If you can't wait for Duolingo, you can start learning French, Spanish, German, Italian or Dutch vocabulary at http://inglua.com/en (a YC reject from before it became fashionable).
I just tried this for my native tongue, Dutch, and I am getting stuff wrong because it doesn't have the correct translation for it.
Stuff like "the friend" is translated to "de vriendin". Or "near the sea" can't be translated as "bij de zee" but has to be translated to "vlakbij de zee". A lot of them are context dependent as well, and don't make sense the way they are presented.
"Forward" is one I kept running into, it can be translated in two different ways depending on the context, "naar voren" or "vooruit" (BTW, define: vooruit in Google doesn't give you anything, search in de Dikke Van Dale a Dutch Dictionary). It made it immensely frustrating to go through Level 1 and I just gave up after a while.
Thank you for your feedback. I try to add as many synonyms as possible (5 for Dutch in the case of "near the sea"), but some always slip through.
Also, any words that are context dependent should have an example that clarifies the meaning: e.g. for "the friend" the example given is "After I told my friend, she started crying." so you know it concerns a woman, not a man.
In general, inglua works much better if you use it as intended, that is, to learn languages you barely speak at all (and that's obviously the use case I aim for).
