Three Amazing Places to Find Incredible Language Learning Resources

One of the most time-wasting activities of language learners is the act of looking for new resources.

When you’re a beginner, there’s just too much out there. When you’re at an intermediate level, it seems there’s nothing. When you’re an advanced learner, it feels all you have is native content.

I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours looking for resources in my 13 years of learning languages. I fell upon some great ones on my own but the vast majority comes from language-learning communities.

In communities, there are people of every level. When they talk about a resource, they’ve tried it. They aren’t some big company pushing for their own content over and over again, like Babbel and Rosetta Stone have been doing for a while for example.

This small list of platforms is all I rely upon to make finding new resources easier. I hope they can serve you too.

How to Learn Any Language Forum

The How-To-Learn-Any-Language forum has been dead for about 5 years but it used to be composed of the most intense language learners on the web, for over a decade.

With its 530,000 posts, you’re bound to find pretty much any information you want on any resource that’s at least 6 years old. You can find learning methods, debates about well-known resources, or even the entire learning journey of some polyglots.

Some users of the forum also created the Language Learning Fandom webpage where they gathered some of the more “important” information. That page is a great place to start, especially when considering which learning method to apply for which skill.

I was active on the platform for over 5 years and this was my most efficient time learning languages in my life so I can’t recommend it enough.

I’d advise creating a free account and starting to search for keywords of what you want to find. You’ll find pretty much anything you want on HTLAL, as we called it.

A Language Learners’ Forum

This forum is where the HTLAL community migrated in mid-2015, due to the administrator of HTLAL leaving the website with more and more bugs. The community, while smaller than HTLAL’s, is full of motivated learners sharing tips and experiences about anything language-related.

While there are “only” 174,000 posts at the time of writing, the information there is more up-to-date, with people sharing their most useful currently-used resources and methods.

The community is very supportive so, if you don’t find what you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to ask a question on the “Practical Questions and Advice” page. You’ll get an answer within a day or two from people who know their stuff.

After all, in the language-learning community, there’s nothing else but incredible support for each other.

If you struggle with consistency, creating your own language-learning log and sharing regularly your progress and struggles can be a great option as well. You’ll quickly get a few readers that’ll support you and give you tips to get out of a rut even if you don’t specifically ask for it.

Refold Discord

The Youtuber Matt vs Japan called his method called Massive Immersion Approach based on the All Japanese All The Time website. As he had internal problems with his partner last year, they split and he created a new community and method he calls “Refold.”

He created a discord community that now includes about 6,000 members and is very active. In it, you can specify which language you’re learning by clicking the flag of the language and you’ll get access to a specific community just for that language.

In each sub-community, there are channels for specific resources, for language projects, for accountability, for asking questions, and even for “watch parties” where people all watch the same movie or episode at the same time while talking about it.

Even if you’re not following the Refold method, this discord server is an amazing place to find pretty much any resource you might need. The motivation of the most active users will also probably get you psyched up. I know it did for me.

While it is a community which means you’re invited to participate, you don’t need to. You can just pick whatever you want and do your own thing. I’ve been willing to participate but haven’t done so yet.

Most of my current favorite resources come from the language-specific channels of this Discord community where I found, for example, within minutes an amazing Taiwanese podcast even though I struggled to find any good Taiwanese audio content along with its script.

Final Thoughts

There are countless places to find resources online. The ones I’ve shared aren’t the only ones but the resources they all share are of high quality and their communities can be trusted.

Don’t feel forced to take part in any community. Do your thing and keep learning your language. All you need is to be consistent for long enough to become fluent. But if you feel like taking part, you probably won’t regret it.

Until then, enjoy the wealth of quality resources and methods you’ll get access to.

I know I have.

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