I’m planning a seven week trip to Europe this coming spring, and as I sift through apartment rental listings in Italy, Switzerland, and France, I am growing ever more eager to learn some Italian and brush up on French before my plane departs in April. One great resource I’ve discovered so far is Byki, a competitor of Rosetta Stone that offers a “lite,” instantly download-able version of its language software for free. In two days, I’ve learned twenty-five Italian words and phrases! I also downloaded their French program and have zipped through those lists a lot faster. I’m trying to decide if I want to pay $70 to buy the full version of their Italian program. I really like the Byki approach so far and think it could be worth it.
Have you ever used Byki? Would you recommend buying it?
What about other language learning resources? I still have my French texts, workbooks, and tapes, so I’m mostly concerned about Italian at this point. If I could do this for free, that would be ideal. Do you know of free downloads anywhere else? Any other suggestions? I’d appreciate all the help I can get!
How very exciting!
You might check this for French:
http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses/french
Also, for conversation, Pimsleur is nice and you can pick it up at the library.
Here is another online class: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/
The BBC also has Italian as well as some others.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/
http://www.learner.org/resources/series83.html
MIT Open Course Ware has some things.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures/
http://french.about.com/
Hope this helps. Can’t wait to hear about your trip planning. Call me or email me if you would like. I always love talking about Europe!
Eons ago I took several semesters of evening Russian classes at Taylor High School– you might check to see if any schools near you offer similar non-credit community ed-type classes. I think they were about $50-75 for the semester, but it was so long ago I can’t be sure.
um, i just keep looking for a new recipe… like one for the holidays. like one involving pecans. not for me to eat, of course, just to make. for other people to eat. not for you to eat. just other people to eat. see?