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

LoMásTV.com is a commercial service for Spanish video immersion. The ever-growing video library touches a wide variety of interests, including culture, music and local spotlights. Supplementing the videos are quality tools for learning vocabulary and a growing list of free lessons (currently 181 available and counting).

Subscriptions for this premium service cost no more than $10/month, and provide you with constant new Spanish videos with real native speakers, a community of fellow learners and more. Have a look at LoMásTV and see how it will work for you.

From Website

Online Spanish Video Immersion

LoMásTv is an online video magazine for Spanish learners who wish to improve their Spanish skills. Authentic Spanish videos include television programs, music videos, interviews, documentaries, and travel. Only LoMásTv offers Spanish and English captions, pitch-correct slow play, integrated dictionaries and listening exercises.

Multi-Modal Immersion

The Yabla player was designed from the start to actively engage the listener. Listening, reading, watching, and interacting are far more effective for retention than passive listening alone. The integrated dictionaries and cloze listening game engage you in the learning process.

LoMásTV is Fun

When learning a new language, one of the biggest challenges is to stay engaged. LoMásTv provides a wide variety of entertaining programming, including music, drama, interviews, and travel, that will make you look forward to studying. Fresh programming is added monthly. Our goal is to provide content that is interesting to you. Learning a language is a bit like going to the gym. If it were universally fun, everyone would be in shape. We believe language learning shouldn't be a chore.

100% Native Speakers

Numerous studies done on language retention all point to the fact that the best way to learn is to become immersed in the language. Becoming versed in reading and writing is a good place to start, but you must also listen to native speakers. Most people don't have direct access to Spanish-speaking populations. Watching LoMásTv provides this access in an environment where you have full control.

Is LoMásTv Right for Beginners?

Exposure to authentic video is useful to all levels of language enthusiasts. Studies have shown that even rank beginners, given proper support tools such as those made available by the Yabla Player, benefit from exposure to native speakers and genuine culture. We provide a wide range of authentic content, ranging from quite simple to rather difficult.

Shouldn't I Study Grammar?

Recent research has shown that rote memorization of the rules of grammar is far less important than previously thought. Few people can read about subjects like the imperfect tense or the subjunctive mood, and have the ability to recognize or use it instinctively. We don't dismiss the importance of learning grammar, but research trials have shown that students who drastically shift learning time from studying with traditional methods to multi-modal immersion, actually outperform their peers in their ability to understand and use complex grammatical forms. In short, learning about a language is not the same as learning a language.

Visit LoMásTV.com
Visit the French equivalent, Yabla French.

Summary

Wikibooks.org is a community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. The Wikibook's Languages of Europe category can serve, for the language learner, educator and enthusiast, as an enormous doorway into the many European languages, both living and historical.

The European subcontinent has birthed and/or attracted an enormous variety of languages from many sub-branches of what linguists call the Indo-European languages.

Below you'll find direct links to a wide variety of European language open-content textbooks. These are free and open source, for everyone to use and benefit from. And collaborate on - especially language educators who have the knowledge to share with all through this open medium.

To boot, Wikibooks.org itself is available in a wide range of world languages!

From Wikibooks.org

Wikibooks Category: Languages of Europe

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

These language books concern Languages of Europe. See also Subject:Languages of Europe.

European Languages with Books or Pages

Albanian, Aragonese, Armenian, Austrian, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Croatian, Danish, Galician, Gothic, Greenlandic, High Icelandic, Hungarian, Høgnorsk, Icelandic, Insubric, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Leonese, Lowland Scots, Macedonian, Manx, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Provençal, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovene, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh

This may be incomplete when you read this. Please check the Languages of Europe page for the latest content.

European Language Wikibooks Subcategories

Dutch language
English language
Finnish language
French language
German language
Greek language
Latin language
Lithuanian language
Portuguese language
Scottish Gaelic language
Spanish language
Yiddish language

Visit Wikibooks.org on Languages of Europe.
Wikipedia.org also has a category on Languages of Europe.

Summary

This (lengthy) article brings together a pile of Free Software (GNU GPL'd as Public Domain), freeware and shareware for language learning and reference for Mac OS X.

Software descriptions are taken from Apple Downloads. We will be adding more GPL applications soon.