Mi Vida Loca

BBC's video course Mi Vida Loca is really one of the most well-designed introductory courses I have seen.....whoever designed it really did a top notch job.

The course enables you to practice listening and speaking, in an interactive way, in the context of a mystery storyline that takes place in Spain. With the suspense, it motivates you to keep going to the next lesson, to find out what happens. With the video, you also see nice pictures of Madrid, the Spanish countryside, and the Canary islands. You practice things like checking into a hotel, renting a car, ordering in a restaurant, and buying groceries in a marketplace, all in an interactive way.

An interactive phrasebook helps teach you the things you need to say, and you can click for reminders as well (in the event that you forget what you need to say). Helpful phrases are written and spoken for you, and you can click again to hear it multiple times, and toggle back and forth between Spanish spellings and English equivalents.

At the end of each unit, there's a review that's also interactive, that takes you through grammar, vocabulary, and additional practice. You learn the language in its natural context, and rather than feeling forced, you are able to pick up useful phrases without bland and repititious memorization.

I highly recommend it. You know those Taiwanese methods of learning languages? The ones that make those poor students do countless grammar exercises without focusing on real conversation and real-life situations? The ones that result in Taiwanese kids not being able to say a single word, because they are too afraid to express themselves in the foreign language?

This is the exact opposite. Language learning made fun, and effective - in real-life useful and interesting contexts, rather than bland grammar and memory lessons. Kudos to the BBC!