Review of LinguaphoneGroup.com
Books, CDs, MP3, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★★★
This British company offers 15 mostly European languages. Students listen while reading the text of what they are listening to, and students speak to compare themselves to the native speakers. The Basic and PDQ series teach 500 words for $30-$60. The Complete series teach 2,000 words for $200-$400.

They do not offer samples on the website, so it is hard to know how you will like the course before buying it. There are very few reviews on US Amazon, more on UK Amazon. Reviewers note the limited vocabulary, often on topics they do not need (describing one's home), but are pleased with the pronunciation they learned. They say you will know a few words to start talking to, for example, Turks when you visit, before switching to English. (Click for Arguelles' review.)

Review of Learnables.com
CDROM, CDs or cassettes with books, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★
They teach 7 languages, 1-5 levels each, at $140-$200 per level from them. The CDROM speaks and shows a picture simultaneously. Cassettes or CDs repeat each word in the target language, and you understand it by looking at the book.

Used books are readily available, and sometimes cassettes, for $10 or more. 

The first four levels of Spanish total 3,000 words; no figures for the other languages, though they say you need to learn 5,000 words before you can talk at an elementary level. They seem to be unaware of the millions of workers around the world who use small practical vocabularies of a few hundred words to talk with bosses or customers.

They acknowledge they focus on listening and reading, by presenting pictures and words, without emphasizing speech by the learner. They say that Rosetta Stone parallels their previous approach, but that Learnables have continued research and are now better:

• "Learnable® no longer uses the four-picture guessing approach and isolated, unrelated sentences. Instead The Learnables® presents pictures in story-like fashion using linguistic procedures and semantic field theory that have been found to be effective and well received by students."

Besides the de-emphasis on speaking, the lessons distractingly say numbers between words:

• "One Automobile Automobile Two Automobile Automobile Three Automobile Automobile."

I am a great believer in teaching numbers, but this seems too distracting for someone trying to learn the word "Automobile." No doubt people will learn at least to listen and read, but they might learn more with FSI, Book2, or Transparent at far less cost.

Review of Busuu.com
Web, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★
They teach 3,000 phrases in 12 languages, by saying the phrase and showing spelling in your language and the target language, with a photo ($18 per month, $90/year). The voice can be repeated; spelling cannot be suppressed.

It is too hard for beginners. Many phrases in the first lesson have 7 or more syllables, and the average is over 5 syllables, in Portuguese. You cannot slow them down or play them syllable by syllable. Dialogs have words which are not yet taught. They introduce two forms of "you" and two forms of each adjective, without explaining when to use each form.

The "record" buttons, if you subscribe, let you record a limited number of phrases, then press several buttons to compare yourself to the model. There is no voice recognition for immediate scoring, but you may find a native speaker to befriend on their network, to ask for feedback. You can similarly ask for feedback on your short written sentences, but the feedback I saw was often wrong. Intermediate learners might be able to find a reliable pen pal this way to practice with.

A business course in English or Spanish costs $26 per year for intermediate to advanced students. It teaches 600 words and phrases for job applications, phone calls, emails, meetings, presentations, and "Marketing I – discuss products, pricing, distribution channels and promotions."

They also sell a $10 online guide to usage of prepositions and grammar; competitive with finding a used grammar book.

Explanations can be in any of their languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish. However it often jumped to English, though I asked for explanations in Spanish.

Review of Power-Glide.com Powerspeak12
Web, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★
They teach 5 languages from elementary to high school levels, "focusing on listening, reading and writing" not speaking. Cost is $140 per "semester" with 4 semesters equivalent to high school completion (not a very high level). For $380 per semester they can assign a certified teacher to enable school credit. Elementary and middle school courses are $100 per semester and cover less.

Review of ROCKETlanguages.com
Web, App, Pronunciation scored, Expensive, ★
They offer 13 languages, European, Asian, Arabic and American Sign Language. They show spelling in English and in the target language and audio ($100). Their English course is taught in English, Spanish or Japanese.

They have a button to play each word or short phrase, and another button to record you, which yields a score if you use the Chrome browser or their app. You can select easy, medium or hard scoring, but I did not find much difference, and none is strict. For Italian, "come stai?" (rhymes with caw may sigh?), I said "come stay?" (rhymes with rum bay?), and got a 100% score, as long as my rhythm and rising pitch matched their recording. 

$100 pays for about 30 conversation lessons of 20 minutes each, with far more explanation in English than words in the target language. It also includes another 30 lessons of explanations and grammar. The target language itself is spoken primarily by native speakers. They say the price includes:

• "24/7 lifetime online access (via app and desktop computer)
•  A 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee
•  Free upgrades for life
• true voice recognition is only available for Chrome users. Firefox & Edge will be able to record audio without pronunciation feedback. All other browsers including Internet Explorer and Safari can only play the tutor’s audio."

"Life" means as long as they stay in business. This is better than downloadable software, which will often fail when you upgrade computers. For some languages they offer a second and third level. For some they offer a monthly subscription at $20, which could be good for a month before a trip.

They make a good easy start with numbers 1-6. Then, like many courses, they change to a complex topic, saying hello at different times of day to different kinds of people, rather than easy topics like colors, sounds, phone appointments, times, purchases, metric system, etc.

Many sites recommend it, perhaps because of their generous commissions.

Review updated 3/6/2019

Review of FLUENZ.COM
Software, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★★★
Each course costs $200-500, depending on language and levels. Amazon reviews say you do not learn much vocabulary, but most praise the solid learning and many exercises. It sometimes will record your voice, so you can compare it to the examples, but it does not score your pronunciation. The demo shows it has a lot of English chat.