BBC Languages is a website by the BBC that is providing language courses for several popular languages such as German, French, Spanish and Chinese. A language portal was constructed for each language that is used as the main hub for that language. From there students can get a quick fix of the selected language which is a great way to learn some phrases in the language. Especially useful if your trip starts the other day and you want to be able to speak some basic phrases at least like saying Hello, asking your way around or ordering a pizza.
Most of the content on the website is audio content which can be downloaded as mp3 files to the local computer and from there on the mp3 player so that you could learn on the trip.
You also find Grammar Tips and interactive games that test your language skills. The quality of the spoken language is excellent but the courses remain pretty basic from what I can tell. I think it’s a great way to get a first impression of a language but one has to use additional courses to fully understand a language.
I personally prefer Mango over BBC Languages.
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Mango is definitely a great site! Another one to consider is Edufire – there is a great community to go with resources like videos and flashcards but it’s strength is in its ability to provide students with customized learning with tutors. If you’d like to try a free tutoring session, I’ve got some connections ;) – drop me an email at sandra@edufire.com and I’ll set it up for you.
I did find another one, apart from the ones in the comments: http://www.studentteacherexchange.com/ which is completely free and uses chat/video/voice and whiteboards as well. They are new but my guess is they will be booming soon since they charge nothing.