PolyLingual

Understanding and speaking the language will at some point inevitably make you feel like a spy/important person… - Bonus points for when you can eavesdrop on public conversations.

Have those fun little moments when you catch mistakes in your target language on signs, merchandise and in media. (Especially if it’s Japanese or Chinese… People love to butcher those). 

Imagine what your crush would think if they suddenly realize you speak a different language 3 months after meeting you. They may gasp, exclaim that you’re full of surprises, and go weak in the knees from your oh-so-mysterious demeanor (bonus points if it’s French or Italian). 

Fulfill your study aesthetic dreams, because you finally have something to theme a new blog around. Time to splurge on a pretty notebook and nice pens and work on that handwriting. Get the desk set up nice and cute, grab yourself the most beautiful coffee mug you can find. You’ve just become that girl. And you love it. Can’t forget to mention the messy buns, glasses (don’t have to be prescription), cat ownership and plants. 

Increase your chances of escaping eternal loneliness TEN FOLD because learning a language just opened doors to millions of people who couldn’t speak yours. 

Your personality may shift depending on which language you’re speaking, due to cultural and linguistic differences. So, by learning a new language, you will not only become more knowledgable about the world around you, but about yourself and people in general. 

Accurately understand books, shows, and all sorts of media in your target language. (No more relying on suspicious subtitles).

Content creators (vocab lists, essayists, Swadesh lists, research, notes, literally anything homemade and related to language)

People who like and reblog content (especially if you leave tags or comments!)

People who share their language-related experiences

Tutors, teachers and mentors

Eager students

Quiet but loyal followers that consistently show up in notifications

People who leave kind and supportive asks and comments

People who ask questions so they can better understand or learn more

People who ask questions just so someone can go off on a tangent about what they are passionate about

People who post a couple sentences

People who can write a whole book

Talented polyglots (and the clumsy ones)

Curious or passionate monolinguals

Heritage language learners

People who don’t know English or [insert another dominant language] very well or not at all (I know these people may not understand this post but I hope they know they are valuable to the language community too!)

People who don’t know what the fuck their niche is languages are just dope man idk

Foreign language music collectors

Movie buffs with an obsession with foreign film

Resource hoarders who share

People who request content

People that cheer up and provide support to their favorite language bloggers when they need it

People that are sensitive to vulnerable groups/languages

Signal boosters (especially for the new kids and undervalued languages)

People who are on tumblr 24/7 and post every week

People who show up every few months just to say hi and like a couple things

People with a dedicated language blog

People who only have one blog that’s just a collage of all the random shit they love, including languages

Native speakers that post/talk about their language

Journalers

Nerds with awesome studying tips

People who are struggling but still love being here

Avid readers who just want to consume all the language stuff they can get their hands on

Decorated academics

People with no formal education at all

People who just want to talk about a cool book/article/movie/TV show that focused on language

Disciplined and organized people with pretty aesthetics

People who are absolute train wrecks about pretty much everything except for the fact they just think languages are awesome

Idk if you babes know this, but simply just creating anything that makes you happy, being excited about the field of study you love, or engaging with each other and content in a mindful, compassionate way is how you make a meaningful contribution to this community. There are literally no other requirements.

You have something to offer, even if it’s just one thing from this list (and I know for a fact every single one of you makes this list).

To be fair, we have not looked into this. That’s part of why we’re posting it here so we can check after work. But if it’s legit, we highly recommend! We were raised on ASL and it’s a second language which became incredibly useful when Kay appeared in 2016 because he’s mute! It can work as a secret language, for any form of mutism or deafness and learning a new language boosts brainpower!

You learned 5 words today? I'm proud of you.

You finally got round to tackling that difficult grammar concept today? I'm proud of you.

You asked help because you didn't understand something? I'm proud of you.

You took a break from languages today? I'm proud of you.

Is it better to teach yourself a language or to use a teacher? That is the question. In this blog, I make the case that it is better to use a teacher. To understand why a teacher is better, let’s analyse how self-taught people learn languages. Teaching yourself a language consists of 3 things:

(1) Compiling resources (i.e. books, apps, websites, podcasts, etc)

(2) Developing a study plan

(3) Self-teaching (i.e. the actual learning)

On top of this, self-teachers spend a considerable amount of time adapting and experimenting with the three things above. This is because self-teachers have a lot that they have to figure out. A self-teacher wanting to learn a new language does not know where to start. There is a plethora or language learning resources out in the word. A self-teacher has to find the resources, sort through them and then select a few to use. They won’t know how good the resources are until they use them and what’s worse, the very best resources may not even be in the mainstream. A self-teacher has no choice but to use a trial and error method to find resources that are good enough. I say ‘good enough’ because one can’t trial resources forever.

Resources are the What. A study plan is the How. How do you use your resources to teach yourself a language? Should you use a textbook and go through it page by page? Should you use all the resources equally? In what order are you going to study the topics? How often will you revise? All this pertains to the study plan. Just like with resources, some trial and error will be necessary.

Finally, the learning itself. This should be the only thing a learner spends her time doing but, if the learner is a self-teacher, it unfortunately won’t be. Self-teachers spend a significant amount of their time preparing and planning how they will learn. For learners using teachers however, things are different. A learner using a teacher outsources the preparation and planning to someone else and only has to do the learning. That is why I it’s better to use a teacher than to teach yourself. There is a caveat though.

They offer thousands of books in many different languages. To find books in languages other than English; First click browse, and then click Subjects. Scroll all the way to the last subject and you’ll see a title that says “Books by Language,” and under this you will see choices for all kinds of languages, with a ‘see more’ tab for even more languages.