The program has 144 units and six levels of difficulty, and there is a test at the end of each first complete unit. Each unit includes a video with a situation in which you can also switch on subtitles. The rest of the unit consists of a dictation, a role-playing game to test your pronunciation, written and oral exercises, and a list of new words. This download only includes the first unit of the course although it's enough to give you an idea of the rest of the program. The developers are keen to emphasize that this program takes a much more original approach than similar ones. To create a sense of reality, over 300 voice actors have been used throughout the complete course and the program is packed with options for interactive learning.

This is an innovative English learning course that brings a touch of reality to language learning although like all language courses, many of the situations are a bit cliched.

Download ABA English Course 3.0 in Softonic

Offering spelling and grammatical corrections on a sentence-by-sentence basis, WhiteSmoke Writer also includes style suggestions for anything you write, in any program you write with. There are also a wide variety of templates, from application letters to love poems.

During WhiteSmoke Writer's installation, a hot key is set (default is F2), and when pressed WhiteSmoke Writer swings into action and highlights errors in the text, with suggested corrections. The dictionary and thesaurus are good. The former offers translation to several languages, and the latter gives lots of results, though without examples of usage which can be dangerous for the student of English. There is also a translator, but unfortunately it tends to translate sentences verbatim, which makes it even less effective than Google Translate.

WhiteSmoke Writer offered some corrections to non-native English speaker writings that were tested, but it was far from comprehensive and missed some important errors. In fact, Microsoft Word is just as good at grammar correction.

The templates offered in WhiteSmoke Writer are mixed. The financial templates are useful, but not great and use some weird vocabulary. There are also love letters, an apology to a brother, cheesy letters to friends, and a wedding anniversary letter, some of which have some bizarre wording and can be downright comical to read. A quick search on the internet will find better, free examples.

The idea of a language checker available at the touch of a button is a good one, but WhiteSmoke Writer's results are still relatively weak in this 2011 version.

It's difficult to recommend WhiteSmoke Writer, as any word processor will do corrections just as well.

Download WhiteSmoke Writer 2012 in Softonic

Small, compact Speak N Spell is designed to help people practice their English spelling, a helpful goal given the language's notoriously difficult, non-phonetic words. It works like this - you pick the level of difficulty (1-5) and click "new word". Speak N Spell then reads a word to you and you type the correct spelling into the box. If you get it correct, you ask for a new word; if not, you have two further chances. You can ask Speak N Spell to say the word as many times as you like, ask it to display the correct answer, or pass.

Speak N Spell uses a pre-programmed list of American English words - over 47,000 of them. You can modify this list or even add your own, deleting and adding terms as you like. All of the basic functions can be controlled with hotkeys, and the program remembers your preferences even after shutting down.

The voice that you hear is whatever voice you have activated in the Control Panel > Speech > Voice Selection option. The author of Speak N Spell recommends Vicki and a slow speaking voice, and from my own experiments, some voices are definitely more intelligible than others. Experiment until you find one you like.

Speak N Spell is a simple program that does exactly what it says it will - help you to improve your spelling.

Download Speak N Spell 1.3.0 in Softonic

Download Language Reader 2.01.036 in Softonic

WordBanker really does cover a wide variety of languages - Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish, to be precise. Before you start, you must download each language pack from the WordBanker website - this is free, but obviously requires an Internet connection. Once your languages are installed, you are ready to set a daily time goal, chose your language combo and get practicing.

WordBanker has two modes - Practice and test. In the Practice section, the program reads out the word in the foreign language and in English. You then repeat the word as many times as you need to commit it to memory. The foreign languages are read by native speakers, while the English is read in a British accent. You then enter WordBanker's test mode, where you have three test options - multiple choice, hear the word or type the answer - to check how well you have absorbed the new vocabulary.

WordBanker includes a number of other functions that are pretty handy, such as the ability to print vocabulary lists, import and export your own glossaries, create a practice MP3 and record your own pronunciation of new vocabulary. WordBanker also summarizes your current session and provides you with a small report when you have finished - an easy way to let you know if you are keeping up with your practice commitments!

There are a number of settings in WordBanker and they can be accessed from the menu at the top of the screen. Remember that the visible options change depending on what part of the program you are in, so if you can't find a setting, exit the screen you are in and see if it appears. In all, WordBanker is a useful little program for practicing basic vocabulary, especially if you are learning multiple languages. It is probably too basic for more advanced learners, however, although WordBanker can be made slightly more difficult by hiding possible answers, an option that can be toggled in the configuration settings.

For beginners and intermediate learners, WordBanker is a excellent opportunity to expand and cement your vocabulary.

Download WordBanker 4.0 in Softonic

There are two ways of using Anki - you can either create your own questions (cards) or download other people's decks (groups of cards) from the website. Creating your own is very simple; you type in questions and answers (the front and back of the virtual cards) into the respective fields and format them to your taste, adding video, images, audio (useful for language learning) or using LaTeX and HTML.

You can memorize anything with Anki but a lot of the decks available online are aimed at Asian languages, especially Japanese. Anki works by showing you one side of the card. You remember the answer and, depending on how easy you found the question, mark it as Again, Good, Easy or Very Easy. Anki will ask you the same question again in a specific period of time designed to maximize your memory of the word. The program gives you detailed statistics on your performance and shows your progress in graph form so you can monitor it closely.

Although Anki might not sound revolutionary, it is a great tool for all types of students. As long as you can put what you need to learn in the format used by Anki's cards, you'll get some serious memory-maximizing help from the program. It is nicely designed, developed by someone who is obviously very dedicated to the concept and is an ideal accompaniment for people who are serious about learning something tough.

Anki is the perfect program for students of all ages.

Download Anki 2.0.6 in Softonic

Verbix is a complex tool that includes 312 languages and countless numbers of verbs - 11,179 in English and 3,856 in Swahili, for example. The interface is not particularly complicated - you chose the language and pick your verb (either by typing it in the search box or browsing through a list) and Verbix displays all the conjugations it contains. It color-codes the various endings and changes, and allows you to modify these elements to make them easier to recognize. All of the verb parts are well marked, and Verbix even includes a list of verbs that are inflected in the same way.

To make the experience a little more fun, the main Verbix interface also contains some tabbed options - access to Amazon books related to the language you are searching for, a limited number of translations for the verb, and a map option - although I couldn't find a language that activated it. You can also print results from Verbix and copy them to the clipboard.

Verbix allows you to configure grammatical rules for some languages, such as specifying the tuteo or voseo in Spanish. You can also add and translate the more unusual language extensions that are automatically included in the installation, although some are far from complete. It is also worth bearing in mind that some of the pre-installed languages vary greatly in how many verbs they include, even if they are widely spoken. Some languages simply have more verbs than others, but it is obvious that some verbs are missing from Verbix.

Verbix is a great verb conjugation tool, especially for those learning or working with multiple languages.

Download Verbix 2008 8.0.4 in Softonic

Download Ultralingua Grammatica Spelling and Grammar Checker - English 6.1 in Softonic

Hybrid gameplay

Stealth

Graphics and sound

Download Deity 1.1.1948 in Softonic

Offering spelling and grammatical corrections on a sentence-by-sentence basis, WhiteSmoke Writer Executive also includes style suggestions for anything you write, in any program you write with. There are also a wide variety of templates, from application letters to love poems.

During WhiteSmoke Writer Executive's installation, a hot key is set (as default, F2), and when pressed WhiteSmoke Writer Executive swings into action and highlights errors in the text with suggested corrections. The dictionary and thesaurus are good. The former offers translation to several languages, and the latter gives lots of results, though without examples of usage which can be dangerous for the student of English. WhiteSmoke Writer Executive also includes profiles for creative writing, business, legal writing, tech writing and bio-tech, as well as a multi-lingual dictionary. Additionally, there is a translator, but it unfortunately tends to translate sentences verbatim, which makes it even less effective than Google Translate.

WhiteSmoke Writer Executive offered some corrections to non-native texts that were tested, but it was far from comprehensive and missed some important errors. In fact, Microsoft Word is just as good at grammar correction.

The templates offered in WhiteSmoke Writer Executive are mixed. The financial templates are useful, but not great and use some weird vocabulary. There are also love letters, an apology to a brother, cheesy letters to friends, and a wedding anniversary letter, some of which have some bizarre wording and can be downright comical to read. A quick search on the internet will find better, free examples.

The idea of a language checker available at the touch of a button is a good one, but WhiteSmoke Writer Executive results are still relatively weak in this 2011 version.

It's difficult to recommend WhiteSmoke Writer Executive, as any word processor will do corrections just as well.

Download WhiteSmoke Writer Executive 2011 in Softonic

Polyglot 3000 (despite sounding like some kind of wall filler!) is a language recognition package which recognizes more than 400 languages. Simply paste in the text that you need identifying and Polyglot 3000 will immediately throw up suggestions as to what it could be. Polyglot 3000 is lightning fast at detecting the language of the text and it also gives you an estimate of how accurate the results are (which is usually 100% although if the language shares similar words with another language, it may be slightly lower). As far as customization goes, Polyglot 3000's very limited though with the only real option being that of setting it to check for only popular languages. However, with so many languages in use over the internet, this program is an excellent starting point for anyone trying to identify the origin of a blog language or website that they don't understand.

If you're just looking for a one stop, simple way to identify the language of some mysterious text, Polyglot 3000 will do it in a flash but note that it doesn't perform any kind of translation.

Download Polyglot 3000 3.67 in Softonic

If you're learning English - or know someone who is - you'll know that every study opportunity is welcome. Although English Club isn't a replacement for formal lessons or study, it is a nice addition that learners of all levels can benefit from. As the name suggests, English Club is an app for browsing - it's a combination of videos explaining words and phrases, and little quizzes and puzzles designed to test your knowledge.

English Club is a trial app - you get level one free of charge, but must pay for subsequent levels. Also, bear in mind that even though they're free, you'll still have to download most of the content separately from the app itself. There are about 25 videos in level one, which gives you about 75 very short videos to start with.

Unfortunately, we found English Club a little hard to navigate - links are hard to identify, which makes for a lot of clicking around. Mouse scrolling also only works in certain areas, and it's not clear what areas these are! The videos also won't be to everyone's taste - they're very short, with a strange retro animation style, staccato dialog and a poor representation of global English accents.

Despite its shortcomings, however, English Club is a worthwhile - and reputable - download for English learners.

Download English Club for Windows 8 1.1.0.1 in Softonic

iWisdom is a simple desktop application that allows you to build and manage a list of quotations or other brief insights. These can be categorized and sorted and also automatically scroll from one quote to the next on your desktop. You can also publish a collection of your favorite quotes and wisdom in HTML.

It has to be said that iWisdom isn't exactly the slickest looking application. It looks very dated although navigation is straightforward and it's easy to use. It doesn't help that it's based on Java (you'll need Java Runtime Environment (JRE) of 1.5 or higher to use it) but since it's not a bloated app, it works pretty quickly.

If you're short on inspiration by the way, the developer provides some handy links to get your juices flowing here.

iWisdom isn't a masterpiece but it is simple and effective at what it does.

Download iWisdom 2.20 in Softonic