Friday, September 21, 2007

Learning a foreign language

Sass, Spyder, and I are all learning German this year. We start a homeschool co-op for conversational German in just a couple of weeks. I took three years of it in college, but I haven't used it since, well, college, so I don't remember very much.

I've been coveting the Rosetta Stone German program. Spyder and I used the free download, and it was really, really good. We both loved it, but it's very expensive, so I have to save up for it. I've been looking for other alternatives, but I hadn't had much success until today.

Today I heard about a new site, Mango, via Dumb Little Man. I only signed up today, but it looks promising. And the best part? It's free!

It doesn't look as comprehensive as what I want or need, but it does look like a good supplement to a language study.

Happy learning!

4 comments:

Southern Girl said...

Do you have iTunes? I think it's a free download if you don't. Anyway, you might consider downloading some podcasts of language lessons. There are tons of them on there, and I think most of the podcasts are free.

The Rosetta Stone program IS a great one though. I don't have any experience with the German version, just the Spanish, but that's what we used in the language labs at Union U when I was a student and graduate assistant there.

PEZmama said...

I haven't checked the Mango link, and it may be all you need, but I did a Rosetta Stone demo and I loved it too. The cool thing is that RS has a library program. One of the libraries near me has it and you can use it online for free through the library website.

So check some libraries. Or maybe ask your library to purchase it.

PEZmama said...

BTW, the "homeschool" version of RS is (I think) on sale right now. The deal I saw at the RS website included free headphones and a microphone, plus about a $20 discount. Still expensive, but I think it's about the best price you can find for it.

Anonymous said...

Hey, sounds fun. The only word I know is Shizer, which I am confident I spelled incorrectly.
Brenda