There are so many resources out there that you can pay for to learn a new language. With the internet, there are so many great resources for language learning for beginners (even to advance) you’ll ask yourself why pay all that money for a copy of Rosetta Stone? I found two great free sites to help you learn that language and have the resources to practice it with free peer review included. The sites are Livemocha and Busuu.com
Both Livemocha and Busuu.com have free accounts you can sign up for. Each gives you lessons with a vocab review, a writing exercise, an audio exercise, and a chance to have the exercises graded by native speakers (you as a native speaker of a language have the ability to grade others as well) and to chat with native speakers to practice your new found language skills. Both have paid subscriptions where you can have access to more contention and more advanced lessons. Here are some of the differences between the two services:
Livemocha:
Pros:
- At free level ,able to download vocab lists from the site
- More languages are available to you to learn at free level (like Arabic and Hindi)
- Have more flashcards to review and fill in the black word exercises at free level to help you retain vocab and helps you with writing and audio exercises
Cons:
- The vocab is not conversational in nature (you say things like I am fat, and I am thin)
Busuu.com:
Pros:
- Vocab is conversational in nature. You learn things like hello, how are you. Welcome. Good day. What is your name?
- To help with comprehension and vocab review, you are quizzed on a conversation a few people are having in that language. It is spoken at the normal pace and with the vocab you learned.
Cons:
- Free subscription limits you to only a few languages.
- To download vocab and print it (like flashcard review), you need the paid service (also get podcasts with paid service)
- There is not enough vocab review exercises to prep you for the written and audio exercises. I felt that I retained little when I went into the written exercises and audio exercises.
Both are great tools, it just depends on what you want to learn and how you learn. I would sign up for both and give them a try and see how you like the service. You can use both as well to supplement each other. Good luck!
Livemocha: http://www.livemocha.com
Busuu.com: http://www.busuu.com
Well we must be working in parallel on stuff! I also just reviewed LiveMocha. I was mainly interested in how they used social networking tools for learning but I’m interested in your other recommend also. Great tip, thanks!
By: ljdrew on July 9, 2009
at 11:20 pm
There is another very cool FREE language learning site coming up as well.
http://www.hello-hello.com
The lessons were actually developed by ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) which assures their quality
It will be a FREE language learning website combined with a social networking where members will be able to:
– do the lessons online anytime
– get help from native speakers
– help other members to learn their native language
– chat with people around the world to practice the language and make friends
– practice vocabulary with Flashcards and more….
The site will be ready in a few weeks and people that pre-sign up before the launch will become VIP members.
By: sarahhello on July 28, 2009
at 2:29 pm
Thanks for the pros and cons on busuu and livemocha. I also suggest using http://smart.fm. It’s of course free and you can learn just about anything.
I use it mostly to learn japanese, but it’s fun to also learn all the capitals and countries in the world, or even slang terms in other languages!
Their learning application is very useful to retain what you learn. They just came out with a facebook application and have heard that they’re gonna start teaching english through movies!!
- Check out http://smart.fm Learn anything and everything
By: bensaou on September 14, 2009
at 3:28 am