In Soviet Russia the Language Speaks You...

My mom and dad are headed to the Ukraine on an 18-month medical mission, and as we were talking the other day, they mentioned they were learning Ukrainian.  Dad wants to learn Russian, too, and asked me about Rosetta Stone (which is great as an introduction to a language, but, gosh, that stuff's expensive!).  Our exchange got me to thinking about ways to learn another language...on the cheap.

There are quite a few mostly free resources out there, and here are a few:

Launching pads: If you're looking for places to get started, this page at Open Culture has a nice list of sites you can visit to see what's out there for a wide variety of languages.  Omniglot.com has a great, albeit generic, list of tips on learning another language.

Sites: livemocha.com - This is the site I'm using to learn French.  It's mostly free, with options for paid modules that include role playing, which is nice because it mimics real life.  What I like about livemocha is that you can interact with and get feedback from native speakers, and you're encouraged to help those learning your language, too.  You can even do audio and video chat to practice your convo skills if you'd like. The drawback to livemocha is its layout.  It can take some getting used to, but once you do, it's fine, and the site has a good selection of languages.

babbel.com - This site has a nice, simple layout, and it's draw is that you can use speech recognition to make sure your pronunciation is just so.  You get an intro course for free, and then you pay a monthly fee for future courses that you can complete as you see fit.  The incentive is to complete them as quickly as possible, obviously, so you don't pay for extra months.

busuu.com - busuu has audio and video chat with native speakers, and is mostly free, with the option for monthly fees for more courses.  The downside is that busuu supports only a limited amount of languages: Spanish, French, English, German, Russian, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese).  The site design is a bit cheesy, but that's just a matter of taste.

mangolanguages.com - mango has a brief, free trial and is very similar to Rosetta Stone.  For complete lessons, you pay a one-time fee, which is about half Rosetta Stone's.  Mango has speech recognition and something I appreciated: grammar explanations (telling you the "why" behind certain language rules).  Despite a slick interface, there's no community help.

italki.com - italki is probably the least structured language learning site I found.  It has no pre-made courses; instead, the site is community based, meaning you help someone learn your language and they return the favor.  You can also register to be a paid language teacher or find paid tutors to help you.

BBC Languages - the BBC has intro courses for a handful of languages and resources and links to other language sites.

Content: BBC World Service - content from the Beeb in like 30 something languages.
Voice of America - content from around the world in various languages, similar to the BBC.

Got any language learning tips?  Favorite sites?