As somebody which picked up a lot of Italian and Spanish by watching TV I can tell you about a problem of this method - you will understand it pretty well, but when you'll try to speak it the words just won't come out. You'll immediately recognize the word for "car", but you'll struggle to come up with the same word on demand.

I think this shows that there is a need to also speak/write a language, not just listen/read.

I really like Mango for two reasons: it has Québécois French (since I'm in Montreal now) and it has a feature where you can compare your pronunciation to a native speaker. It's really helped me learn the unvoiced consonants that lurk at the end of French words.

Thanks! At what minimum age is Duolingo usable?