How Learning Languages Became MUCH Easier in 2024 (And How to REALLY Make the Most of It)
We've interviewed 791 language learners, teachers and polyglots to find the best learning methods.
Here are the best strategies I found for 2024 (things DO change in language learning) and common mistakes.
Bad news first: you still need to put in the effort to have quality outcomes. Duh…But it has never been easier, cheaper and more fun to master languages!
These apply to both beginners and advanced learners, and those who are re-learning a language that they never quite mastered at school.
Bad news first: you still need to put in the effort to have quality outcomes. Duh…But it has never been easier, cheaper and more fun to master languages!
These apply to both beginners and advanced learners, and those who are re-learning a language that they never quite mastered at school.
Use a great flashcard app
You NEED to learn vocabulary. With just 50–100 words you will be able to have basic conversations. Several thousand words (depending on the language) are required for fluency.
Anki and Quizlet are the most popular flashcard apps, but 75% of language learners who I interviewed reported being unhappy with the “generic” feel of those apps.
They don’t focus on languages: no two way translations and no step-by-step study pack courses. They even don’t use the “spaced repetition” methodology — the best method for memorizing words.
So, I built my own language learning app! It’s called Karteto (the name comes from the way “card” is spelled in many languages).
Try Karteto here to learn the first 10 words in your study language!
You are, of course, free to accept or refuse to give it a try.😉
You NEED to learn vocabulary. With just 50–100 words you will be able to have basic conversations. Several thousand words (depending on the language) are required for fluency.
Anki and Quizlet are the most popular flashcard apps, but 75% of language learners who I interviewed reported being unhappy with the “generic” feel of those apps.
They don’t focus on languages: no two way translations and no step-by-step study pack courses. They even don’t use the “spaced repetition” methodology — the best method for memorizing words.
So, I built my own language learning app! It’s called Karteto (the name comes from the way “card” is spelled in many languages).
Try Karteto here to learn the first 10 words in your study language!
You are, of course, free to accept or refuse to give it a try.😉
Leverage AI chatbots for learning
Teacher time is expensive, but now you can ask Chat GPT to act as a teacher and it will be just as good for many cases.
Download the ChatGPT app. Its advantage over the desktop version is the “Voice conversation” feature which will get you speaking and listening much quicker.
Prompt it to act as a language teacher. You can even create several unique conversations to focus on different language learning topics. Here are a couple of prompts I use to learn Spanish:
“I’m learning Spanish. You will act as a Spanish teacher. We’ll hold conversations in Spanish. If you find that I make mistakes, I want you to correct and explain them.”
“I’m learning Spanish. You will act as a Spanish teacher. Give me different verbs, one at a time, and I’ll conjugate them to futuro progresivo. Correct me if I make mistakes.”
The transcription of your lesson will be available in the chat history, so you can go over it later.
It’s also a great help with translating texts and asking to explain the different sentence structures.
Best of all, it’s free!
The only downside is that you are going to need to be the one “managing” the lesson and prompting the AI teacher to change the learning topics.
Teacher time is expensive, but now you can ask Chat GPT to act as a teacher and it will be just as good for many cases.
Download the ChatGPT app. Its advantage over the desktop version is the “Voice conversation” feature which will get you speaking and listening much quicker.
Prompt it to act as a language teacher. You can even create several unique conversations to focus on different language learning topics. Here are a couple of prompts I use to learn Spanish:
“I’m learning Spanish. You will act as a Spanish teacher. We’ll hold conversations in Spanish. If you find that I make mistakes, I want you to correct and explain them.”
“I’m learning Spanish. You will act as a Spanish teacher. Give me different verbs, one at a time, and I’ll conjugate them to futuro progresivo. Correct me if I make mistakes.”
The transcription of your lesson will be available in the chat history, so you can go over it later.
It’s also a great help with translating texts and asking to explain the different sentence structures.
Best of all, it’s free!
The only downside is that you are going to need to be the one “managing” the lesson and prompting the AI teacher to change the learning topics.
Stop using useless language apps
A common mistake language learners do is that they rely too much on language learning apps.
The truth is that most language learning apps are just NOT an effective learning tool. Professional polyglots don’t use any of the popular learning apps (Duolingo, Babbel, etc.).
They are optimized to increase subscription revenue, but not language learning and can be a great (and highly addictive) time sink.
A common mistake language learners do is that they rely too much on language learning apps.
The truth is that most language learning apps are just NOT an effective learning tool. Professional polyglots don’t use any of the popular learning apps (Duolingo, Babbel, etc.).
They are optimized to increase subscription revenue, but not language learning and can be a great (and highly addictive) time sink.
Find teachers online
Nothing can beat studying with a teacher. Language schools are an option, but you could get stuck with a teacher who you don’t like and would need to travel.
Italki and Preply solve that with hundreds of teachers for most languages. The optimal strategy is to try several teachers and continue working with your favorite. It will work out to be cheaper than a language school.
Make learning fun!
The most important finding from interviewing language learners is that learning HAS to be fun.
Overwise, you will not progress as fast and might even give up. So make sure that if a learning method doesn’t work for you to try many other available methods.
Happy learning!
Nothing can beat studying with a teacher. Language schools are an option, but you could get stuck with a teacher who you don’t like and would need to travel.
Italki and Preply solve that with hundreds of teachers for most languages. The optimal strategy is to try several teachers and continue working with your favorite. It will work out to be cheaper than a language school.
Make learning fun!
The most important finding from interviewing language learners is that learning HAS to be fun.
Overwise, you will not progress as fast and might even give up. So make sure that if a learning method doesn’t work for you to try many other available methods.
Happy learning!