We have all seen the ads for Rosetta Stone and if you do a lot of traveling perhaps you have seen ads for the pimsleur series. Both of these systems work great and help you quickly gain exposure to a new language. Trouble is they take time and money. For many people investing in these courses are a waste of money because they end up languishing on the shelf rather than being used.
Enter Mango, this free web applications offers courses in Spanish, Russian, Greek, German, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian and Polish. To gain access to the site all you have to do is provide them with a valid email address, if you do not feel like giving your email address out then consider a service such as Dodgeit or 10 Minute Mail. I don’t believe that is necessary though as I signed up using my real address and have not received any spam from them other than the welcome to Mango message. After signing up, simply choose which language you wish to learn and view a visual and audio presentation from beginner to advanced levels.
Mango has some features that are unique to it. First as you progress through the lessons you can quiz yourself which is something you cannot do with pimsleur for example. Next if you place your cursor over a word you are having a problem pronouncing a phonetic pronunciation of the word you are having trouble with will appear. In the quiz modes Mango breaks the phrases down word by word so that instead of rote memorization of phrases such as Estoy Bien! Gracias, you learn that Estoy means I am and Gracias means Thank You.
What I would like to see added to Mango is a flash card mode where you learn the names of common objects and the ability to save your progress and set learning goals. All-in-all this is an excellent system and should be considered by anyone looking to learn a new language. Are there alternative systems out there that offer features similar to Mango or if you are currently using any systems or tools to learn a new language what are they?
Mark Flavin
So I am hoping to learn a little Vietnamese. I checked, and unfortunately Mango does not offer this one.
What I have found is a cool, social, interactive option.
MyLanguageExchange.com creates virtual pen pal language hookups. Meet and begin emailing and chatting with native language speakers of different languages wishing to learn yours in just minutes.
Pretty cool. If I do have time to give it a try I will report back.
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