TOKYO, April 5 — If you've ever wanted to learn Japanese but could not spare the time or money, there's good news: the Japanese Foundation has provided free PDF lessons that you can download now from its website.

At the moment it has two Elementary courses which are basically teaching you basic phrases.

Don't expect long discussions on grammar here - it's mostly phrases and a practical runthrough of common situations you might encounter when visiting Japan.

While the writing is concise to the point of being rather terse, it is still fairly decent and well-presented for material that is absolutely free of charge.

If you're got some free time at home or wish to find new activities for the kids, maybe try the free lessons out.

You can download the materials here.

For free resources on other languages you can also check out the US Foreign Service Institute materials here - while they're rather dated, they"re fairly comprehensive and best of all, free.