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One of the most often-asked questions I hear from new language learners is “Can I learn two languages at the same time?” Of course, it’s possible. The real question is whether it’s desirable or optimal. I feel comfortable saying I speak about...

For every person who does little to achieve his or her language-learning goals, there’s at least one other who does the exact opposite and dives in headfirst.  While the latter might sound admirable or impressive, it probably won’t work for you unless you really...

Deliberate Learning Is Essential to Language Learning Deliberate learning can involve a teacher teaching, but it primarily involves learners taking responsibility for their learning. What Deliberate Learning Activities Should Learners Do? Learners must organize their...

You’ve studied, practiced, and immersed yourself in a language. Now, it’s time to speak up in class or practice with a partner or even a native speaker of the language. However, all your hard work goes right out the door. You can’t remember a thing....

We all love a good hack—some shortcut to doing what’s needed more easily. Language learners are no different. Here, we have loads of tips to share with you. Let’s dive into this list of how to troubleshoot specific issues and challenges on your language learning...

How does a speaker become fluent? Remember our Five Factor Framework, which includes comprehensible input, grammatically correct output, meaningful interactions, formal instruction, and practice and repetition. Gaining fluency means we focus on practice and...

Fortunately, there are organizations that study language learning and have broken the concept of fluency into distinct categories. These categories help you use your desired level of proficiency as a basis for estimating your time commitment. Let’s look at five...

It’s normal that language learners would want to speed up the process of learning a language. Learning anything from the ground up is difficult. Many learners want to rush through the hard parts: the mispronunciations, the miscommunications, the forgetting of a basic...

If you’re a new language learner, you might be asking yourself: how long until I’m fluent? There’s no single estimate of the time it takes to learn a foreign language fluently because everyone is different and learns at their own pace.  Different people also...

We’re down to the last of the Big Three: vocab, grammar, and now, pronunciation. When most people set out to learn a language, their intent is to eventually speak it. It’s very surprising to me that so many language courses spend so little time on actually speaking. ...

Many people dread studying grammar as they learn a new language. In fact, a lot of people dread studying the grammar of their native language! If you’re one of these people, I have good news for you: it’s not crucial. In fact, it can slow you down or even take...

We’ve talked about the four major areas of language learning: reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  But if you want to understand and be understood in a second language, there are three elements you need to grapple with: vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation....