Avoid Expensive Language Lessons And Learn Any Language Cheaply

As a certified white person, I love multilingualism and one day aspire to speak at least 17 different languages, the more obscure the better.  French students are a dime a dozen, but how many people do you know who’ve heard of Twi, much less speak it?  Unfortunately, learning obscure west-African tribal languages doesn’t traditionally come cheap.  Language classes at universities and private language institutes run several hundred dollars for just a few months (or weeks, more likely) of two or three-hour-per-week instruction, which sadly isn’t enough to propel you even to the intermediate level, much less fluency.  The obvious alternatives are either daily private tutoring (very expensive) or immersion study in-country (outrageously expensive), neither of which are fit for a Frugal Francis like me.  Fortunately, there is a free (in most cases) alternative.  Back in college, I spent a semester abroad in Spain.  Wanting to speak the language more or less fluently before landing, I did some digging on the net searching for tips to learn a language quickly and inexpensively.  Luckily, I came across How To Learn Any Language, which steps you through the learning process step by step. 

Language Classes Are A Waste Of Money

For the most part, language classes are the worst way to learn a language.  They are slow, unwieldy, and focus on unnecessary grammar rules at the expense of useful conversational skills.  Unfortunately, people don’t learn language by memorization.  They learn by imitation, intensive drilling, and repetition.  It may not be the most exciting method, but it has the advantage of actually working.

Foreign Service Institute Language Programs

Enter the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI).  The FSI is the branch of the US Government responsible for providing language training to US diplomats and spies, among other things, and have developed extensive language training programs for most popular and many not-so-popular languages.  What’s more, these programs are completely in the public domain and freely available over the web on the FSI Language Courses website.  Best of all, these programs are among the best language training tools in existence at any price.  That they happen to be free to the world is an added bonus.  If you’re in the market for a premium language program, you couldn’t do much better than FSI and you could definitely do a lot worse.  For the price, nobody else even comes close.