Joshua Lien . com

The answer is simple, perfectly legal, and not well known: check out your local library's website. You will need a library card, which many people already have or can obtain for free. On my library's website, I drilled down through Research & Resources, Databases & Online Collections, and Language Learning & Literacy to find Rosetta Stone. Register and create a user name and password. Select a language and start learning. That's it. Okay, there's a little more to it than that. You do have to regularly invest the time to learn, but the free Rosetta Stone online course is available anytime you have a computer with an Internet connection. My library offers German, English (UK or US), Spanish (Latin America or Spain), French, Russian, Greek, and Italian. I am currently learning Spanish, and I really like the Dynamic Immersion method employed by Rosetta Stone.

If you cannot find anything on your library's website, send them an e-mail or give them a call. They might offer Rosetta Stone or something similar (my library also carries Tell Me More and Tumblebooks online) but have them buried on their website under an obscure directory system. The smaller library systems are less likely to offer online language learning, but you never know until you check.

Adiós y la buena suerte!

(2008-11-03 Update - According to my library's website, the Rosetta Stone online course will not be available for library subscription after October 31, 2008.  Tell Me More is still available for me.)