How to become an intermediate language learner

Anybody can be a beginner language learner, but how do you make that transition to intermediate language learning? Let’s talk about going from beginner to intermediate in learning a language, everything from language apps to go from beginner to intermediate, to what to expect, how to shift your strategy, and all that good stuff.

Intermediate language learning resources

The first difference between beginner and intermediate language learning is what you’re looking for in your resources. Specifically, we’re looking for a little bit less surface-level stuff and something a little bit more complex.

So if you’re used to beginner language apps like Duolingo, maybe Mondly, for example, it’s really easy to enjoy the fun little bits of the app, maintaining a streak, getting those little boosts of dopamine. That is really fun and really exciting and really motivating at first.

But a lot of language learners find that after a while it just kind of feels empty, like you’re not really learning anything. And it’s situations like this where you need to be looking for something a little bit more intermediate level.

So this means looking less for, you know, multiple choice and basic vocabulary to something like building sentences and communicating. Now, this is going to be the difference between something like Drops, which is really great for beginner vocabulary words, and Lingvist, which is also good for beginner vocabulary words, but goes a lot farther into intermediate and even advanced learning.

Or it could mean going from beginner Rosetta Stone where you’re just looking at pictures and repeating simple phrases to something like Busuu, which encourages really active use of the language. You get a picture, sure, but you have to explain the picture in your own words.

And I know what you’re thinking: “that sounds really difficult, I have no idea how to do that. And even if I try to do that, it doesn’t work. I can’t do it. I get flustered and I give up.” This is why it’s really important to go to intermediate language learning resources when you’re ready.

If you spend all your time tapping buttons and doing really simple multiple choice and not really learning anything, then you’re never going to get to the point where you can use the language in the way that you actually want to. Basically, you’re looking for more everyday use of the language in ways that feel safe comfortable, and interesting.

Of course, you can totally jump into a language exchange on Tandem or HelloTalk, but that really isn’t necessary. There are tons of steps in between like Duolingo and full conversations. It’s somewhere in between those points that you really want to focus on.

What to expect as an intermediate language learner

The next thing to know about the difference between beginner and intermediate language skills is shifting your expectations about what success looks like. So like I said, if you are stuck doing a little tap dance on Duolingo or something really simple and really basic, then you are used to looking at the daily streaks, building your XP fun little sounds, fun little noises, and just every little hit of “you’re doing a great job, keep going!”

This is perfectly fine in the beginning, but if you want to move to the intermediate levels, you need something a little bit more. You need intermediate-level growth. Unfortunately, this is where things can get a little tricky because we’re so used to the constant wins and the constant motivation.

Once we move over to the intermediate side of things, it can feel really demotivating because all of a sudden you’re not constantly bombarded by positivity and congratulations. You are learning more, and your language learning is getting better, but it looks different. You’re not going to feel like you accomplished something every 2 seconds, every single day. Sometimes you go like a week without feeling like you accomplished anything. And that’s normal.

This is why when you go from beginner to intermediate language learning, you need to focus less on every day, constant wins, to enjoying the process and enjoying the language. So instead of focusing on your daily streak, this could mean developing relationships in the target language.

This could mean watching Netflix or watching YouTube. This could mean listening to podcasts or something with a little bit more depth and not so many basic phrases that you can use to like, travel around at tourist level. Once you have that basic vocabulary and you have that basic grammar down, it’s really important to go into the actual language.

You have to realize that these beginner language apps, a vast majority of their job is to keep you hooked on the app so that you keep going with your language learning, you stay consistent. So when you leave those beginner apps and you start getting more complex and more intermediate, you have a much harder time staying consistent just because you don’t know what to look for. We don’t have those small everyday wins. So it just kind of feels like we’re not winning at all. So what’s the point?

Find an activity in your target language that you genuinely enjoy and study in that way so that you’re actually enjoying the process and less focused on how much XP you’re building up or how many words you’re collecting.

Learning intermediate concepts

The next thing to know about how to become an intermediate language learner is to focus less on the small details and more on the big picture. When we start learning a language, we start with the very basic stuff, right? We start with very basic vocabulary, very basic grammar, things like that, where the details are very, very important. You can get dinged for having the accent right or wrong. You can get dinged for all sorts of things because your job is to really get a handle on the language and start to recognize the patterns.

Becoming an intermediate language learner, though, you want to focus more on the content and the gist and understanding what’s going on. This is where things like comprehensible input come in, you’re learning to understand the totality of the language and you’re less focused on memorizing specific words. You want to understand more complex ideas. So you’ve got to focus more on those and less on like learning a different word for the color brown.

Yes, those things are valuable and important, but if you’re trying to become an intermediate or even advanced language learner, you need to focus more on understanding and using the language like native speakers would. And not like a beginner language learner would.

Best intermediate language apps

So now that we understand the difference between beginner and intermediate language learning apps, language learning skills, and language learning strategies, how do you make that distinction? How do you find the best resources for your intermediate language learning?

My recommendation is to go to my language app search where you can search by language and by level. So if you are learning German, for example, and you want to become an intermediate German level or you feel like you’re just kind of you’re done with the beginner stuff and you want to get more serious, it’s easy enough to select German, go to intermediate and you find a whole bunch of language learning apps that will suffice for this.

Now keep in mind that differences between beginner, intermediate, and advanced are not particularly cut and dry, which is why when you have the information I just gave you in this video, you can use that to apply to all my language app reviews and see if this is the app for you based on the criteria mentioned in this video.

It’s basically the difference between, “Yeah, you could kind of learn a few intermediate things using these resources” or “This resource will take me from intermediate to even advanced. There’s a lot of opportunity for me to learn a lot of new things in the way that I want to learn.”

Because remember that that’s really important. We really want to focus on the language skills that we want to build for our own language learning. And if you want to learn more about that, check out my free course here.

Comprehensible input

Comprehensible input is such a buzzword for language learners. Let’s talk about what it actually means, if you need it, and if you do need it, how to get it.

What is comprehensible input?

In simplest terms, comprehensible input is basically just getting input that you basically understand. So input means you’re listening to it or you’re reading it to understand. Comprehensible means you can comprehend it within reason.

This does not mean you have to understand every single word, every single phrase. It basically means you can read a chunk of words or listen to a chunk of words, and you can get a general idea of what’s going on.

This is especially true for my fellow perfectionists out there. It’s okay if you don’t understand every single little thing, if there are gaps in there, that’s totally cool. Comprehensible input is just a general understanding of what’s going on. And then you can use that general understanding to fill in the blanks and understand the words and phrases that are new to you within context and build from there.

Do you need comprehensible input?

So now that we understand what comprehensible input actually is, let’s talk about if you need it. And when I talk about your specific level in your target language, this is pretty vague. There’s no hard and fast rules about what makes a beginne, intermediate, or advanced. Honestly, in real-life language learning, those labels don’t really matter. But for the sake of this video and for most language learning as a whole, this is just some basic housekeeping.

Beginner language learners

Let’s start with beginners. This could mean total beginner, which means you don’t understand a single thing, or beginner as in, like you took one class, you can understand one or two words, but really there’s not really a whole lot of understanding going on there.

And this is the important thing to realize because when you’re a beginner in a language, you can’t understand any of it. None of it. Like you can’t understand the gist, you can’t understand the concept of what different words are like, how they’re put together in a way that makes sense. You can understand individual words, maybe a couple of phrases, but beyond that, you’re just not quite there yet.

And therefore, if you’re a beginner in the language, I don’t want you to worry about comprehensible input at all. Actually, let me backtrack that a little bit. I like to stay pretty objective and keep my opinion out of things. So I will say that some people who are beginners like comprehensible input, even though they don’t understand everything, they like to basically throw themselves into a language and wait until their brain picks it up because your brain will figure it out eventually. But eventually is the keyword here.

A lot of language learners, myself included, do not enjoy learning a language just by brute force. And if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to stick to it. So if you are one of those people who is perfectly happy just listening to a language, reading a language and not understanding anything, but just waiting for your brain to figure it out as you go on, then you know, once we get to intermediate and advanced, then you can listen in.

But for most beginners, I would say don’t worry about comprehensible input because it’s going to be very overwhelming. And if you are like me and you cannot get overwhelmed or else you won’t do it, then I would really just stick to the simple apps. There are honestly more resources for beginner language learners than intermediate and advanced so there is no problems here. This is as easy as pie. And if you’re looking for beginner language apps, I would recommend using my language app search where you can literally just choose your target language and beginner and you’ll get a whole bunch of different resources that will teach you the beginner level of your target language.

But when you’re at the beginner levels, you’re focused on learning the simple basic words and simple basic grammar. You’re learning the building blocks of putting the language together into comprehensible input. But you’re not at comprehensible input yet. You’re still building sentences together and understanding sounds and things like that.

Once you start feeling more confident and more aware of the language and how it sounds and being able to understand a little bit more, then we can talk about comprehensible input because that is intermediate stuff. Speaking of, let’s talk about our intermediate learners.

Intermediate language learners

So for the purposes of this video, Intermediate, I’m basically referring to those who get the basics of the language. They get like they can recognize when it’s the language, they can pull out a bunch of different words, they can understand some grammar for the most part, you’re starting to get the hang of the language and while the apps, the fun apps and the buttons and the Duolingo and all those, while those are still okay, you’re starting to get to the end of where using those apps is sufficient. You might have built up your skills for some time and you’re starting to see where there are some holes in your skills.

So, for example, if you’ve been using Duolingo from the beginner and now you’re feeling much more comfortable with the language, but you still can’t understand it in real life, you still can’t use it, then this is where we start expanding how we’re taking in the language. And comprehensible input is definitely helpful in these scenarios.

And I’ll mention a few resources that I would recommend in a second. But in general, for intermediate learners, I would really recommend you take advantage of subtitles and books where there is an audio component so you can listen to the language and read it at the same time. Any little tools that maybe you feel guilty about using because you feel like it’s a waste of time or you feel like you’re not learning enough or not working hard enough, intermediates, I would really highly recommend you use these tools because these tools can really, really help you to learn.

And no, they’re not cheating at all. And especially if you’ve ever heard of or ever experienced the intermediate plateau. This is where comprehensible input is a really big deal because generally speaking, the intermediate plateau is basically where you’re using the beginner apps, you’ve been learning the easy stuff, but you’re not growing anymore because you need to start using comprehensible input or speaking practice or, you know, these more advanced skills that aren’t just like fun little apps.

Advanced language learners

Now for our advanced language learners to get advanced, you’ve probably used a fair amount of comprehensible input. You understand a good deal of what’s going on, and there might be some things you’re confused about, but you’ve got a pretty good understanding of the language and you can use it in a lot of situations. You’re getting pretty confident.

So how do you challenge this and how do you grow once you pass the advanced levels? While still using comprehensible input, you can find specific comprehensible input that is a little bit more advanced. And also you can take away some of those tools that you used at the intermediate levels and really challenge yourself to understand these things just point blank, without the subtitles, without the audio supports, any of that stuff.

So for example, when you were at the intermediate stages and you were watching a movie and you found a movie that was really difficult for you to understand, you put it away, you went to something else, go back to that movie and really work hard to understand, you know, maybe it’s the accent that was weird. Maybe the vocabulary was just, you know, kind of old-timey, or if it was region-specific and you could really not understand it. Or they were talking about, you know, a lot of concepts that are a little bit more mature. If they were using some very specific slang, using comprehensible input to really expand your ability to understand different accents and different types of vocabulary is really going to skyrocket your ability to understand the language, even at the advanced levels. Read some classic novels, all that good stuff.

Remember, the easiest way to go about this is to get rid of the subtitles. I mean, they’re okay if you need them, but if you don’t need them and you’re trying to expand your ability to understand, get rid of the help, get rid of those tools. You might be in a position where you don’t need them anymore. You’re just comfortable. So now that we know what comprehensible input is and we know what exactly you’re looking for, dependent on your level in the language, what kind of resources are there available for people looking for comprehensible input?

Resources for comprehensible input

Remember for comprehensible input, we’re staying away from the fun apps and we are going to focus instead on the language itself and how people use it. And basically, you just kind of join in with the community. The easiest one that I would say is watching TV or watching movies. There are plenty of resources to help with that.

For example, the Chrome extension Language Reactor that I talk about all the time. Using Language Reactor with YouTube or Netflix to pull the subtitles and use them to understand, especially for intermediate language learners who are using those subtitles, this is excellent because it just pulls the subtitles right out that are already available and helps you to see them better.

Language TV Club is also excellent for this. It’s a little bit less accessible just because it is group program, so you have to sign up and it’s not like a constant access thing, it can be fun if you want some more of that community aspect of learning your target language.

Then you have Lingopie, you have Yabla and you have FluentU which are all resources that use – I think Lingopie is Netflix and Yabla and FluentU I’m not sure if they’re YouTube or if they have their own videos. I don’t remember. But all of them are video platforms for you to watch videos and learn your target language, which is great for comprehensible input. And I’ve talked a lot about listening because that is honestly what I find to be the most popular with language learners.

But if you also want to get in comprehensible input by reading, that is also easy. Two resources I would recommend for that are StoryLearning and LingQ. StoryLearning is a one-off course that you purchase and have forever access to. LingQ is a platform where you can find a bunch of free resources and then the platform itself where you click the vocabulary and the whole thing. That is a monthly service.

And bonus, if you like music and you find yourself really enjoying listening to music for comprehensible input, even though it can be more difficult, if that’s something that you find motivating, by all means, LyricsTraining can be a fun app for that if you’re learning the more commonly learned languages.

This is by no means an exhaustive list at all. I just mentioned a handful of really common, really easy-to-use resources for comprehensible input. If you want more information, if you want more potential resources, I would highly recommend you use my language app search I made it specifically so that you can find resources based on your target language, your level within that language, and how exactly you want to learn the language, whether it’s by listening to stories, reading books, whatever it is, you can narrow down your search based on those specific qualities of the resources you’re looking for.

And if you need a little bit more support in finding the right language learning resource for yourself, I highly recommend my free course.

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Can books make you fluent in a new language? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not as clear-cut as a lot of people would like to think. Let’s talk about what you can expect from learning a language with books, specifically through a very common, very popular course called StoryLearning, also known as the Uncovered series.

What is StoryLearning?

So if you’re not familiar already, the StoryLearning strategy is basically just using stories to learn a language. You’re presented with very short chapters of a story, and then you use those stories to gain comprehension skills or vocabulary, learn grammar, and all that good stuff. But the idea is that you don’t really realize you’re learning because you’re so invested in the story.

Now, StoryLearning claims that they can teach you a language through story, but can StoryLearning make you fluent? Or can reading books in general make you fluent? No. Why? What’s the difference here?

This is the important thing to understand is that StoryLearning is primarily reading, you’re generally reading the story and picking up the vocabulary and grammar rules and whatnot through the story. While that’s all fine and dandy, reading is only one skill of learning a language, and that skill is not speaking.

So if you have the intention, if you have the goal to be able to have a conversation in the language, this isn’t the most direct route. It’s not the direct, the most simple strategy.

Can reading books help you to become conversational? Yes. While it’s not directly the skill that you need to be able to have conversations, it’s still information, it’s still using the language, it’s still learning new things. And I always like to say that any exposure that you have to the language, even if it’s not intentional, even if it’s not a challenge, even if you don’t feel like you’re actually learning anything, it’s always a benefit to your language learning goals.

However, don’t expect to spend all of your time reading stories and reading books and then think that in six months you’ll be able to magically have a conversation. That’s just not going to happen. This is because speaking and conversational skills in general are not a priority in StoryLearning or in reading books.

If you’ve ever tried StoryLearning for yourself, I know what you’re thinking:

Jamie, they have speaking sections in every single chapter of the story. At the very end, you have recommendations of things to talk about with a language exchange partner or a language teacher. You have a full lesson plan, all that jazz!

Unfortunately, if your goal is to speak the language, these sections are not enough. These sections are there to support the goal of being able to read and understand the language. But it’s not meant to get you conversational.

In order for me to consider this effective speaking practice, I would need any number of types of tools that you can find in so many other language learning apps, things like speech recognition, things like listening to audio and being led to repeat the audio and, you know, having you focus on how you are moving your mouth, like Pimsleur does, for example. This would be a really easy way to just make it a little bit more effective to be able to just open up that section of the course, get in some speaking practice, get in some pronunciation practice, and then move on to the next chapter.

But instead what StoryLearning does is they give you a lesson plan and they say, hand this off to a language exchange or a language tutor or whatever the case is. This isn’t bad, but it’s assuming that you have these connections, you have a language tutor, you have language learning friends, and not everybody has access to this.

Not only that, but it creates an obstacle. Because when I look at this course and I get to the speaking session, I see it and I say, Well, I can’t do that right now. So either I’m going to skip past all the speaking sessions in the entire course and then be frustrated that I can’t have a conversation, or I’m going to say, okay, I’ll come back to this course when I have somebody who I can hand this off to. And then I would just never come back to the course. It’s a lose-lose situation if you’re trying to build your conversational skills.

Now, I know I spent the majority of this video criticizing StoryLearning, criticizing using books to get fluent. However, that isn’t to say that it can’t be beneficial to some language learners. It really depends on your goals and your interests.

Should you use StoryLearning to learn a language?

So how do you know if StoryLearning or using books to learn a language is the best strategy for you? My suggestion is to just use common sense. Do you enjoy reading? Do you enjoy getting lost in a story? Do you wish that when you were reading a book you were just kind of passively taking in the language and your brain is figuring it out for you?

If that’s the case, then StoryLearning or books in general might be a really effective addition to your language learning strategy.

Now, of course, if your goal is to speak the language, it’s just an addition. It’s not the whole strategy. But if it’s something that you enjoy and you’re going to get something out of it, then I would definitely recommend it.

However, if getting lost in a story is really not your cup of tea and you want to get straight to having actual conversations, then I would recommend other things and I’ll talk about that in a second.

StoryLearning alternatives

Now let’s talk about alternatives. First I’ll talk about other alternatives to StoryLearning, meaning finding books that you enjoy, getting lost in a story, all that kind of jazz. Because while StoryLearning claims to be the only one who does this, this is just not the case. And there are other options to achieve this.

The most well-known alternative for this that I would recommend is LingQ. LingQ is a platform that has a lot of audiobooks and books and videos basically put into its platform and has a transcript for you to learn to comprehend the language.

Other language learners all over the place also use LingQ to upload their own content and use the same strategy to learn a language. Now honestly, the LingQ platform itself is not the greatest, but you can access all of the content for free.

The second alternative for those of you who like to use stories to learn a language is Kwiziq. Now, Kwiziq is only for Spanish and French language learners, but I really like it. It’s very similar to StoryLearning in that the stories are very short, very manageable, and very easy to consume. The platform is also a lot higher quality than StoryLearning’s, and you have a whole bunch of different types of stories because while StoryLearning focuses on one story and just breaks up the course into all these different chapters, the Kwiziq stories are their own individual stories, so you get all these different types of options to keep you interested, keep you hooked.

And because of the way that Kwiziq works, you have access to all of these lessons on every single little grammar point that any particular story uses. And so you can really kind of like deconstruct what you’re struggling with in a particular story and really strengthen any particular skills that you’re missing.

Now, what about alternatives if you want to have conversations in a foreign language and the story isn’t really your thing and you realize now that it’s just really not your thing, but you don’t know what else to do? I know a lot of us get really sucked into marketing with things like StoryLearning. And so if I just saved you a bunch of time and a bunch of money, I don’t want to leave you high and dry with nowhere else to go.

So if that’s the position you’re in, I would highly recommend you take my free course about how to choose a language app for you. It’s a three-day video course that you’ll get sent directly to your inbox with directions about how to use my language app search to find an app that will work best for you and your language learning.

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One of the easiest ways to learn a language is to make language learning part of something that you already do. Let’s talk about the best Chrome extensions that you can use to learn a language.

Language Reactor

The first Chrome extension to learn a language that I want to talk about is Language Reactor, formerly known as Language Learning with Netflix and Language Learning with YouTube.

Basically Language Reactor is a free chrome extension that you can use to turn any video that you find on Netflix or YouTube into a study tool. If you already really like to watch movies on Netflix and videos on YouTube from people, and for people who speak your target language natively, Language Reactor is easy peasy.

Trancy

Similar to Language Reactor, the next Chrome extension to learn a language that I want to talk about is Trancy. Now Trancy does a lot of stuff that Language Reactor does by giving you the subtitles and helping you to translate between languages, between your target language and the native language. But it also uses artificial intelligence to really bump up your studying a little bit.

So if, for example, you really value having a lot of activities about a video you’re watching or a book you’re reading, then Trancy is excellent because it basically takes the transcripts, the subtitles of the show or movie that you’re watching, and it creates a bunch of different activities like Fill in the Blanks, speech recognition, all sorts of stuff.

CaptionPop

Next on my list of best Chrome extensions to learn a language is CaptionPop. CaptionPop does a lot of the same things that Language Reactor and Trancy do. But the thing that I really love about CaptionPop is the Chrome extension.

Put the CaptionPop Chrome extension into your browser, and when you go through YouTube, it’ll show you what subtitles are available for every video. And it’ll not only tell you the subtitles are available, but it’ll also tell you which languages the subtitles are available in.

Unfortunately for us, this was a lot more useful back a few years ago when YouTube was really big into getting people to translate subtitles onto different YouTube videos. Since they’ve killed that option, it’s a little bit less useful.

But to keep YouTube accessible to people who are hard of hearing and really like captions like me, CaptionPop can still be really useful because again, if you’re looking at YouTube for vlogs in Italian, you can find videos where it says like, there are subtitles in Italian for this video and it gives you that extra step ahead in your language learning.

Obviously, this is a few fewer steps than Trancy and Language Reactor do. But if you don’t need those steps and you just need that little bit of, you know, help with your search on YouTube, then CaptainPop is a really solid option.

Readlang

The next best Chrome extension to learn a language that I’d like to recommend to you is Readlang. Now, we’ve talked a lot about video so far in this video. Now let’s switch over to texts and reading and writing and vocabulary and things like that.

Readlang is a very, very simple free tool that you can use to take any text from anywhere on the Internet, and make flashcards out of it, practice reading it, pick up the words that are new to you and need to work on more. All that kind of stuff.

Not only can you use it to translate the texts that you found, but you can also access all of the other texts that other users have imported into Readlang, and use that as practice for your target language. It’s kind of similar to LingQ if you’re familiar with LingQ, but it’s a lot more simple and less icky. It’s not pretty by any means, but it’s functional.

Toucan

Next on the list of Best Chrome extension to learn language is Toucan. And Toucan was just recently bought out by Babbel, so it must be good.

Toucan makes it really simple to casually immerse yourself in language while you’re reading English or whatever language, depends on what languages Toucan covers, but you get my drift.

But if you find yourself reading on the internet a lot and could use a little bit of injection of language learning as you go, Toucan is excellent because it will literally just translate words into your target language randomly. This can be a fun, interesting, pretty passive way of picking up new vocabulary if it’s a method that works for you.

Masterlingo

If you like the idea of Toucan, but you don’t like the randomness of it, the next Chrome extension to learn a language is Masterlingo. Of course, Masterlingo is a little bit less passive in that it doesn’t translate words from your native language as you’re reading your native language.

But if you’re already reading your target language and use Masterlingo, all you do is click on a word and it’ll help you translate and learn the word as you go. So yes, it’s similar to Readlang and LingQ, but it’s prettier and simpler than LingQ.

VocabBoost

On the topic of vocab, the next Chrome extension to learn a language is one called VocabBoost. VocabBoost basically turns any text into a cloze text. And if you don’t know what a cloze is, it’s basically a fill-in-the-blank sentence.

You have a sentence, you have a little square, and you have to put in the right word or conjugation or whatever it is into the square. This is the entire premise of another resource called Clozemaster, but it’s not its own resource.

It’s a this is a Chrome extension and you can make any text into this cloze. So if you like Clozemaster, but you want flexibility or you’re not quite at an intermediate level yet, VocabBoost might be a great alternative for you.

YouGlish

This isn’t a Chrome extension but is actually really vital and relevant here and that is a resource and a website called YouGlish. Honestly, I’ve had YouGlish on my list of resources for a long time but have never mentioned it for whatever reason.

Now, YouGlish is awesome and relevant in this video because it’s basically a search engine for YouTube videos that have specific phrases in different languages. So you can practice your listening comprehension and learn to understand different phrases from a bunch of different mouths, accents, situations, tones of voice, and all that kind of stuff.

If you are at all familiar with learning to understand a language, then you know that it’s easy enough to understand one audio clip, but it’s really hard to contextualize that information across all sorts of different voices and accents and men, women, young or old, all sorts of stuff.

YouGlish is a free website that you can use to pick the language that you’re learning, plug in a phrase or a word like “me llamo”, for example, and it’ll give you literally hundreds of video clips of people saying “me llamo”, and you can just train your ear to understand “me llamo”, from all these different accents, scenarios, etc.

If you like these suggestions, but you’re really not sure what to do with them or which ones to choose, I really recommend you take my free course on how to choose a language app. It’s a free short three-day video course. It’ll basically take you step by step to choose a language app based on what you like, what your goals are, what your language is, and all that jazz.

At the very least, it’ll teach you how to use my free language app search so you can stop searching for language learning resources and start actually learning languages.

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Want to know how to learn a language for free? Let’s talk about all the different resources out there for how to learn a language for free online right now.

Mango Languages

The first way to learn a language for free is Mango Languages. Mango Languages is a website and an app that you can access for free. Unlimited languages, unlimited content, as long as you have access to a library card, a student ID, or an employee ID if your business works with Mango Languages and connects to Mango Languages.

Basically what Mango Languages does is it connects to all these different institutions to give you access to learning a foreign language. There are tons of languages available on Mango Languages, but it’s only for beginners, so it’s a great start if you’ve never learned a language before. But if you’re not quite a beginner, then keep on watching this video and we’ll talk about a lot of different options for free.

Language Reactor

The next way to learn a language for free is Language Reactor, formerly known as Language along with Netflix in language Learning with YouTube. Language Reactor is a Chrome extension that is totally free. There are some paid options that you know, if it’s if you find it beneficial, like easier ways to manage vocabulary, stuff like that. Totally cool.

But you can basically apply Language Reactor to any video that you find on YouTube or Netflix. And you can turn the video or the show, the movie, or what have you, into a study tool.

Lingbe

Lingbe is a language exchange app. Basically, if you’re learning Spanish for example, and your native language is English, you go on Lingbe and you find somebody who speaks Spanish natively and is learning English. Lingbe is a totally free app, as long as you also help other people to learn your native language.

So if you’ve ever done language exchanges where you’ve met up with a friend to exchange your languages, Lingbe is kind of like that, except it’s much more convenient because all you do is open up the app and you find somebody to start talking to.

If you don’t want to spend your time helping other language learners learn your native language, then you can also pay a pretty small subscription. But you don’t need to. But it’s definitely an excellent way to get your conversational practice totally for free.

Clozemaster

Next on the list is Clozemaster. Now Clozemaster is available in a ton of different languages, but you do need to be at least an intermediate level of your target language just because it is a little bit more difficult and you need to be able to kind of figure it out on your own.

But the way that Clozemaster works is it gives you sentences and it gives you fill in the blanks. And so you basically fill in the blanks with the appropriate verb or noun or conjugation or whatever it is that you’re learning in that particular moment. Clozemaster has a bunch of different ways to practice different languages like grammar points and what they call the fluency fast track and things like that.

Some of them, including fluency fast track, are always free and some of them are behind a premium paywall. But it’s like $8 a month or something. But I really enjoy both the website and the app for getting in some great contextual practice.

Polygloss

Just like Clozemaster, you should be fairly non-beginner at Polygloss just because Polygloss is basically where you have a collection of images. You select an image and then you create a sentence based on that image to have a partner guess which image you’re describing based on what you said. Polygloss is totally free forever.

If you want to upgrade to take advantage of some of the options, that’s totally cool. But all of Polygloss, like the actual activities and the connections with the Polygloss community, is totally free, but it’s a really unique special way to practice using the language in a way that has context and is personal because the images are vague enough that you can talk about literally anything, but they’re specific enough that they give you direction as to what you could possibly talk about. Great for creatives.

Yask

Similar to Polygloss is Yask. Yask is one of my favorite language apps for practicing using the language as opposed to just kind of mindlessly pressing buttons. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about Duolingo in a second. But Yask gives you a lot of prompts and a lot of ways for you to practice using the language in a way that makes sense.

And then just like Polygloss, you also can use the Yask community for pronunciation help and corrections and things of that nature. Yask is also totally free for everybody, but if you want to upgrade, to can totally pay a few dollars a month to upgrade. And if you go to the link below in the description for my review of Yask, you can even get a discount on top of that.

Drops

Drops is excellent for beginner language learners because it’s going to give you a bunch of beginner vocabulary. It’s very visually engaging, very, very pretty, very, very fun to play with. Their motto is literally play with your words.

Free users of Drops get 5 minutes of practice every single day, and if you want more of that, you can always upgrade. But 5 minutes, why not? Drops also supports a ton of different languages, so if you’re learning a less commonly learned language and you’re having a hard time finding that language, then Drops might be a safe bet for you.

Duolingo

Next up, let’s get this one out of the way. Duolingo. I definitely have my qualms with Duolingo, but it is totally free and they claim that they will be free forever. You don’t have to pay to access any of the content, any of the strategy, any of the Duolingo stories, or anything like that. However, if you want to pay to get rid of the ads, then that’s an option.

If you’re not familiar with Duolingo, I have plenty of YouTube videos. I have a blog post below of my review of Duolingo that stays up to date. We can just kind of glide right by this one.

LingQ

LingQ is kind of hard to use, but basically, it allows you to take any type of content, upload it into LingQ, and then you can use those books, podcasts, audiobooks, and things like that, and turn it into a study tool. And then you can also browse around and find what other people have uploaded and study that as well.

All of LingQ’s content itself is free and considering most of it is people uploading their own study materials, there can be a lot of options. So, if you just want an ever-expanding library of content for free LingQ is a pretty good option.

LingQ does have its own system where basically you click new words and it creates lingqs, which is basically a flashcard, then you can study that flashcard later, that part and whole different other options are paid, but they are by no means necessary. You can 100% get away with just using LingQ for free.

Busuu

Now, if you want to learn a language for free but want a little bit more structure, then Busuu might be a great option for you. Busuu is a really unique combination of academic learning of the language and the social community of the language.

Basically, the way that Busuu works is when you go onto the website or on the app, you can learn the lessons, and then after every lesson you are recommended and led to use the information that you learned to submit like a writing prompt or a speaking prompt or something like that to Busuu’s community, for other language learners to respond, correct you, give you some, you know, high fives, whatever.

The vast majority of all of Busuu is totally free, which is amazing, including the Busuu community. You can upgrade for faster community responses, get rid of ads, and stuff like that, but not necessary at all. Busuu is excellent for a lot of community support and some fairly strict hand-holding, but you can also get it for free, which is not bad at all.

Kwiziq

Next on the list of how to learn a language for free is Kwiziq. It’s a website and not actually an app, unfortunately. But Kwiziq is for Spanish and French only, and it’s really excellent at getting really deep and dirty into your grammar. So if you are learning Spanish or French and you want to really have excellent top-tier grammar, then Kwiziq is excellent.

It’s a paid service, but you do get ten free kwizzes every single month, which can be a really effective learning tool because basically the way that Kwiziq works is it has lessons for all these concepts, and the lessons themselves are free for anybody, by the way. But you can learn the lessons and then you can use the kwizzes available in Kwiziq to test your ability to use these concepts effectively within the language.

So even with just ten kwizzes a month and their huge library of explanations, grammar concepts, and all that jazz, it can be a really effective learning tool for you to learn independently, learn all the lessons independently, and then a couple of times a week you can go through one of Kwiziq’s quizzes and test to see how well you’re doing. Honestly, I’m a huge fan of Kwiziq, so I highly recommend it if that is what you’re looking for.

Ella Verbs

Speaking of Spanish, the next app on the list is Ella Verbs. If you’re a Spanish language learner, then Ella Verbs is excellent for Spanish conjugations, probably the best there is honestly. All of the base content is free and it’s similar to Kwiziq in that it uses quizzes to help you learn Spanish conjugations. But it’s a lot more simplistic and there’s not going to be a whole lot of tutorials or explanations or things like that. It’s it’s, it’s more focused on the actual quizzing of the grammar.

Now, if all you want is just kind of a basic rundown of basic Spanish verbs and how to conjugate them appropriately for beginner, maybe intermediate-level vocabulary, then Ella Verbs for free will totally suffice. You can always upgrade for a few more options, but it’s not necessary, especially at the beginner levels.

This list of free language learning resources came directly from my language app search, where I just clicked free and then listed all of the language apps that came up. So while at the time of this recording, these are all of the resources that I personally know of how to learn a language for free, make sure that you to my language app search where you can do exactly what I did for this video. Click free, and who knows? Maybe another resource will pop up that I’ve posted a review of since the filming of this current video.

And if all of these ways to learn a language for free sound great and you’re not sure which direction to go, I would highly recommend you take my free course that will teach you how to find which language learning resources are going to work best for you.

It’s a free simple course that will basically teach you how to use my app search to your advantage so you can find the resources that will actually help you in your language learning, and not just add to the pile of apps and courses that you have somewhere on the Internet.

Q: how do you convince yourself that you can learn the language?

It’s a pretty common issue to feel like you can’t learn a language, and there are many reasons that could contribute to that feeling. Sometimes it’s because teachers or friends have discouraged you, or maybe you’ve had some unsuccessful attempts in the past.

Just constantly telling yourself that you can do it until you believe it isn’t really the only solution. I would suggest taking the first step in understanding why you have this self-doubt. It’s not as simple as just saying, “You can do it, believe in yourself,” because feeling incapable of learning a language usually indicates a deeper issue.

We all have our own unique experiences and insecurities when it comes to language learning. That’s why the first thing you need to do is figure out what specifically makes you feel like you can’t learn.

For example, you might think, “I can’t learn a language because I’ve tried so many times and failed.” I totally get it. I’ve been through that too. Many language learners go through this because there are so many different methods and advice out there. You end up trying all these different strategies recommended by different people, but you don’t make any progress. And that’s when you start thinking that there must be something wrong with you since everyone else seems to be able to learn a language except for you.

There’s no easy solution here – if language learning was that simple, I wouldn’t have a job! It really comes down to finding what works for you. That’s why I’ve created a new free mini-course to help you evaluate language learning resources based on your preferences and goals. But I must say that my full course, The Method, provides much more detailed guidance.

If you truly believe that you can’t learn a language, the first step is understanding why you feel that way. Once you identify the underlying reasons, you can systematically address them using The Method. In the first lesson of the first phase, we focus on your limiting beliefs and tackle issues like:

• Why do you think you can’t learn a language?
• Why do you feel like you’re too busy?
• What fears do you have when it comes to language learning?

By addressing the root causes of your struggles in language learning, you can overcome any mental roadblocks. This way, as we progress through the rest of the course – which covers language learning strategies, consistency, and enjoying the process – you won’t be held back by mindset obstacles that currently limit your progress.

We make it a priority to eliminate these mental barriers because language learning itself is already challenging enough. It’s crucial to recognize that these obstacles don’t stem from being unintelligent, lazy, or lacking time. Our mental roadblocks are the ones that create significant problems and hinder our progress. Even if you have the best strategies and courses, if these obstacles remain unaddressed, you’ll inevitably face difficulties.

Q: how do you not take mistakes personally?

A lot of people go into language learning, and they make mistakes, which is inevitable in language learning. And every single time they do something wrong – they forget a word, use a word wrong, maybe they’re laughed at by other people – and so it really kind of shuts them down. And we get into this habit, we get into this pattern of every time we make a mistake, we stop, and we get this negative reinforcement that we’re doing it wrong, and when you’re learning a language when you’re learning anything new, but especially when you’re learning a new language, it is really important to shift that mindset.

So mistakes are a good thing. And this is easier said than done. Obviously, I do have a mini course that helps with this, actually. Mastering Mistakes will help you with this specific problem.

Stop thinking that mistakes are a bad thing. Okay, mistakes are a good thing. And we have been generally conditioned to think mistakes are a bad thing and mistakes are where you get punished disciplined yelled at embarrassed, humiliated, and all sorts of things.

A lot of people are going to always treat it like that. And that’s okay. You can’t control other people. But what you can do is when you make mistakes – because you will make mistakes – it’s to look at them differently and look at them as opportunities for improvement.

Let’s say you’re in the scenario when you’re trying to have a conversation in your target language, you’re in a language exchange, or you are working with a tutor. And you’re talking back and forth in your target language. And you want to express a certain sentence or phrase, but you get stuck because you’re thinking, “I think this is how you say that, but I’m not entirely sure”.

There are two options when you’re in this scenario.

Option 1: hope for the best

Follow the idea that you have: I think this is what I say that I think this is correct, but I’m not sure. If you follow that, even if it could be wrong, you follow it, hoping for the best. And if it was correct, congratulations! It’s an amazing day, you did something good.

If it’s wrong, that is also okay. Because now you’ve learned, and you can say “Okay, so how should I have said that?” And that is a way that you learn from your mistakes, because mistakes are an opportunity to learn and to not be stressed out about that problem in the future conversation.

Option 2: don’t try

Or, if you make the other choice, and just don’t say anything, then you don’t learn anything. The conversation ends, and then you feel really bad: “I wanted to say this thing, but I couldn’t”. And you miss out on that opportunity to either prove to yourself that you were right all along, or learn to do it better the next time.

So that’s how you look at them as opportunities to improve. Benny Lewis, for example, has said that his goal is to make mistakes, like a certain number of mistakes every day. And while that is an extreme version of that, the concept behind it is true, to purposely make mistakes, because you recognize that mistakes are a positive thing and an opportunity to learn.

Q: how do you keep going when it feels like you aren’t making progress?

You’ve spent all of your time playing on Duolingo or reading a textbook or having conversations, and you look back every once in a while you say, “Why am I not fluent yet? Why haven’t I learned the language yet? Why am I still struggling? Why aren’t I getting better? And if I’m not getting better, what is the point of trying?” Right? And then that is a really hard thing to fight.

The third phase of The Method is Metrics, and this is really important because when we are looking for progress, it’s really important to specify what metrics you’re looking at. It’s really easy, really common to try to start learning a language and try to continue learning a language and you’re looking back, you say,

“Why am I not fluent? Why am I still making these mistakes? Why can’t I learn this concept? Why am I still tripping over my words? Why can I still not think in the language?”

When you are looking back at the progress that you’re making and trying to clarify what progress there is. And the problem is, when you’re looking back, you say, “okay, am I fluent yet? Okay, am I learning new vocab yet? Am I able to have confident conversations yet? Am I able to think in the language yet?”

In Phase 3, in Metrics, we talk about what metrics are you looking at for your own language learning? So for example, let’s say that you want to be able to think in the language instead of having to translate from the language. And so you are learning all of this vocab, you’re memorizing all this vocab, and all these translations, and then you do that for a month. And then you look back at your language learning, and you say, “Okay, can I think in the language yet? Can I stop translating?”

“No, I can’t. But I’m learning language, I’m studying the language, I’m learning all this vocab, I should just be able to think these words that I’m learning what is wrong with me? Why can’t I make the progress?”

Now, the answer to that question to that specific scenario is that the things that you are doing to learn a language are not matching up with the progress that you are looking for. If the progress that you’re looking for is to memorize a bunch of words and be able to translate them, then it matches up with what you’re doing every day.

But if the measure of progress is, let’s say, being able to read Harry Potter in your target language, but you’re not practicing that, the metric does not match with what you’re doing with your time.

So, of course, it’s going to feel like you’re not making any progress, it’s going to feel like it’s a waste of time. Because the thing that you are doing in the moment is not going to get you the progress that you’re looking for. Because you have to make sure that the progress that you’re looking for in your language learning matches up with the activities that you’re doing to learn a language.

There are unlimited ways to learn a language. That’s why what every language learner needs to do is get very clear on what progress they’re intending to make, what it’s going to look like, what it’s going to feel like what they’re going to be able to do when after they spend six months learning the language, what they’re expecting their ability to be like.

Because if you’re going in saying, I’m going to learn German, and then you do that, by watching German TV shows, that’s fine. But if you are spending all your time watching German TV shows, and the metric that you’re looking for is being able to have conversations, when you’re not practicing having conversations, it just doesn’t make sense.

So it’s getting really clear on (1) what progress that you’re looking to make and (2) making sure that what you’re doing day to day matches up with that.

It’s not about using the best apps and like, you know, spending your entire life learning a language because that’s “what you’re supposed to do”. It’s about being intentional
about how you’re spending your time and what skills you are building.

Q: should I stick to my current learning routine?

I want you to focus on your needs and what’s working for you. Friends, family, people on the internet have the best intentions in mind, and they have the best goals and they want to help you. But the problem is, they only know from their own perspective and experience.

I’ve been around the internet, I’ve been working with language learners, been working with clients forever. And I have learned to separate myself from what I think somebody should do to learn a language from what other people actually need. If there’s a reason why you feel like you need more direction – if you need a teacher, coach, or mentor to support you, give you more direction, hold your hand, maybe give you more professional practice because you have a need that needs to be met, go for it.

But if you’re happy with your current approach, if you are making the progress that you need to make and if there are no problems, then I would say to your friends, “thank you for the recommendation, but this is working for me and so there’s no reason for me to change what is working for me.” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

A lot of people will be very stubborn about how they learned languages, and will tell you you should do the same. There are many people on the internet who come from this perspective.
And that’s just not true. If it’s working for you, and you don’t have any need for any change in strategy, and you’re finding progress, then there’s no reason to change your strategy.

Q: How long should it take a learner to improve their spoken Spanish, so they can have normal everyday conversations with the native speaker?

Every language learner is different. It depends on how much time you have, and how much time you want to spend improving your spoken Spanish. Even if you have three hours free every single day, I’m not suggesting that you use those three hours, you’re allowed to have other hobbies, you’re allowed to take care of yourself, you’re allowed to rest. You’re allowed to spend time with friends and family, whatever.

I would focus less on how much time it’s taking – and I know this is really difficult because everybody loves to brag about how it only took a certain amount of time for them to learn a language.

But the time it takes you to do something is not going to be a very helpful metric and that is because you cannot control it. It is not something that’s within your control. If you spend a month having conversations in Spanish, and then you look back and you immediately think you’re not making enough progress, that’s just not helpful.

If you’re making zero progress, then that’s something that we can look at. But when you’re looking at the progress that you’ve made, and you’re saying, “This isn’t happening fast enough, how can I make this happen quicker?” we need to change that mindset so that we’re not constantly judging ourselves for how quickly we’re able to learn something.

We need to be taking our focus and our perspective off of how long something is taking, and instead focus on what is happening and if that matches up with what your intention is. If the progress that you’re making matches up with your intention, then I would really recommend you find acceptance in that, instead of trying to learn as quickly as you can.

Q: I occasionally find myself wondering if having a tutor could potentially accelerate my progress

If you want to try working with a tutor, by all means, if it’s something that you’re curious about, and you haven’t really experienced with it, there’s no harm in trying, right? If it’s something that’s really you’re really curious about, I would get really clear on what your expectations are with a tutor, and then be able to go into that session and see how you feel about it. You can ask yourself questions like:

• Do I feel more supported?
• Do I have the structure that I’m looking for?
• Am I being intentional about working with a tutor?

If you’re curious, go ahead and be curious, there’s nothing wrong with that. You may learn something new, you may learn that that’s actually a better way for you to learn languages right now.

Your personality changes, your life changes, your lifestyle changes, your the time that you have available changes, and that will all directly affect your languaging strategy. So if you have less time or if you are more emotionally exhausted, that can change your approach to learning language. So that can change over time.

And you as a person change over time, right? So be aware that these changes exist and they affect your language learning strategy. And if you go into another language with that same strategy and you’re disappointed, don’t take that personally – accept it as data.

Phase 3 of The Method, Metrics, is all about the data: your expectations and how they relate to what actually happens. Are your expectations too high, too low, or just right?

Q: how do we know which way to learn a language works best for us?

You’re right – there are so many different people who will say so many things, and a good percentage of them are just trying to sell you something. In my experience, many people are more concerned with selling you their program than they are with actually with making sure it actually helps you.

So there are two ways to go about this.

Option 1: try all the resources

The first way is to just try all these different resources and hope for the best: learn what works for you, what you enjoy, what is actually helpful for you, what is sustainable for you in your life, taking that data and applying that long term.

So if you use StoryLearning, for example, and you realize you hate it, what kind of data can you get from that experience? If you find it boring, what is boring about it? What could change about it for to be more interesting to you? Take that data and learn from it instead of just resource hopping.

Phase 2 of The Method Phase two is all about strategies, and it starts with a lesson on Shiny Object Syndrome, which is when something is working well for you but then you feel motivated to switch things up because of a great deal, for example. That first lesson is about learning how to differentiate between what is actually an educated decision in what is just impulsive.

That’s actually the longest lesson in The Method, and that’s like 15 minutes. But that really goes into being clear on whether something will actually help you or if you’re just kind of feeling impulsive and uncomfortable and impatient.

Option 2: The Method

If you don’t want to spend the time, money, and energy trying all these different resources and hoping for the best, I’d recommend you join The Method.

Phase 1: Mindset

Phase 1 starts with helping you to understand if there’s anything holding you back from learning a language and fixing it. Once we remove any obstacles you’re dealing with, we talk about your goals for learning a language: progress will look like for you, what you want to achieve in your language, etc.

Phase 2: Methods

The very first lesson of Phase 2 is Shiny Object Syndrome: how do you know if you are interested in a language learning resource because you need it, or if you’re just getting distracted by good marketing, lack of patience, etc.

After discussing Shiny Object Syndrome, the final 5 lessons teach you literally every language learning strategy there is. What most language learners don’t understand is that while there are new language learning resources every single day, the strategies don’t change. The strategies to learn a language are exactly the same and they have always been exactly the same. And I can teach you them.

Even apps and resources and courses that claim to be new, modern, and “scientifically proven”, they’re not new. They’re exactly the same. They may be different ways to make these strategies accessible and provide access to them, but the strategies themselves are the same. And so taking those strategies and being able to look at language learning resources and understand the strategies they’re using to teach you a language drastically narrows down. the search for a new language learning app.

For example, if StoryLearning is not going to be helpful for you at all, like it’s not even close to what you’re looking for in a language learning resource, it makes it that easy to forget about it and instead focus on literally anything else will be beneficial to you.

Phase 3: Metrics

Phase 3 is all about making progress long-term. This means seeing our progressand what to do if we’re not making the progress that we want to be making. This Phase is all about looking at your language learning journey and asking if it’s really working.

We do this by looking at what you’ve been doing for the past week, months, six months, whatever, taking an objective, logical look at it, and making data-driven conclusions about your language learning: this is working, this is not, and this is how I can improve it.

So instead saying:

OMG this isn’t working, let me try another app and hope that this one isn’t a waste of time and money. I’m so stressed out and overwhelmed, I don’t know what else to do

…we can keep it simple.

Q: how can I get the most out of a language exchange session?

If you’re not familiar with what a language exchange is, it’s when you have a conversation with another language learner who is a native speaker of your target language and is learning your native language. So for example, my native language is English, and if I were learning Vietnamese, I could find somebody who speaks Vietnamese natively and is learning English. And we would have conversations where we exchange our languages.

The way these conversations are organized depends on so many different factors. First, I would recommend is to have a conversation with your language exchange partner, and be very clear on your expectations. For example, you could meet for an hour, during which you get to practice your target language for 30 minutes and they get to practice their target language for 30 minutes. Or, if you want to meet once a week, you could switch languages each week.

Some days you’re going to have your language exchanges and your brain is just not going to want to do anything. It’s not going to want to speak in another language. And in this situation, you can tell your partner, “Hey, I am not feeling good, but I’m happy to support you talking in my native language.” That requires zero effort. Then one day in the future when your partner is having an off day, they can return the favor and you get double the practice.

It’s really about keeping the communication open with your language exchange partner, which I know it can be difficult sometimes, especially with cultural differences. It’s important to be able to say, “hey, like I want to like meet up more,” or “I can’t meet up as much”.

Q: what’s the best way to stay motivated?

I do have a mini course on this, called Mastering Motivation. Anybody who gives you a very simple answer to this is probably selling you something you think you don’t need, to be completely honest. Because the thing is, everybody gets motivated by different things in different ways.

So here’s a little sneak peek from Mastering Motivation.

Motivation is an emotion, right? We cannot control our emotions, motivation is not something that we can necessarily rely on because we don’t know we’re going to be feeling day to day. And so when you are looking for that initial rush of motivation you get when you start learning a language, that first motivation of, “oh my God, I’m going to learn every single day and this is so exciting and I love to do this,” and so you sit down for like 2 hours and you study and you feel great…and then that disappears, right?

Depending on that motivation will always leave you disappointed, because we cannot depend on our emotions to be exactly what we want them to be, exactly when we want them to be that. I really recommend my clients to focus on other things besides motivation, because motivation will come and go, right? We can take those really motivating days and run with them. Like if we want to sit down and practice for 3 hours because we’re feeling really motivated that day, there’s nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong is expecting that level of motivation and commitment and energy every single day. We have to take a step back and manage our expectations, keep them realistic, because if we have unrealistic expectations of motivation, then we’re going to fail every single time.

Q: how can I effectively use a teacher for language learning?

I would really focus on getting clear on what your intentions are with your language learning and with your teacher. What are your goals? Because when you work with a language teacher, they generally have their own approach to teaching. Most of their students come to them and have no idea what they want to learn. That’s a teacher’s job, to provide that structure and give them a path to learn the language.

In that way, language teachers are the same exact way as apps and courses: they all teach with their own choice of language strategies. Many language learners end up unhappy because the path that that particular teacher teaches is not beneficial to the student’s goals.

That doesn’t mean the teacher is bad. That doesn’t mean the teacher is wrong. That doesn’t mean that you are bad or wrong or that you’re learning wrong. But it’s really important that you are clear about what is it that you want to learn and how you want to learn it, because otherwise it’s just another obstacle for learning the language.