• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer, July 23, 2012

Have you ever wanted to learn a second or third language, but didn’t have the free time to take a class?

Perfect Fools created a website and Facebook app for Keewords, an online company that teaches users to learn up to 12 languages.

The site recently launched in beta using linguistic research commissioned by Keewords. The study found that people must know approximately 1,500 words to understand 75% of another language.

With that in mind, Keewords was built using the most commonly used words from each of the twelve languages offered: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

The site further divides these words into 15 groups that might match a student’s hobby or interests. For example, I love researching food and places to eat, so Food & Drink would be a no-brainer for me.

Additional categories are: General & Miscellaneous, People & Emotions, Culture & Media, House & Home, Clothes & Appearance, Business & Economy, School & Education, Religion & Belief, Technical & Science, Politics & Society, Sports & Games, Geography & Travel, Body & Health and Nature & Animals.

Participants can register for the free service using their Facebook profile or email address. Users who sign up with their Facebook profile can choose to share their progress on their Timeline -- the whole point of registering using your Facebook profile, right? -- or keep their progress to themselves.

Users can sign up to learn more than one language at a time, but it’s not something Keewords recommends. The company believes users should focus on fewer languages to receive better learning results. Keewords estimates that if students learn 10 new words a day, they can be knowledgeable in their second language in six months.

Since everything is online, users can learn at their leisure using their computer, tablet or smartphone.