bonjour, Buongiorno, Hallo!

Babbel.com, the intuitively designed online language learning platform, has just released a Mini-Vocab Package specially designed for the last minute traveler. It offers all the essential vocabulary for that first encounter with the locals in Spanish, French, German, Italian and English.

Take a look at the Babbel Blog (http://blog.babbel.com) for more information.

Thanks and happy learning!

Mara

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Read about this on the Babbel blog.
Read Free Language's review of Babbel.

Byki has a new iPhone and iPod Touch application in the works for language learners. This new app offers many features for language learners, incuding:

• Download thousands of free Byki lists through List Central, including your own custom content created through Byki Deluxe. Make lists out of text book material or articles, add them to List Central, and import them to your iPhone!
• See a cumulative history of your progress in the new Statistics section
• Adjust volume within an activity with improved volume controls
• Customize font size for Chinese and Japanese transliterations

Byki for iPhone is great because users can take their learning with them to study wherever time allows, be it in line at the bank or on the commuter train. A quick 5 minutes here and there really adds up when you're learning a new language.

The app is currently available in Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Find out more...

Just released a nice tool for people to find cheap Rosetta Stone Spanish software!

This is part of a growing marketplace for language products being made available here on Free Language.

Finnish should be on Free Language by now. Ahhh... if only there were all the time in the world! But a recent email from a site user brought Finnish to our attention, and we will make it a point to add Finnish as soon as possible. Since we were unable to email the user back due to email issues on their end, this info is going up here on the blog.

Until a proper section for Finnish is up and running, there are two resources we'd recommend:

A Wikibook for Learning Finnish
Byki Language Freeware for over 70 Foreign Languages (including Finnish)

If you are interested in learning Finnish, please consider signing up for the Free Language Letter so you'll hear about it as soon as Finnish is added to the site!

Best of luck to you in your Finnish learning endeavors! And please recommend Free Language to anyone interested in learning foreign languages. :)

UPDATE: For those with a working knowledge of Finnish seeking listening practice, have a look at the Selkouutiset News in Plain Finnish Podcast.