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For a language teacher deciding where to work, the choice comes down to one tradeoff. A marketplace like Preply or italki brings you students, but it takes a commission on your lessons and owns the relationship with them. Running your own online language school means you keep your students and your revenue and set your own rules, [...]

A language curriculum is the ordered plan that turns scattered lessons into a course: a set of goals, a sequence of units and lessons, the materials students study, and the checks that show they are learning. Developing one well is the difference between teaching a pile of words and building lasting ability. The good news is that [...]

You can create your own online language school by turning your lessons into flashcard decks, organizing them into a curriculum, and inviting your students to study on their phones - with no website to build, no marketplace taking a cut of your income, and no separate tools to stitch together. With a [web app for language learning] [...]

To teach a language online you need three things: a way to turn your lessons into something students can study on their own, a way to deliver those lessons and see who is keeping up, and a steady way to find new students. You do not need a website, a video studio, or a pile of separate apps. A single set of [language teaching tool [...]

The best all-in-one language learning app is the one that keeps everything you need - vocabulary, review scheduling, audio, and real speaking practice - inside a single place, so you stop copying words between tools and start actually learning. Most people do not need five apps. They need one app that covers the whole loop: meet a [...]

A spaced repetition learning system is a study method that brings each word or fact back for review right before you would forget it, with the gap growing every time you recall it correctly. It tracks how well you know each item, returns the hard ones sooner and the easy ones later, and retires what you have mastered, so vocabular [...]

The best free flashcards app depends on how you study: Anki offers the most control and a deeply configurable spaced repetition engine, Quizlet offers the biggest library of ready-made sets plus classroom tools, and Lingocard is a languages-first app with built-in audio, frequency dictionaries, and offline study included for free. [...]

When you finally feel ready to open your mouth and speak a new language, one question comes up fast: should you practice with native speakers or with other learners like yourself? The honest answer is that both have real advantages, and the people who progress fastest usually combine the two. This guide compares both modes plainly [...]

A common question that most language learners eventually ask is a version of the following: “Which is more important, grammar or vocabulary?” The answer to this question is that it depends on your needs. Certainly, early on it is necessary to learn basic words and phrases – such as, “Hello,” “Goodbye,” “Thank you” – but while it [...]

Before I get into the details of how to go about finding language exchange friends, let me share an anecdote from when I was learning Korean. ### An Anecdote When I lived in Korea (South Korea, that is), I was very fortunate to find a language exchange group almost immediately upon emigrating to the country. At the group, I was [...]

Receptive skills are listening and reading: the ways we take in language (input). Productive skills are speaking and writing: the ways we create language (output). Both matter. Input builds understanding and leads toward fluency, output reveals your gaps so you can work on them, and interacting in your target language lets you pra [...]

In this blog, you will find a framework for developing a study plan. While the details and the examples are all set in the context of second & foreign language learning, the main points are transferrable to other skills. You could, for example, use the same advice to train for sports, become more virtuosic in your musicianship on [...]

As a busy working father with full-time job responsibilities, there are not that many days when I have long periods of free time to spend on language learning. However, I still have a surprising number of small ‘hidden moments’ in my daily life – gaps which I can use to engage in microlearning my target language. In his inspiring [...]

The four core language skills are speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are the receptive skills you use to take language in, while speaking and writing are the productive skills you use to express yourself. Balanced daily practice across all four is the most reliable path to real fluency. When you want [...]

A phrasal verb is a verb plus a small word like up, out or off that together create a new meaning: give up means stop trying, and look after means take care of. Below are 156 common English phrasal verbs, grouped by verb, with simple meanings and example sentences you can learn from. For many learners, phrasal verbs are the most [...]

Cloud-based vocabulary building means your word lists, flashcards and progress are stored in an online account instead of on one device. You can add a word on your computer, review it on your phone during a commute and pick up exactly where you left off on a tablet. A good app also works offline and syncs later. When I wrote down [...]

A spaced repetition schedule reviews each word at growing intervals: soon after you learn it, then after a day, a few days, a few weeks and a few months. Every correct answer pushes the next review further out, and every mistake brings the word back sooner. A spaced repetition app calculates these gaps for you, card by card. In m [...]

A frequency dictionary is a list of a language's words ranked by how often people actually use them, from the most common down. Learning in that order pays off fast: in English, the 1,000 most frequent words make up about 85% of speech. That's why a frequency dictionary is the smartest place to start building your vocabulary. "I [...]

To learn a language with flashcards, put a word or phrase on one side and its meaning on the other, then test yourself instead of just rereading. Cards you remember come back less often, and cards you miss come back sooner. That is the Leitner system, and a flashcard app automates it with spaced repetition. Flashcards are the sim [...]

The best way to improve your vocabulary is to combine seven proven methods: listen to and repeat new words, use flashcards, attach images, memorize whole sentences, practice pronunciation, learn synonyms and antonyms, and watch films in the language you are learning. Then review each word with spaced repetition, right before you w [...]

The easiest way to find native speakers to practice with is to offer them something in return: practice in your own language (a language exchange), a skill you can teach, or payment for their time. The fastest free option is a speaking practice community that matches you with native speakers and fellow learners by language, level [...]

The fastest way to learn English is to beat the three problems that slow most learners down: remember new words with flashcards and spaced repetition, starting with the most common ones; turn spare minutes into study time with audio; and start speaking with native speakers early. Here's how I solved each of them. I asked myself h [...]