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It’s not a secret that a great source of language practice is simply doing the things you already enjoy doing in your native language, but using your target language instead. This can be watching YouTube, TV shows, movies, watching streams, browsing forums, or even gaming. The key should be that you’d want to do it […]
Some of our students ask: “What’s wrong with changing languages?” If you are in the wrong language or don’t aspire to fluency, nothing is wrong. However, excessive dabbling (jumping from one language to another) is a bad habit for those that aspire to fluency. That is common in the language learning community, and results in […]
Dealing with feeling scared or shy to do a language exchange Language exchanges are a very important and useful way of absorbing the language. If you’re feeling nervous, you can wean yourself in using a professional tutor who can encourage you to speak without as much pressure to communicate. The best way is to just […]
As you know, every hour counts. It’s important to study consistently and to dedicate a large enough block that you can focus on actually apprehending something substantial. Because of this, we recommend you dedicate at least 20 minutes a day to studying. If you can, ideal is an hour. If you have more time, then […]
Using languages as your career is very doable, however, be warned: in terms of time spent versus expected increase in income, languages are not particularly efficient, and are notably worse than something like a programming language. For this reason, while there is an expected increase in income for the right type of work, people learning […]
Our language learners often ask: Will I mix my languages up if I pick up a new one? Although personal experiences always vary, human beings are designed to be good at ‘code switching’, and confusing your two languages is almost never as big a deal as it appears. If your goal is fast fluency, then […]
People who know a very large number of languages aren’t likely to be fluent in the majority of them by most people’s standards. There are rare individuals who dedicate their life to language-learning who achieve a high level in a large number of languages, but they are the exception. Importantly, these people are not savant-like. […]
While some languages can be harder for a given native speaker, at the same time there will be speakers of other languages who will have an easier time. An Englishman may struggle with tones in the Vietnamese language, while a native speaker of Cantonese may feel right at home. Some languages do take significantly more […]
Reaching a conversational level initially looks like learning a language normally, so it will be good to familiarise yourself with the main ideas. Any good language learning advice will tell you to emphasise using comprehensible input (texts and audio) as much as possible, and this is something you should do. Where this technique differs is, […]
