Employees at a number of global firms now have access to a new perk—language learning. In a nod to the importance of language skills development, international companies Google, Rakuten and News Corp have recently chosen Livemocha to serve their global language learning needs.

In Google’s case, the agreement will afford employees company-paid access to Livemocha’s award-winning Active series of online language programs for English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

“The need for conversational fluency in our increasingly global workplaces has never been greater,” said Livemocha CEO Michael Schutzler. “Leveraging a unique marriage of traditional multimedia curriculum with around-the-globe experiences of learning from real native speakers, Livemocha provides Google’s employees an ample amount of practice time that is neither boring nor overwhelming.”

Language learning has become a high priority for e-commerce leader Rakuten as well, as it pushes to become more global. After acquiring a number of U.S. companies, the Japanese firm’s CEO Hiroshi Mikitani set the bold intention of using English as the official language within the company and has asked that employees become proficient in the next two years. After evaluating a number of language learning services and tools, Rakuten recommended Active English to its employees along with other select English language tools.

Meanwhile, employees at a number of News Corp companies including Times of London, MySpace and BSkyB received a special Christmas promotion from HarperCollins (a News Corp company) to purchase Livemocha Active courses. News Corp employees have the perfect opportunity to kick off 2011 with a New Year’s resolution to learn a new language.

All the firms will enjoy access to video, grammar, and vocabulary coursework, and support from our certified online language tutors. And as always, language learners can choose study partners from Livemocha’s community of more than eight million native speakers.