Summary

The Rocket French product from Rocket Languages has proved to be a highly successful, fun! and fast method for beginners to learn the French language. The Rocket Languages team has designed a multi-faceted course including extensive audio lessons, software and learning games, grammar lessons with audio clips and a member's forum for help on demand.

I have personally been using Rocket Languages Japanese now as a total beginner with next to no knowledge of the Japanese language and the results have been excellent. I have used a lot of different language-learning methods (as you can tell from this website!) and the Rocket method is both quick and interesting, and I always find myself looking forward to the next lesson.

Don't just take my word for it. Try it out and if you don't like the results, you can get all your cash back for 60 days after you place an order. No risk there!

From Website

Rocket French is designed to be the easiest to follow system for learning how to speak French available. It is an interactive course that makes you want to study. Also, it's practical. You'll discover exactly what to say in virtually all situations.

With Rocket French, you are going to learn French rapidly, effectively, and easily. You are going to be able to speak at a restaurant, at an airport, with new friends...

With the Rocket Languages French Program you get:

A Rocket Languages Interactive Audio Course that prompts you to speak French in a conversational and friendly way so that the words just stick in your mind! Learn a language the easy way!

Mega Software Learning Games that are specifically designed to increase your vocabulary and understanding of French and allow you to have fun in the process!

Fully illustrated and easy-to-follow Grammar Lessons, for those of you who love to know how French works. Most of these come with embedded audio clips in the lessons so that you can hear exactly how the words are pronounced!

If you have any questions, you can either email us or post a message on our Members Only Learners Forums, where our team of language experts and fellow enthusiasts will respond to your needs. With every Premium order you get unlimited and full access to our Forum - imagine having a teacher, virtually "on call" 24 hours a day!

And of course all Rocket Languages products are backed by a 60 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee. We're that confident, and it's that simple.

Rocket Languages will teach you how to speak French naturally, so you can read, write, speak, and understand the language as though you have lived there all your life - these are truly cutting-edge multimedia courses!

Find out more about Rocket French.

Update from Busuu.com

Wow! More interesting news just came in from the folks at Busuu! They've done something, well, unprecedented as far as the Free Language team can tell: they've added an endangered language called Silbo Gomero to be learned right through their website!

This language is not spoken, but whistled (silbar = to whistle in Spanish), and is used by the people of Gomera, one of the Canary Islands off Spain, to communicate between long distances and over rough terrain. How cool is that!

Check out this video from Busuu about this fascinating language:

From Website

Become a Silbador!

The existence of the whistled language of Silbo Gomero on the beautiful Spanish island of La Gomera has for years fascinated linguists and language enthusiasts alike.

Silbo Gomero was invented in order to facilitate communication between the people of the island across the deep gorges and valleys long before mobile phones were invented. The tradition continues even now with the local government including it in the educational system of the island.

Learn Silbo Gomero at Busuu.com

Finnish should be on Free Language by now. Ahhh... if only there were all the time in the world! But a recent email from a site user brought Finnish to our attention, and we will make it a point to add Finnish as soon as possible. Since we were unable to email the user back due to email issues on their end, this info is going up here on the blog.

Until a proper section for Finnish is up and running, there are two resources we'd recommend:

A Wikibook for Learning Finnish
Byki Language Freeware for over 60 Foreign Languages (including Finnish)

If you are interested in learning Finnish, please consider signing up for the Free Language Letter so you'll hear about it as soon as Finnish is added to the site!

Best of luck to you in your Finnish learning endeavors! And please recommend Free Language to anyone interested in learning foreign languages. :)

UPDATE: For those with a working knowledge of Finnish seeking listening practice, have a look at the Selkouutiset News in Plain Finnish Podcast.

Summary

Pukka German a free audio podcast for intermediate to advanced German learners. The Pukka German podcast focuses on real-life German, including colloquial German, slang, German idioms and funny German sayings. A few example podcast topics are Oktoberfest, Gobsmacked, Money, Party and Like Clockwork.

The lesson audio, podcast transcripts and vocabulary lists are totally free and there is an option to become a pro member to gain access to online quizzes for a reasonable price. Pukka German is vibrant and filled with useful content for people that want to learn the kind of German language that is used in everyday life. The podcast production quality is that of proper studio recordings and the website is quite colorful as well.

Overall, this is an excellent, vibrant, relatively new podcast for students of German. Bravo Lisa and Tyler!

From Website

Who is Pukka German for?

Our German podcast is aimed at independent learners of German of all ages from intermediate to advanced levels. Whether you are a student, business professional or a language afficionado you will find plenty of useful material on the site to help you speak more fluent and interesting German.

We do not teach beginner German so you will need to have the German basics under your belt already to get the most from our German podcast and online quizzes.

Pukka German Inspiration

On arrival in Freiburg, I realised that in order to properly integrate and enjoy living out here, I was going to have to learn German.

Immediately I devoted considerable energy to learning the German basics as quickly as possible. I used language learning software, CDs, a multitude of books, online resources and also took German language classes. In fact Lisa was quite taken aback by my motivation and she worried that I had some kind of compulsive disorder that she'd failed to pick up on during our time in Scotland!

On arrival in Freiburg, I realised that in order to properly integrate and enjoy living out here, I was going to have to learn German.

Immediately I devoted considerable energy to learning the German basics as quickly as possible. I used language learning software, CDs, a multitude of books, online resources and also took German language classes. In fact Lisa was quite taken aback by my motivation and she worried that I had some kind of compulsive disorder that she'd failed to pick up on during our time in Scotland!

Unfortunately, I soon noticed that the language I learnt from text books was very different to the colourful language that I heard being used socially. It frustrated me that despite all the time and energy I'd invested to improve my German, I battled to understand what seemed to be the most entertaining conversations. I also felt cramped in my ability to express my personality and bring humour into conversation. It didn't take much to realise that it was the idiomatic language, the colloquial expressions and equally important, the German slang that I was missing.

Fortunately for me, I had Lisa who not only did me the favour of speaking with me in German from my first week here, but she also explained many of the useful German expressions, that my private studies hadn't exposed me to.

This obvious difference between textbook German and the language used by a large percentage of the Germans I was meeting is what inspired the creation of the Pukka German podcast. My vision with Pukka German is to help learners of German to bridge this divide, which normally is only achieved with a patient native speaker at your side.

A German podcast seemed the perfect solution because it allows subscribers to hear new vocabulary in context and spoken by a native speaker. Podcasts are also great for regular delivery of content, which is super for language learning.

Visit Pukka German.

Subscribe

Subscribe to Pukka German.
Subscribe to Pukka German via iTunes.