List of the best sites where you can learn a written and spoken foreign language for free, with various online learning methods
Learning languages on the Internet today is absolutely possible thanks to the birth of various websites that put people from all over the world in communication and offer valuable help in learning. Just surfing the Internet on many foreign sites (for example, English or American) will allow you to apply all the notions learned in school, so as to drastically improve language learning.In this article we focus on research in a more specific way to learn a new language, whether English or other: we will show you in detail the excellent online and free courses to learn a speak and write a foreign language, so that we can plan a trip to another country whose language is not well understood.
READ ALSO: Top 10 Apps to learn English (Android and iPhone)
Learn foreign languages for free online
A good part of the sites listed below offer free lessons for the chosen language, useful for starting to learn grammar and the basic rules for good communication; we will not be able to make long speeches or read a whole book, but what we have learned is sufficient to overcome at least the language barrier.
Babbel
Babbel is the most popular web application to learn languages, choosing from English, French, Spanish, German and other languages.
From this site we can choose the starting level of the language you want to learn or deepen and, depending on it, many exercises and written and audio activities are proposed.
There are also several games and lessons aimed at topics and contexts, such as dialogue at the supermarket, dialogue at school, looking for road information and so on.
The social network component is not forgotten and new friends can be made with which to exchange words and practice the use of the language.
Babbel is also available as an app for Android and iPhone.
busuu
Another very good site for quickly learning a new language is Busuu.
It looks like a complete site where you can learn different foreign languages with interactive language courses and with conversation. You can communicate directly with native speakers so that you can get help with practical exercises. Each language course is made up of different units depending on the degree of learning. Each unit is basically a conversation theme and also includes an image-based vocabulary for each topic.
At the end there is also the final exam and a ranking based on learning performance and the number of correct answers. You can use Busuu with the free plan or by paying a subscription with additional options and educational materials to download.
Busuu allows you to learn languages English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.
If interested in the mobile version, we can download the Busuu app for Android and iPhone.
Pronunciator
Pronunciator is a great site, also in Italian, for learn foreign languages online, English, German, French, Spanish and many more.
Just indicate the native language and the language you want to learn right away, choose your level, follow the lessons and the personalized online course and then take quizzes and tests of learning.
You can learn to read, write and listen to the foreign language through the audio recordings and we can get the help of language experts to start speaking in a few months.
Rosetta Stone
Another very interesting site for learning a foreign language online is Rosetta Stone.
The concept of the site and the developed apps is always inspired by the concept of sharing and exchanging knowledge and, in this case, it is oriented to learn languages directly on the web.
You have to sign up, select your native language and the one you want to learn and you can also choose whether you start from scratch or the current level of learning.
There are around one million subscribers and it has become a very polar site in the world considering its social network character. You can potentially learn all languages, even the Chinese, Arabic and Indian because there are people from all over the world.
In the profile it is therefore necessary to mark the languages that are known and the level, so users can contact each other as needed. The site offers many different tools to do exercises and measure your level of learning. Communication is guaranteed, sociability and the possibility of meeting people is certainly higher than in normal social networks, also because, in this context, everyone has a purpose that is to learn languages and the climate of trust is very high.
If we want to learn the language also from smartphone, we can download the Rosetta Stone app for Android and iPhone.
Conversation Exchange
If we want to put into practice everything we have learned, we can get help from the Conversation Exchange platform.
As the name of the site suggests, here we will be able to open a voice chat with other people willing to learn our language or willing to listen to us while we exercise, so that we can actually help us improve.
Obviously the social component is very important, since by learning the language we will be able to meet many people from abroad and thus organize cultural trips to learn the chosen language even better.
Currently the site does not have a smartphone app, so we will have to use a desktop PC to manage chats.
Tandem
If we are looking for something similar to Conversation Exchange but also usable from mobile, we can bet on the Tandem platform.
This large community will allow you to learn a new language using tools from social networks and you can teach Italian to others and learn, by speaking with real people, a language of your choice.
The site is free and works particularly well as an application for Android and iPhone.
Other sites for learning languages
There are really many sites that we can use to learn foreign languages for free online, written and spoken, with lessons and videos; if we have not found the right service for you among those already mentioned, you can try new services from the following list:
- Memrise is the best site to learn words in foreign languages quickly
- Duolingo app for iPhone, Android and via the web to learn languages by playing
- Forvo is the best site to look for how to pronounce a word in any language, a dictionary to learn the pronunciations to keep always at hand.
- Rhinospike is a free site that allows you to obtain the translation of a spoken sentence by a native speaker.
- Italki which allows, with a highly professional site, to exchange skills with other users, to find a teacher and to teach their own language, to download audio and documentary resources, to watch educational videos and to participate in international communities.
- Lingua.ly, web and Android app to learn new words of languages every day
- Zaac contains 12 lessons to allow fun to approach English for the little ones.
- BBC Languages is a site in English where you can learn French, Italian, Greek, German, Chinese and Portuguese. The course lasts 12 weeks and there are audio clips, videos, language speeches and interactive exercises.
Aesthetically it is very beautiful to look at and functional so as not to get bored.
Conclusions
Learning languages has never been so fun! With all these sites we will be able to learn any language whatever our level of preparation, using both the PC and the smartphone.
In another article we had seen i best sites to translate foreign languages online and the best dictionaries while to listen to English pronunciations, i can be used Text-To-Speech online where you just have to write a word to hear the PC speak.
In another article we can find the sites instead To improve English online and for free with quizzes and lessons.