I've heard a lot about LingQ, and I signed up to give it a try. I was pretty disappointed at how little they give you for free to get a taste of how it works so I'd abandoned it for months.

I really wish I hadn't!

I don't know what prompted me to give it another shot but since I'd run out of free credits, I had to pay. So I paid for a month and thought I'd cancel it if it didn't work for me.

What actually happened is that I subscribed and now have an amazing resource for reading and listening.

I'm currently reading 80 Days Around the World (with audio). You create your own flash deck by clicking on words you don't know. When you click on a word (or phrase) you can add it to be reviewed with an option to write your own notes.

There's guided courses and books already available to start learning, but you can also import your own books (though I haven't tried this yet). Being able to hit the play button to hear what you're reading is also a massive help for your listening skills. Some of the audio is computerised, but mostly it's read by native speakers.

Recommended!!

Somehow I'd managed to trap a nerve in my neck last night and woke up this morning in agony. Since I stayed home from work, I ended up using some of my day watching La Forêt on Netflix - it's a French mini series about a girl who goes missing in the forest. My listening skills are atrocious so I switched on the French subtitles too. Not only was it good practice, it was a really good show too!