What's the best (also free) way to learn a language online?

Have you used a website to learn a language or know of one that you think is good at doing this? 

That depends on which language you want to learn.

Rosetta Stone is the best way but you gotta a pay for it.

pirate rosetta stone

yarrr

Wikipedia in other languages.

rosetta stone is one of the best ways, dont think any free options would be of much value

Is Rosetta Stone that program that Vinny tried? The one where he talked to an actual teacher via webcam? What if you don't have a webcam?

It's pretty simple, but I've picked up a little bit of German from the BBC Languages website. It will give you a decent foundation. Honestly, though, a class is your best bet. If you can find a teacher who is a native speaker of your preferred language, you can learn a lot. I would imagine that classes are cheaper than Rosetta Stone, too.

Is Rosetta Stone that program that Vinny tried? The one where he talked to an actual teacher via webcam? What if you don't have a webcam?

Rosetta Stone is only good if you want to be a parrot that speaks Italian.

@BoG said:

It's pretty simple, but I've picked up a little bit of German from the BBC Languages website. It will give you a decent foundation. Honestly, though, a class is your best bet. If you can find a teacher who is a native speaker of your preferred language, you can learn a lot. I would imagine that classes are cheaper than Rosetta Stone, too.

I don't think this is true as it greatly depends on the type of class, I've learnt a lot on my own using websites, more than a lot of people would expect somebody to learn on their lonesome.

For Japanese you shouldn't bother joining a class unless it's at a high level course like college or university, not night time classes that only teach basic phrases, I'm just going to leave these websites here in case Japanese is something you are considering, it's the only language I have a clue about despite being part German:

http://www.textfugu.com

http://www.lang-8.com

http://http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar (this grammar bible is great)

http://www.japanesepod101.com

Just find someone who speaks English and the language you want to learn. The best/fastest way to learn is jump in with both feet, immerse yourself in it.

I learned 1337 sp3ak playing video games.

Be born in another country.

@H2Oyea: After learning a bit of French at school I've come to believe that a classroom setting is a terrible way to learn a language. Now that I've dropped out of school I'm teaching myself French using podcasts. Start with some language tutorial podcasts (I really like the Radio Lingua ones). Then as you get better with the language you can branch out to other regular podcasts in that language like news or music podcasts. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it all. As long as you are sticking with it and understand some of it. With practice you will get better. I think my next step will be to replay some of my games in French. Maybe Heavy Rain or GTA4.

Some languages have a lot more available to you than others. I'm trying to learn Bangla and there's next to nothing on it, so I had to buy a couple books and luckily one has a couple audio CDs with it so I can check pronunciation. Anything free you find might have inaccurate or conflicting material because it probably hasn't been checked for said accuracy. YouTube may have some user-provided lessons (better if it's clearly their native language) and even foreign movies captioned in English can help. My honest recommendation is to invest in a couple books and audio CDs. Amazon prices are pretty good. If you are actually dedicated to learn a new language, then you'll be go a long way with those cheap purchases. It's also great if you make friends with a native speaker.

Titties, the universal motivator.

Titties, the universal motivator.

I'm doing a combined honors degree in French and German, and I have to say that reading a lot of news articles, short stories and poetry are amazing. In my German 2020 class we do a lot of that and it really works because news articles tend to use very colloquial, to the point writing styles. Short stories are good because you see a lot of repetition and will slowly become aware of what to expect. German is such a fucking great language, really fun to learn and to speak. The hardest aspect to it that most English speakers have are the articles, the actual pronounciations, and the huge vocabulary which is highly "customizable" by use of prefixes. Thankfully I've been blessed with excellent guttural speech :)

In terms of websites, here are some great resources for German:

http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar.html - Nancy Thuleen german. She must have been a teacher at some university, but she has SHIT TONS of handouts and worksheets here, and there are answer keys as well.

http://german.about.com/ - About.com. If you ever need something explained to you dealing with grammar or syntax, this is the place to go.

http://www.dict.cc/ - In my opinion, the best German dictionary. It's user edited and even comes with pronounciations, and there are over 800,000 words and many different conjugations of each verb.

As for French, I'm just getting into it but try the About website as well. Seems to be pretty legit.

And as some users have pointed out, playing games in a different language is another great way, and podcasts too.

@Questionable said:

Titties, the universal motivator.

Great undousuru!

I think I'm going to learn Japanese with her (I'm serious!). ^^

try this website. someone from here said to try it but i never got to try it yet. http://www.memrise.com/about/

@jking47:

I agree. Rosetta Stone is spectacular software, but it's not affordable. Do what ya gotta do.

@xyzygy:

The only problem with that method is that you already have to have a decent knowledge of the language in question in order for it to work. It's hard to spot patterns and repetition when everything is literally meaningless to you.