Learn Spanish, or any other language

If you have a library card to the local Blacksburg library, across the street from Rocket Music and the police station, you can access a pretty good online tutor called Mango Languages. Just search for Mango on this page. Both the card and the subscription to Mango Languages are free.

Also, here’s a list of some websites to learn Spanish and other languages. Don’t pay for anything online. They’re all a waste of money. There’s a lot of great content online for free and most people don’t follow through long enough for it to be worth it.

Language Podcasts

Podcasts are also a great, free option. Go to the iTunes store, and search for Spanish or which ever language you want to learn and subscribe to as many teaching podcasts as you can handle. For Spanish, I recommend:

Learn to Speak Spanish with Discover Spanish
Coffee Break Spanish

Some language podcasts are taught by English speakers who have horrible accents, but they’re worth a listen, but don’t put much effort into replicating their pronunciation.

Books

After you go through those for a while, you should get a book if you decide to continue learning it, otherwise I’d stick with the online content until you’re positive you want to learn it. I personally have a good reason to try to learn these languages, but if it’s just for fun you might find yourself getting tired of it.

Books provide a level of intensity and authority that you’ll need, but only after you’re sure you want to get that far into it. Almost any book with an accompanying CD should be good, but make sure to look through the book to see if it matches up with the way you learn. By going through the free content first, you should understand which technique best suites you.