Is it just me, or is the free version of Duolingo kind of useless? What's a good free resource for learning basic Spanish?

[needscoffee]

Someone here recently mentioned a State Department site for learning a foreign language in a hurry.
Ah, here it is:

Best way to learn some basic Italian in a month?

I’d recommend checking out the US State Department’s language lessons. They are free. If you were hired as a US diplomat this is the course they’d give you. That said, I think they say the course for Italian is 24 weeks. But, you can get a start… ETA: I was in Italy a couple years ago and some friends I was with are fluent Spanish speakers. I was amazed at how far they could get speaking to Italians in Spanish. They could not have a full blown conversation but the languages were close …