Language Learning

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. Attributed to Nelson Mandela

Success in learning foreign languages is determined by three factors: motivation (or persistence), time and a good method. Language learning methods are individual: methods and techniques that work for one person may not work well for others.

The goal of this website is to collect resources, techniques and methods for learning foreign languages, so learners can make informed choices about their language learning. The site lists both online and offline resources.

The site content is based on a variety of sources: webpages, videos, books and other content created by successful language learners (including polyglots), tips and learning materials for specific languages, and academic research into second language acquisition (SLA).

The resources on this website are divided in two big categories:

• resources about language learning in general, for example:
  • language learning methods
  • language learning techniques and strategies, for example, spaced repetition and shadowing.
• resources for specific languages, for example:
  • Chinese (mostly Standard Chinese),
  • English (mostly British English),
  • French,
  • German.

Fun video: Things Bilingual People Do (YouTube, 5 minutes).

Multlingual Practices is a free online course (start date 26 March 2018) about central aspects of multilingualism in today's globalised societies, such as cognition, policies and education.

A common question is which foreign language to learn. Below are a few resources that discuss this question.

• L'atout des langues: Choisir la bonne langue en 10 points (YouTube, 16 minutes, 23.11.2017). According to this video, the most important points to consider are the following: (1) your motivation to learn the language; (2) the economic stability of the country or countries where the language is spoken; (3) the spending power of people speaking the language; (4) how few people with your native language speaking the target language; (5) know whether you want to use the language as an employee or as an entrepreneur; (6) the growth of the country or countries where the language is spoken; (7) the sector in which you work and whether the countries where your target language is spoken represent an interesting market for your sector's products or services; (8) dating opportunities; (9) the usefulness of the language in countries where the language is not an official language (e.g. Russian-speaking communities outside Russia); (10) your gut feeling about the language.
• How to choose your target language, How to learn any language (no date).
• Lewis, Benny: What language should I learn?, Fluent in 3 Months, 30.09.2010.
• Tettenhammer, Christine: Eine zweite Fremdsprache lernen, aber welche?, Sprachenlernen24-Blog.

Habits and Techniques of Polyglots

The books listed below focus specifically on habits and techniques used by polyglots. General books about language learning methods are listed in the “methods” section of the website.

• Lomb, Kató: Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, Second Edition (PDF), TESL-EJ, 2011.
  Kató Lomb was an interpeter who knew sixteen languages and learnt most of them as an adult.
  See also Philip Seifi's article Hungarian polyglot's secret formula to language self-learning (30 May 2016) and Steve Kaufmann's take on Kató Lomb's Formula for Effective Language Learning (YouTube, 5 minutes, 16.11.2017).
• Lomb, Kató: Harmony of Babel: Interviews with Famous Polyglots of Europe (PDF), TESL-EJ, 2013.
  This book was originally published in Hungarian in 1988. The English translation is now available in PDF format. The first part of the book covers polyglots from the 17th to the 20th century. The second part discusses the question what a good language learner is like. The third part is the report of an imaginary round table of polyglots about different questions related to language learning.
• Erard, Michael: Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, Simon & Schuster, 2012.
  Michael Erard gave a talk at Google about his book (03.05.2012): Michael Erard: "Babel No More" | Talks at Google (59 minutes). See also Steve Kaufmann's review, the discussion on languagehat.com and Maria Popova's review on Brain Pickings. The book also has a dedicated website — www.babelnomore.com — with a section about hyperpolyglots in action (you can skip the rest of the site).

The following YouTube channels are useful if you want to learn about polyglotism and multilingualism. See also the conference and workshops (below).

• Language Tsar: videos for the website languagetsar.com. Conor Clyne, who created the website, has acquired proficiency in more than 10 languages.
  Conor's YouTube channels interviews with the hyperpolyglots Richard Simcott, Alexander Argüelles (and another one on shadowing), Emanuele Marini (20+ languages) and Félix Wang (loki2504).

Conferences and Events

• Polyglot Workshops: polyglot workshops are one-day workshops that help you accelerate your language learning.
• Polyglot Gathering: a channel with recordings of presentations and discussions at the “Polyglot Gathering”, a conference that takes place in Berlin.
• Polyglot Conference: a channel with recordings of presentations and discussions at the “Polyglot Conference”, a yearly event that takes place in varying places in the world.
• Linguahackers: International Online Polyglot Conference (16–25 October 2017).
• Montréal Language Festival, 21–26 August 2018.
• Expolingua Berlin (yearly event in November).
• Association for Language Learning (UK): Language World 2018 (Hinckley Island, Leicestershire, 23–24 March 2018): a conference for language teachers.

Websites by or for Polyglots

• Language Learning on StackExchange is a question and answer forum for language learners. The site went public in April 2016; in early July 2017, it had over 470 questions and 850 answers. You don't need to be a polyglot to ask or answer questions, you only need to be interested in learning a foreign language.
• Speaking Fluently is the website of Richard Simcott, a polyglot from Chester who also teaches languages.
• The Polyglot Dream is the website of Luca Lampariello, who has reached fluency in 10 languages.
• Mezzofanti Guild is the website of a certain Donovan, who studied applied linguistics in Queensland, Australia. The site offers resources and a forum for language learners. The website is named after Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774 - 1849), a famous polyglot. See also the Mezzofanti Guild YouTube channel.
• Actual Fluency is the website of Kris Broholm from Denmark, who set himself the goal of learning 10 languages in 10 years. The website contains podcast interviews, a blog, reviews of tools and books, and a list of recommended resources. Kris Broholm also wrote a book about language learning, Polyglot Beginnings, which you can download for free.
• RawLangs is the website of Alex Rawlings, who originates from London, studied German and Russian at Oxford University, and was named Britain’s most multilingual student in a nationwide competition run by Harper Collins in 2012. His website has a blog but also serves to highlight his professional services (teaching, coaching, consultancy).
• Lindsay Does Languages is a blog by Lindsay Dow from the UK. (The purpose of the main site is language tuition.)
• Language Mastery is a website by John Fotheringham from Seattle. The website contains a blog. It also sells language guides for mastering specific languages. John Fotheringham is an advocate of “self-guided immersion”; the about page explains what he means by self-guided immersion and mastery.
• I Will Teach You A Language is a website by Olly Richards, an Englishman who speaks 8 languages and who offers courses and guidance for learning a new language. The website contains many blog posts and podcasts with tips on learning foreign languages. Olly Richards also has a YouTube channel.
• Forever a student is the website of Vladimir Skultety from Slovakia, who speaks 15 languages (8 of them at a C1-C2 level) and works as a translator and interpreter of Mandarin Chinese, Slovak and English. Some of his blog posts are about language learning strategies. He has a YouTube channel about foreign languages, language learning, traveling and culture and a YouTube channel about Understanding Chinese Characters.
• SprachenNetz: German website (with some content in English) maintained by ICWE. ICWE is a company that organises events, including Expolingua in Berlin. The website has many articles in the category Sprache & Methode, some of which are in English.
• Language Base Camp: a website and blog for language learners, maintained by Adam Fifield. The website also has a resources page.
• Weiler, Andrew: Learn a language (blog).
• Ophelia Vert: DevenirPolyglotte is a blog that started in 2017. Ophelia Vert is a native speaker of British English. She also has a YouTube channel.
• Language Fixation: a blog about lifelong language learning.
• Lingua Frankly: blog by Nìall Beag, a language grad and a student language teacher (June 2018).
• Confessions of a language addict's Blog.
• Fremdsprachen sind nicht fremd!: a Swiss website that promotes language awareness. It is primarily meant for young language learners at school.
• Tribalingual is a site dedicated to learning and saving rare and endangered languages. At the time of writing (September 2016), they offer courses in Ojibwe, Mongolian, Quechua, Tulu and Ainu. They are looking for teachers of other rare languages.
• European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe: a unique institution whose mission is to encourage excellence and innovation in language teaching and to help Europeans learn languages more efficiently.

Jobs for People with Foreign Language Skills

• Paul (Langfocus): What Job Can I do With Foreign Language Skills? (7 minutes, YouTube). Paul discusses the usual suspects, such as teaching languages, translating and interpreting, but also mentions jobs where language is not the primary skill: international sales, the diplomatic service, tourism (e.g. tour guide) or flight attendant.
  Most importantly, Paul points out that if you want to benefit from your language skills, you should know what you want to get from the language when you start learning it.
• NDTV: Career options for foreign language experts (13 minutes, YouTube).
• Europe Language Jobs: job site with vacancies from all over Europe; jobs can be filtered by country, languages and sectors.
• MultilingualCareers.eu: job site where you can search vacancies based on languages and locations (countries).
• Fremdsprachen-jobs: German site with job advertisements that require foreign language skills.
• Language Business: UK recruitment consultancy.

Resources in Various Languages

The following YouTube channels are useful if you are interested in language learning resources in various languages:

• Easy Languages is a channel for people who want to learn languages from the streets: it is based on street interviews instead of the (artificial) kind of dialogues you find in many books. There are weekly new episodes in English (on Tuesdays), in French (on Saturdays) and in German (on Sundays). There are also videos for other languages, including Arabic, Russian, Japanese and Afrikaans, but less frequently.
• Birkenbihl-Sprachen is one of several channels about the language learning method developed by Vera Birkenbihl (1946-2011), a German management trainer who brought the concept of “brain-friendly” from the USA to Germany. The channel has playlists about the Birkenbihl method for language learning, playlists focusing on specific languages (English, Spanish, Russian and a few others), videos featuring Vera Birkenbihl herself etc. There are a few other channels featuring Vera Birkenbihl and her language learning method (e.g. Birkenbihl Fan TV, Birkenbihl-Akademie.net and BirkenbihlAkademie) but these are probably not “official” Birkenbihl channels.
• Linguisticae is a French channel about languages by Romain Filstroff. It contains the videos for the Linguisticae blog. Most videos are not about language learning except those in the playlist Mon apprentissage des langues.
• Aaron Myers. See also Aaron Myers' website The Everyday Language Learner.
• Langfocus: YouTube channel by a certain Paul, a Canadian who lives in Japan. The channel has videos on specific languages, learning tips, language learning materials and other related topics. For example, watch his video How to Speak Multiple Languages Without Mixing Them Up (9 minutes).
  See also Paul's website LangFocus.com.
• Lingvopolis : Une collection bien rangée de liens et d’informations utiles concernant toutes sortes de projets, de sites et d’événements en rapport avec les langues. A site with links to resources for many languages, including many smaller languages.
• Language Learning Library: a user-contributed site that collects links to language learning resources and articles.
• O'Hare, Maureen: Bilinguals are more attractive, say 71% of Americans, CNN Business Traveller, 24.08.2016.
• Dray, Kayleigh: Revealed: the most profitable second languages that we should all learn, Stylist, 27.10.2016.
  This article cites research from Adzuna on the highest-paid languages in the UK: German, Arabic, French, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Mandarin, Welsh.
• Dean, Alex: The death of modern foreign languages, Prospect, 27.10.2016.