The Best Tools To Study A Foreign Language

November 9, 2018

One of the most fun things of studying a foreign language is having access to free and paid tools to learn. I love searching for new books, websites and resources to help me learn the foreign language I want to be able to speak. I also love having access to motivational tools, because they inspire me to study more and better

In this post, I will share with you the best tools and resources you need in your life to learn a foreign language.

If you are an aspiring polyglot or billingual and you NEED to know where to find recources to study the language you love, make sure you keep reading.

Also, if you think only conventional tools like notebooks and dictionaries can help you be successful, continue reading. I will blow your mind with the tools I’ll be sharing with you.

Let’s begin!

We all use cell phones too much, that is doubtless. If you invest so much of your time in playing Pokemon Go, scrolling on Instagram, watching videos on Youtube or pinning on Pinterest, you surely have some time (and internal or external memory in your phone) to use an app to learn your favourite language.

I cannot recommend you this more, because you will not use it(them) only in your resting times but also in your commute time when in a bus, car or train. Having an app is one of the things that can help you acquire a foreign language the most. You will get to learn new vocabulary and review old one, learn new grammatical structures and practice the ones you already know, improve your listening and reading comprehension, and even practice your pronunciation. If the language you want to learn has another writing system, you can also learn it through an app.

There are TONS of apps out there, for both smartphones and Iphones. You just need to search for them on google play or the  I store. Anyway, if you don’t have time to look for the perfect app for you, I recommend you read any (or both) of my posts where I recommend you some language learning apps. I not only give you my most honest reviews, but also my rate and whether or not I will continue using it. I even tell you the language availability of each one of them!

5 Apps That You Need In Your Life When Trying To Learn A Language

You Totally Need These Apps If You Want To Learn Any Language

We all love Pinterest because it gives as meals ideas, decluttering hacks and advice for bloggers and entrepreneurs. But it does not stop there; Pinterest can also help polyglots in two different ways:

  1. It provides a lot of pins with advice for aspiring polyglots. You can learn about which are the best ways to acquire a foreign language, free resources, and books to learn, how to learn a language on your own, etc.
  2. It also provides with pins that are made for learners of a specific language. These pins may contain, for example, Korean vocabulary related to Animals, the 50 most used verbs in Chinese, Meals in Italian, the family in French, and more. The pins are not only useful but also beautiful and creative so they are very appealing to look at.

You can create your own boards for every language you are learning, so that you get an easier and fast access to all of the pins that are more useful for you.

If you want you can also follow my board in Pinterest, Language Learning Organization, where I daily pin new pictures that I am sure will be of much help to you.

I have talked a lot of times about the importance of having a planner to organize your whole life. You can do so many things with it that the possibilities are endless. But having a planner does not only provide you with a personal life organizer,  it also can help you to reach your polyglot goals.

I will give you some original usages of a planner that you can change into a way of improving your skills at a certain language:

  1. Tracking new habits = Tracking if you studied or not each day.
  2. Organize your monthly tasks in a calendar = Organize your studying sessions in a calendar.
  3. Writing down what are you grateful for each day = Writing down the new words you learned each day.
  4. Planning your daily tasks = Planning your daily tasks to practice a foreign language.
  5. Mood tracker = Language level tracker
  6. Monthly goals = Monthly Language learning goals.
  7. Monthly achievements = Monthly Language learning achievements.

You can also read my post, how to use your bullet journal when learning languages. If you are more into notebooks but don’t know how to organize them, then you need to read this post, how to organize your notebooks for learning languages.

Youtube is one of the most influential website. We go there to do everything; listening to music, watching movies and documentaries, learning how to cook a certain meal and getting to know more of our favorite Youtubers. As this platform is SO big, these last couple of years more and more polyglot influencers have been reaching more viewers. Not only gamers or beauty gurus are famous and inspire people, now polyglots do it too.

When you watch a video by a polyglot, telling you his/her hacks to learn foreign languages, showing you his/her study routine or just speaking in all the languages he/she knows, you IMMEDIATELY feel super motivated to learn and practice the languages you want to know. That is why I think getting to watch this kind of videos is one of the best tools you need to use. It does not only provide you with tips and pieces of advice, but also inspire you a lot.

These are some of my favourite polyglot youtubers:

Jasmine Lipska

Abby P

Lindsay does languages

Lindie Botes

Ted talks are one of the most inspirational things you can watch online (or live, which must be even better). There are Ted talks for everyone, from engeneeries to singers, a lot of inspiring people give their best advice and talk about something in their lives that is worth sharing with the world.

And of course, there are a lot of polyglots or linguists talking in some TED talk videos. I think you can take a lot of the things they say in order to motivate yourself and also study with their hacks. Their success does not appear out of nothing, but if they could reach their goals (especially their polyglot ones) you surely can do it too.

Here are some TED talk videos that can motivate you in this language learning path:

  1. How Languages Shape The Way We Think 
  2. Five Techniques To Speak Any Language
  3. Learning A Language? Speak It Like You’re Playing A Video Game

Instagram can put together many people into a community (or more than one), and studygram is one of the most popular ones. That is why a smaller community, the aspiring polyglot community, is now growing every day too. This community shares pictures of themselves studying foreign languages, their new purchases, books, dictionaries, desks, etc. They also record themselves speaking in the languages they know, showing to the world how much they have learned. Their improvements are there, in Instagram, so that people like them can get inspired and motivated to learn more.

I enjoy seeing all the aesthetical pictures some of the upload, the stories they record, the pieces of advice they share. I am sure you will do it too, in case you are still not into this or did not know it existed. You can follow hashtags like #languages, #languagelearning, #languagelover, #languageexchange and hashtags related to the language you are learning (#chinese, #korean, and so on).

Some of the most influencial polyglots I follow in Instagram are:

@lindiebotes, @joyoflanguages and @lindsaydoeslanguages

Some time ago I had the idea of creating a workbook where people trying to learn a language could practice their language skills in different aspects like reading, writing, speaking and listening. This year I did it and it has been my most popular product so far, so I am sure it will help you very much.

This workbook is like a notebook, already made for you, so that you only spend your time using it. It is divided in three parts:

  1. Basic vocabulary and grammar
  2. Specific and useful vocabulary and grammar for you
  3. Extra tips

If you need to practice your target language but you think you are a mess following a specific order by yourself, you need to start practicing with this workbook. It has different units and activities that will guide you through your learning process.

This is a printable version so you don’t need to wait any minute going to a store or waiting for it to arrive from the email. The document will be in your email in only a couple of seconds and you can use it right away on your technological device like Ipad or tablet, or you can print it and use it like a regular notebook.

My workbook is one of the things I am most proud of since I became an English teacher, so all of the things I learned at University and in my personal life are put there to help you reach your goals as an aspiring polyglot or bilingual person.

Are you struggling to learn foreign languages? If you prefer taking an online course, don’t forget to check out my course on language study organization!

I hope this post was super useful for you all. This topic is one of my favorite ones to write about and I am super happy that I got to help you to reach your goals, or at least motivate you and advice you on this. Leave me in the comments below any suggestion on topics that you’d like me to cover.

Which language are you learning at the moment? Which are your favorite tools to study? I’d love to know about it!

Have a beautiful day,

Namaste.

×