What Great Supplements to RS Have You Found?

I've searched for months to find something as comprehensive as Rocket Spanish. However, there are LOTS of other great resources out there and I think it would be helpful if we all shared our best finds. One of my most recent favorites is "Destinos" ... a well-made mystery/travelogue that offers a chance to hear and practice Spanish. http://www.learner.org/series/destinos/watch/index.html?ep1 My favorite conjugation site is 123teachme.com because it highlights the irregularities of each verb. Still looking for a better translation site than Google Translate. What have you found?

The one drawback to Rocket Spanish is that you have to be connected. If I'm out walking around, I have "Barron's Mastering Spanish Level 2" (originates from the US Department of Defense) on my iPod. While the book that comes with the course is pretty useless, the audio which takes you through various drills and exercises is very useful. It's a very different approach than RS. One web site I use for translation is http://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles. This site is quite different than your Google-type translation sites. Type in a word or phrase and it will bring up real examples of that word or phrase in both your host and target languages.

Steven ... thanks ... as an avid walker, I've been trying to find a good offline resource. I'll try both of the suggested supplements. Another one I like are the readings in http://www.learnpracticalspanishonline.com. They are interesting and well written and offer Spanish and English side by side and an audio reading. I am doing the Beginning readings which seem fine for my level ... mostly comprehensible with a sprinkling of new words.

For Chinese, here are some free online resources. A free textbook: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-21f-003-learning-chinese-a-foundation-course-in-mandarin-spring-2011/ Happy Chinese (lots of episodes to choose from): http://english.cntv.cn/program/learnchinese/happychinese/ Also, while its price has been coming down lately, Rosetta Stone is a good complementary resource, particularly if you use their online resources.

For French, I really like French in Action. You get 52 videos of 30 minutes each where you can see how the French live and work and you get a hard-bound text book, two study guides, two workbooks, and a very high quality audio program with each workbook to work on pronunciation and aural comprehension. All of those materials can be used offline without an Internet connection and are of very good quality and accuracy. If anybody has seen something similar to that for another language, I would love to know about it but for French, you can't go wrong with French in Action. Rocket Languages is good because of this forum and the mix of written, audio, and testing materials but they tend to make a lot of written errors that make me distrust the quality of lessons and audio materials and cause me to need the forum to verify the details. Google translate is not that bad. It gets better with feedback and works if you speak the words or write them well enough to understand the idea behind the other language until you get to a level where you can just use a native dictionary. Good luck finding something better. I think it will be #1 for a while. If it's no good in Spanish, it's probably because nobody is contributing corrections. Try to add your own corrections and encourage others to do so also. It's the best platform I have seen for collaborative improvement in so many languages. If you like programs like Pimsleur and Rocket Languages where there is a little dialog for each lesson, try Onlingo. Don't wait for each installment, just call them and ask for a discount on the entire set and buy it all at once. It will be much cheaper. Each episode comes with a computer trainer, audio, and a booklet with transcript. Also very good quality. Another option is Assimil. Your library may already have it on the shelf. With all the programs, even here at Rocket Languages, you can download the MP3 files and play them offline. See my post on how to download individual phrases from each lesson and how to upload them to memrise also if you want to work offline.

I do remember seeing French in Action and yes, it is very well done.

Just as you suggest with Google translate, I would encourage you to send in any corrections to Rocket Spanish. I don't know what level you are on, but I have been through the Platinum course many times all the while sending in corrections. I don't think you'll find many errors there and RS has been really good about tweeking the translations to get exactly the right meaning.

I use Yabla quite a bit. Short videos, with the options to show or hide subtitles both in the language used, and the English translation. You can also slow the videos down.

If traveling, search for podcasts. I've found many very good Italian ones that are free to download.

My favorite conjugation web site is onoma.es. It is in Spanish, which helps my reading comprehension. I used to like SpanishDict.com, but it has so much ancilliary content that my computer often quits responding.

I like to watch Gordon and Cynthia's videos at LightSpeed Spanish.

I have a flashcard set on Quizlet to which I have added every verb that I have encountered in the RS lessons. It currently contains over 250 verbs. Often while driving I will start the program running so that I can listen to either the Spanish or English translation and speak the opposite. It runs automatically so I don't have to look at or fiddle with my iPhone, so I don't think it is any more distracting than listening to music.

I haven't used Yabla, but I have watched the promo video a few times. The features (ability to slow down the video, flashback, etc.) look helpful. And if the presenter, "Karola" is as animated in the actual videos as she is in the intro, they should be very entertaining as well.
 

A good supplement I found is a set of videos made by senor jordan - a  high school spanish teacher  - that presents grammer topics in a simplified and very easy to understand manner.   The videos run from very basic to more advanced topics such as subjective tenses.  They can be found at  http://www.senorjordan.com/los-videos/.   

Jim's suggestion reminded me to suggest Professor Jason's videos on You Tube.

And while you are on You Tube, check out the Butterfly Spanish videos. The presenter uses the English, Okay? a bit much, but she is entertaining nonetheless.

Oh, there is an interesting Ted Talk on how to learn any language in 6 months. I disagree with the basic premise, but he does offer some useful language learning strategies.

As stated above there are many excellent on-line courses. However, my main supplemental book/cd courses are 1. Victor's Adventures in Spain (Lightspeed Spanish), 2. Michel Thomas and 3. Assimil's Spanish with Ease. An excellent free on-line course is Language Transfer's Spanish. This course is similar to Michel Thomas's teaching method and painlessly takes you from beginner to a good intermediate standard.  I find  the different perspectives of these courses play off well against Rocket and for me they are very synergenic in my learning processes. Hope this helps?