Learning another language: Learning another language opens up new opportunities and gives you perspectives that you might never have encountered otherwise. Personal, professional, social, and economic considerations all point to the advantages of learning foreign languages. And we also know the good reasons why you should be learning a foreign language.

Now here are the best language learning apps and web sites, updated to include those with social dynamics, like HelloTalk, recent entries like Rosetta Stone, and stalwart Duolingo and others. We’ve also made an effort to include apps/ sites for multiple languages including Mandarin, French, Spanish, and English.

Duolingo – Incredibly well-designed and user-friendly, Duolingo is a free site that teaches users languages through drills, requiring a mix of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. An “immersion” section allows you to read real-world articles while helping to translate them. Beyond that, Duolingo makes studying fun by awarding you points for lessons completed and bonuses if you do well; a social aspect allows your friends to see your progress and vice versa.

If you wish, Duolingo will send you daily reminders to study, which is easy to do, even while you’re on the go, if you download their free app. Currently, the site offers instruction in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Dutch, Irish, Danish, and Swedish. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can study multiple languages simultaneously at no extra charge.

Babbel – Babbel.com gives you everything you need to speak, write and understand a new language. Set your own pace – learn what you want, when you want. Simply choose the course you’re interested in and start building your vocabulary. Learn grammar intuitively as you go. It saves your completed lessons in the cloud so you can pick up right where you left off – on your computer, tablet or smartphone. Start speaking right from the first lesson. Babbel’s integrated speech recognition helps improve your pronunciation.

Babbel.com is a great choice for comprehensive training, improving pronunciation and deriving fun from it. The review manager of the site will spot your weak points and provide you with additional trainings. So, it is a sound choice for topical learning and improving your skills.

Memrise – Use mems – fun and imaginative ways to remember a word or phrase – to learn whatever your heart desires.

Visual learners should head to Memrise, a site that features countless categories of so-called “mems,” user-generated mnemonic flash cards that rely on graphics, humor, and imagination to implant new vocabulary in your memory. The site hosts thousands of free courses in many languages; you can also upload your own mems for other users to view. Because the content is entirely user-generated, the quality may vary, but when mems work, they really work.

Busuu – With an international community of more than 40 million registered native speakers, Busuu relies heavily on its customers’ efforts to help teach each other. Beginners’ lessons use flash cards for learning new words and phrases, but advanced lessons involve writing and answering questions that will be reviewed by native speakers on the site. Dialogues, writing exercises, and audio recordings are also part of the mix, but grammar-focused lessons, video units, and printable PDF files are only available via paid memberships. However, the free lessons are available on-the-go via Busuu’s apps. The site offers instruction in Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese.

So, learn the language of your choice with busuu in a fun and easy way and practice with a community of over 45 million native speakers.

Rosetta Stone – Rosetta Stone Inc. is dedicated to changing people’s lives through the power of language and literacy education. The company’s innovative, personalized language and reading programs drive positive learning outcomes in thousands of schools, businesses, government organizations and for millions of individual learners around the world.

You can learn to speak Spanish, French, Italian, English, German or one of many other languages anytime, anywhere.

Voxy – Changing the way the world learns English. Discover how Voxy’s task-based curriculum and ground breaking technology adapt to your students’ and employees’ unique learning needs in real time.

Their Proven Method include: begin with a needs analysis, use a wide range of authentic content and personalize instruction. Let’s change the world learn English.

Living Language – If you’re serious about learning, consider signing up for an online course from Living Language, with offerings in 20 languages. Available in a variety of course lengths and costs, the lessons combine vocabulary, grammar, audio conversations, and cultural notes. Games, puzzles, and e-tutoring with native speakers are other popular features.

Apps for the iPhone and iPad offer full course content, interactive games, and flash cards on the go. If you don’t want to pay for a course, Living Language’s Free Resources section affords a variety of language-specific PDFs that are useful to travelers or anyone looking to build vocabulary in a language they’ve already studied.

HelloTalk – HelloTalk – The 1st Language Exchange Social Networking App in the world.

Finally, learning and practicing another language has become easier and more intuitive than ever. Choose to learn from over 100 languages – Native speakers from around the world are your teachers – HelloTalk’s intuitive tools provide an experience that’s never made it easier to learn and practice a new language.

Introducing HelloTalk for iOS and Android, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language; you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.

Languagezen – Languagezen.com are the first language learning program that adapts to every user. Other programs put you on the same linear path as every other user. But there is no average user. You’re unique. Languagezen.com dynamically select content based on your personal interests and proficiencies.

They also let you learn from real music that overlaps with your vocabulary and we introduce you to new words by how often they’re actually used in the real world.

Pleco – Pleco make the world’s best Chinese dictionaries. And much more – they are Pleco Software, purveyors of ridiculously awesome Chinese language reference and learning apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Pleco is the ultimate Chinese learning companion – an integrated dictionary / document reader / flashcard system with full screen handwriting input and live Optical Character Recognizer (OCR) system, from a company that’s been making the world’s best mobile Chinese learning apps since 2001.  Pleco moved from platform to platform as the mobile market changed – Windows Mobile in 2004, iPhone in 2009 and Android in 2011

Do you know, there are approximately 6900 languages currently spoken around the world, the majority of which have only a small number of speakers? About 4 billion of the earth’s 6.5 billion people, or over 60% of the earth’s population, speak 30 languages as their native tongue.

Learning a new language was not at all an easy task till recently. But now you can learn any language anywhere and at any time that too, free of cost. This has inspired many to learn new languages. And this is going to benefits them in many ways. So, chose the language you want to learn and chose the App / website and make a beginning now?