NOVI, Mich. -- As the debate over U.S. immigration laws escalates and globalization continues to impact the bottom line of world economics, the importance of learning a foreign language is becoming overwhelmingly clear.

According to 2000 U.S. Census data, nearly 47 million people who live in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home. That statistic is up 15 million people since 1990 and Census projections indicate that this trend will continue as the face of the U.S. continues to diversify over the next 50 years.

Yet despite these facts and the obvious demand for foreign language skills, language instruction has largely remained antiquated and expensive for many.

www.mangolanguages.com is a revolutionary Web Site that provides foreign language lessons in nearly a dozen languages online, for free.

The site launched on August 31 and has taken the online community by storm, with buzz spreading like wildfire on thousands of blogs and news Web Sites around the world.

According to Google Analytics, the site has received nearly 6.5 million page views from people in 195 countries and territories. There are currently 80,000 registered users and that number continues to grow as word spreads about this valuable free site worldwide.

“This is an amazing Web Site for anyone interested in learning new foreign languages,” says Niranjan Shetty, a Mango registered user from India. “It’s so simple to use and to the point, that anyone can start learning almost instantaneously.”

According to Alexa.com – a Web Site traffic tracking tool – Mango’s site traffic spiked to an all-time high with the announcement of the free service.

At one point, site traffic on www.mangolanguages.com nearly tripled that of foreign language learning powerhouse Rosetta Stone and Berlitz, which both offer more traditional language products such as CDs.

"The buzz that our site has generated on the web and the positive feedback that we’ve received worldwide is beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” says Jason Teshuba, chief Mango and site co-founder. “We’re thrilled to help solve the need for online language instruction.”

www.mangolanguages.com offers nearly a dozen languages, including: Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Greek. Additionally, there are comprehensive courses for native Spanish and Polish speakers to learn English.

The site features a one-of-a-kind comprehensive teaching approach that actively engages audio and visual cues to assist users in conversational language acquisition. All the lessons contain voice-overs and phonetics from native speakers.

Plans are already under way to improve the existing lessons and add additional languages to the site in early 2008.