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 IELANGUAGES.com/languages.html
Web, No pronunciation scores, Free, ★
This private site has free recordings of the numbers 0-21 and many other words in 8 mostly European languages. It has recordings of a few words in three more languages, and free text on several other languages, including some uncommon ones. The recordings are either the FSI courses, which are in more detail on the FSI site, or they speak long lists of words with no pauses, pictures nor sound effects, so learners have to read along to know the meaning.

They give detailed explanations (for example declension of the Russian numbers) which other sites omit. They also have links to many sites for one or a few languages, which I do not review here. See "All Languages" for other sites with similar helpful links

_Review of BEHIND THE WHEEL Macmillan.com
CDs+Books, No pronunciation scores, Cheap, ★★★★
This series of CDs and books teaches 9 languages ($20-$50 per 8-hour course). The free examples show clear enunciation, comparable to Pronunciator, Transparent and Book2, but not broken into individual words, and without pronunciation scores.

Amazon reviewers say it covers more vocabulary, sentence structure and tenses than Pimsleur, at far lower cost, but is harder to start with. I have not seen a comparison with FSI.

_Review of EARWORMSlearning.com Musical Brain Trainer
MP3+CD+Apps, No pronunciation scores, Cheap, ★★★
These MP3 files, CDs and apps ($10-20) teach 13 languages in English, 8 in French and 10 in German. They play the teaching language and the target language rhythmically with music background, to help retention. They have 1 to 3 levels for different languages, teaching basic travel phrases. Amazon reviewers give them good ratings.

Langenscheidt offered Earworms for Germans learning English, French, Italian and Spanish, though these no longer appear on the Langenscheidt site.

According to some sellers Earworms is published by Berlitz, which does publish other language courses (reviewed here). Earworms does not appear on the Berlitz website

Review of MANGOlanguages.com
Web+Apps, No pronunciation scores, Cheap, Free at libraries ★
They offer 60 languages (72 if you include dialects, $20/month for any or all). They are free at many libraries in the US and Canada, and their site will search for a library near you. They show spelling in English and in the target language, and audio. The apps have an automatic setting to play continuously, but there are few repeats, and far more explanation in English than time learning the language. They cover only introductory conversation, varying among languages, and no longer publicly list the topics they teach, so you have to try it to find if they teach what you need.

They say sentences fast, but then go word by word, and you can click any word to hear it slowly as many times as you want. They color-code words in English with the same color as the corresponding word in the target language. They explain a few grammar concepts as needed and explain how the grammar differs from English.

They compare graphs of your voice with a native speaker, but like BBC they do not say if they are graphing volume or pitch. My graphs did not appear at all in Cantonese on Chrome, and were too small to read in Mandarin on Internet Explorer. No scoring of pronunciation is given, just the graph.

Unfortunately they mix a wide variety of complex words and subtle distinctions into the beginner lessons.

For example the first lessons in Chinese and French teach a variety of greetings: hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, etc., but the Chinese lesson says most people use ni hao. Why start with so many words which the learners will forget from lack of use? The lesson on numbers has only a few randomly chosen numbers embedded in long conversations, such as the price of a Ming vase or the cost and distance of a taxi ride. These are much harder to remember than a series of practical sentences like: how much is the rice? how much is the map? along with answers structured to teach all numbers from zero up.

The French lesson on numbers does address a map, but still has only a few numbers lost in a sea of other conversation. Some lessons, like the French one, also include a movie where you can choose English and/or French subtitles, and lessons to teach the dialogue word by word. The subtitles are shown too briefly to learn from, the controls are too dim, and the dialogue is not widely applicable, and so not worth all the time spent teaching it word by word. The accent in the Canadian French lesson sounds just like the accent in the French lesson for France, and not at all like Quebec.

The first Swahili lesson is much simpler, with just hello, how are you, answers, and "my name is." They introduce morning and evening later, but never teach numbers.

They use English to teach most languages. They teach English itself in 19 languages: Arabic (Egyptian, Modern Standard), Armenian, Bengali, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin), French, German, Greek, Haitian creole, Hmong, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese.

_Review of PIMSLEUR.com
CD+MP3, No pronunciation scores, Expensive, ★
Pimsleur teaches a limited vocabulary in 56 languages, entirely by ear, with CDs or downloaded MP3 files. 55 languages are taught, with explanations in English, and English is taught, with explanations in 14 languages. Standard pricing is $22 for five 30-minute lessons, $120 for 30 lessons, $335 for 90 lessons. Pimsleur for a few common languages can be bought for much less by joining Audible for $15 per month, which entitles you to one free audiobook (30 lessons) each month. Or check Amazon.

The free introductory lesson for each language teaches about 20 words in 28 minutes. It breaks down each sentence into syllables, and starts teaching with the last syllable, until you have the whole sentence, which is effective.

Speaking seems too fast and indistinct for complete beginners. For example in a Chinese word starting with a strongly aspirated consonant, it is not possible to tell whether this is h, p, or t. Consonants at the ends and in the middle of words are also indistinct.

Intonation is mentioned for example in the Chinese and Indonesian lessons, but without saying which words have which intonation, and a complete novice cannot tell. An Indonesian phrase is described as having a rising intonation, but sounds as if it rises then falls.

Amazon reviews mention some of these same problems and say that after all 90 lessons you have just an introductory knowledge. You could learn the Chinese tones with the free FSI or BBC courses, or from the graphs in the cheap Transparent course, then return to Pimsleur if you prefer. Transparent would be equally helpful for Indonesian, which is not taught by the others.

They teach most languages in English. They teach English in 14 languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Farsi, French, German, Haitian, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese.