It’s been a busy couple of months. Work’s picked up as the 2014 election looms, I spent a fantastic week in England with my now-boyfriend, and I’ve gotten to spend time with friends in D.C. during my precious few moments off. (And the Royals are in the World Series.)

One other thing I’ve done, at the recommendation of my boyfriend, is try out Duolingo. It’s a Web-based language-learning program that is completely free and based on crowd-sourced translated content. It’s set up like a game, with organized lessons, points, levels and a currency that can “buy” supplemental lessons and other goodies. The lessons are a combination of translating phrases into English, translating English phrases into the language, transcribing audio of the language and verbally repeating phrases in the language. The lessons are separated by topic, such as colors, verbs, time, adjectives and clothing.

So far, you can learn German, Spanish, French, Italian, English, and Portuguese. Dutch, Irish and Danish are in beta development, and still more are in the works. It’s set up like a community, where you can compete with friends for points, discuss lessons to figure out what you might have missed, and translate articles and read translated articles.

Again, it is all free, based on the idea of learning languages as a tool of economic mobility. It stands in stark contrast to Rosetta Stone, which costs hundreds of dollars for a five-level program. I have Rosetta Stone in French, German and Hebrew, but I was curious about Duolingo as a supplement.

I think I’m addicted.

I dabbled in French first, then resolved to work through the German program, since I’m more familiar with that language. I do go back daily and do a lesson in French to keep my “streak” (number of uninterrupted days you complete a lesson, part of the “game” aspect), but my focus now is on completing the German program before going back to work through the French program. Once both programs are done, I’ll go back and do revision lessons on them to “keep my bars up,” and then start on a third language (I’m thinking Italian).

It has always been a goal of mine to become at least conversational in as many languages as possible. I know that true fluency will probably come only with total immersion for an extended period, but Duolingo seems great at teaching the basics, while keeping it fun and making you want to come back. I look forward to traveling more now, because I know I can sample the languages beforehand.

If you’re interested in learning a language but unable or unwilling to make a large monetary commitment, I’d definitely look into Duolingo. It’s probably best paired with other tools (I still use Rosetta Stone and try to read German news sites regularly), but for light study, it’s a great tool.