12 Prolific Language Learning Bloggers You Should Follow
That’s 13 if you include me (which you should!)…
I thought I’d put together a short list of who I consider to be the most profilic and authoritative bloggers on the topic of languages and language learning at present.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of every language blogger out there (there are plenty of others I deliberately didn’t include for one reason or another and probably a few that I don’t know about as well). I haven’t included popular websites (e.g. How To Learn Any Language) that aren’t personal blogs either.
When I started scouring the net for the best language learning blogs a short while back I found the lack of good quality, reputable blogs on this topic frustrating, not to mention how much I had to dig in order to find them. It’s good to read up on other people’s success and struggles in language learning, and to take what you can use from their various (and often conflicting) methods and approaches.
The people I’ve mentioned below may know several languages but all of these people have languages of specialization or expertise to some extent. They may blog about language learning in general but each of them have specialist knowledge of certain languages.
If you know of a blogger that should be mentioned here, add your input in the comments section below.
Jana Fadness
Blog name: Adventures Of The Directionally Challenged
Languages: English (native), Japanese, French, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Thai.
Product: None but planning a book.
Her site in her own words:
“Broadly speaking, this blog is a chronicle of my own quest to stop repressing my own personality and passions, and to find ways to help other people to do the same.”
I recently discovered Jana’s blog and it’s become one of my favourite personal blogs. I should note that much of her site isn’t about language learning per se, but rather plenty of musings and reflections about her life journey and experiences. She’s currently living in Paris with a host family as an au pair and taking the opportunity to work on her French and other European languages. Jana’s the go-to girl for anyone learning Japanese.
She demonstrates her different languages on her Youtube channel and is open and honest about her proficiency levels in each.
Check out her post: How To Find The Adventure In Your Life
Jared Romey
Blog: Speaking Latino
Languages: English (native), Spanish (various dialects)
Product: Several books and ebooks on Spanish dialects.
His site in his own words:
“My books and now this website are a consequence of my early bumblings in Spanish, repeated bouts with culture shock, and confusions over the correct words for popcorn, gasoline, pen, bus, underwear, traffic jam and drinking straw.”
Jared guest posted here about 2 weeks ago. His blog in my opinion should be the first point of call for anyone undertaking Spanish, especially Latin American varieties.
Check out his post: Become Fluent Faster By Ignoring These 5 Spanish Fundamentals
Luca Lampariello
Blog: The Polyglot Dream
Languages: Italian (native), English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Romanian.
Product: None.
His site in his own words:
“This blog is entirely dedicated to my biggest passion: languages.”
Luca’s an Italian guy from Rome who was raised monolingual but has achieved ‘hyperpolyglottery’ through 20 years of language study.
The thing I like the most about Luca is that he’s demonstrated his language levels by posting some really interesting multilingual interviews on YouTube. He’s also very clear about the fact that language learning takes a lot of time and that there are no shortcuts.
Check out his post: The 3 Stages of Language-Learning Evolution
Randy Hunt
Blog: The Yearlyglot – Fluent Every Year
Languages: English (native), Italian, Russian and Spanish.
Product: Fluent Italian This Year
His site in his own words:
“The main focus of this web site is, of course, learning languages. Specifically, I will be learning one new language every year.”
Randy’s currently on a mission to achieve fluency in Greek in one year and he’s blogging about his progress as he’s done for his previous language missions. The thing I like about the brand name of Randy’s blog, Fluent Every Year, is that it’s a realistic time frame for what he aims to achieve.
Check out his post: Choosing A Language That You Will Use
Simon Ager
Blog: Omniglot Blog
Languages: English (native), Mandarin, French, Welsh and Irish.
Product: None but runs an “Encyclopaedia of writing systems and languages”.
His site in his own words:
“This blog contains my musings on language, linguistics and related topics.”
I almost didn’t include Omniglot in this list for the simple fact that it’s more of a blog for linguists, rather than language learners (yes there is a difference). You’ll find a lot of linguist jargon on this blog that doesn’t really interest a lot of people (as a linguist I personally get a kick out of it), but there are plenty of interesting and useful nuggets of information you can find there for general language learning. His mystery language recordings are a nice touch too.
Check out his post: Do It Because It’s Fun
Richard Simcott
Blog: Speaking Fluently
Languages: English (native), French, Spanish, Welsh, German, Macedonian, Swedish, Italian, Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian, Portuguese, Czech, Catalan, Russian, Dutch, Romanian and Albanian.
Product: None.
His site in his own words:
“Speaking Fluently offers you the chance to read about language learning tips and stories.”
Richard’s a friend of Luca Lampariello (above). Like Luca, Richard has put some interviews on YouTube where he demonstrates his remarkable language repertoire in unscripted, spontaneous conversation. He also offers some very solid, realistic and highly useful language learning advice on his blog.
Check out his post: The Language Monkey
Olle Linge
Blog: Hacking Chinese
Languages: Swedish (native), Mandarin Chinese, English, French
Product: None.
His site in his own words:
“This website is dedicated to unveiling the mysteries of learning a language in general and about learning Chinese in particular.”
As stated, Olle’s site is primarily aimed at the Chinese language learner and should be the first stop for anyone keen on learning Mandarin. I keep myself up to date with his blog as a lot of what he shares is helpful for language learning in general, not just for Chinese.
Check out his post: Reading Manga For More Than Just Pleasure
Aaron Myers
Blog: The Everyday Language Learner
Languages: English (native), Turkish, Spanish
His site in his own words:
“The Everyday Language Learner is about helping regular people learn another language. It’s about empowering and educating and giving you the tools that will lead to success. It’s about helping you get started on a journey that will change your life forever. More than any other thing, I desire to help you be more effective, more efficient and have more fun learning another language.”
Aaron consistently pumps out top quality language learning advice and motivational posts, and is probably one of the best sources of encouragement you’ll come across. He’s also the go-to guy for anyone wanting to learn Turkish specifically.
Check out his post: Moving Forward As Advanced Learners
Benny Lewis
Blog: Fluent In 3 Months
Languages: English and Irish Gaeilge (native bilingual), Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Esperanto.
Product: Speak From Day One Video Course and Language Hacking Guide.
His site in his own words:
“…a site packed with encouragement and “language hacks” about speaking languages as quickly as possible, as I travel to learn and speak languages myself.”
I think it’s safe to assume that Benny has the largest readership of any of these bloggers. His blog is about his own journey and missions for fast fluency, and he firmly believes in the whole Speak From Day One approach which has its merits but is also problematic. I do admire his persistence and willingness to get out there and use the language.
Check out his post: 29 Life Lessons Learned In Travelling The World For 8 Years Straight
Susanna Zaraysky
Blog: Create Your World Book
Languages: English (native), Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Serbo-Croatian.
Product: Language Is Music and Travel Happy, Budget Low
Her site in her own words:
“I am a multilingual world traveler whose goal is to help people have fun learning languages with music, TV, radio and other media and travel the world economically.”
Susanna’s made several television appearances and has her own unique approach to language learning using music. Her approach is particularly useful for anyone trying to improve their accent.
Check out her post: Sensual Brazilian Music -> Learn Portuguese
Wiktor Kostrzewski
Blog: 16 Kinds
Languages: Polish (native), English. Unsure of the others.
Product: None.
His site in his own words:
“The tagline of the website is “Learn Languages Better.” I’m on a mission to try and write about everything that helps people achieve this.”
I don’t know a whole lot about Wiktor to be honest, but the language learning advice he offers on his blog is high quality, no-BS stuff.
Check out his post: I Love That I Suck: Learning Languages Through Failing
Steve Kaufmann
Blog: The Linguist On Language
Languages: English (native), French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Swedish, German, Italian , Cantonese, Russian, Portuguese and Czech.
Product: LingQ and The Way Of The Linguist
His site in his own words:
“For people who love languages or would, but were discouraged…”
The founder of LingQ and arch-nemesis of Benny Lewis… Despite the drama, Steve’s language repertoire impresses me along with the frequent YouTube videos he puts out on various language learning issues. He’s definitely one of the leading authorities in the language learning blogosphere.
Check out his post: When We Feel Like We Are Not Making Any Progress In Our Language Learning…
Who would you add to this list?
This was written by Donovan Nagel.
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Andrew
David
Ramblurr
@GAPeachAbroad
Thanks for the link!
Thanks for including me here and for finding another female language blogger, Jane Fadness. I was not familiar with her before.
Wow. Great list and I am thrilled to be on it. Thanks much! Loving all those bloggers and it is a great time to be excited about learning languages. Keep up the good work you're doing here.
Wow! I can't tell you how flattered I am to be featured here with amongst all these great bloggers– and to be the first one on your list! I don't feel like I deserve it, but thank you so much. =D
I meant "amongst", not "with amongst", of course. ^^;
Thank you very much for putting me on your list Donovan
Luca
Great list, thx! Love how you underlined the ongoing feud between Benny and Steve, ahah
Thanks for putting a link to my blog on here. I am really happy to appear with some really great language bloggers!
Super list indeed! Very much enjoyed reading it.
Great list, thank you for some new recommendations! I don't care much for the commercial language bloggers, but it is interesting to read fellow polyglots' blogs.
Thanks for mentioning me. I think all of these blogs, including yours, contribute to more excitement around language learning.
You don't deserve it.
Thanks for including my blog
I read most of these blogs already, but it's great to discover some new ones. It's interesting that you see my blog as one for linguists – I just write about language-related things that interest me and that I hope are interesting and useful to others.
http://lackuna.com should be in that list too!
You didn't include Khatzumoto's All Japanese all the Time? Seriously?
Totally agree with you on this one. AJATT is amazing.
For Chinese, I'm a big fan of Sinosplice.
He doesn't have a blog, but the most legendary current polyglot, IMO, is Professor Arguelles. His videos on youtube are the most useful for any serious language learner, and they're great for both beginning enthusiasts and serious learners. And he's not selling any products, which in and of itself sends him right to the top of my list..
for another female polylot please see kat at http://www.youtube.com/user/katrudy7
Alexander Arguelles is excellent, I agree.
I didn't include him here though because he doesn't run a blog otherwise I certainly would have.
Thanks for recommending Sinosplice.
Looks like a very good resource for Chinese.
Site closed down? I logged into it yesterday but I'm getting a parking page today. :/
Nice list, some very interesting bloggers. But Benny is not a native Irish speaker, he doesn’t speak it very well. He’s much better at the other European languages he speaks. He says himself he only spoke English til he was 21!
He would have grown up like most Irish kids taking compulsory Irish classes and spending short trips in the Gaeltacht areas (Irish speaking areas).
Also I don't know him personally, but going off where he's from he's very close to Gaeltacht areas so he might have spent significant time encountering Irish speakers.
Most Irish young people can't speak Irish but they've got all that vocabulary and childhood exposure there which makes it a lot easier to pick up later in life. Benny's Irish isn't great you're right (I feel like I can make that assessment now), which is why he recently announced his next mission which is to go home and improve it.
Hello!
I discovered the online polyglot community about a year ago. At the moment I'm building up a new blog, dedicated just to language learning (I had other 2, but not on this subject).
Thank you for this "list". Some of these persons are on my contact list
It would be great to exchange ideas with you!
Hi Mae!
I'm looking forward to reading about your own experience and insight into language learning. Seems you've got a lot 
Always happy to exchange ideas with people
Thanks for your comment!
I was just saying, as a native Irish speaker myself, that that's not how native Irish sounds. I see now that you know that also. I was just afraid in case you thought that's what native Irish sounds like. Best of luck with your learning!
Great
Which part of Ireland are you from? Even though I'm at a fairly low level with Irish, I can recognize bad accents already
Thanks!