Language learning tips — what this guide covers
This hub covers the six most important areas of language learning: choosing the right method, learning vocabulary effectively, staying motivated, improving listening comprehension, learning faster, and understanding your learning type. Each topic has its own in-depth guide linked below — based on 20+ years of self-taught language learning experience across five languages.
Learning a foreign language is one of the most consistently rewarding investments you can make in yourself. It opens professional opportunities, deepens travel experiences, and — as someone who has done it five times — it genuinely changes how you think. But it is also an area where a huge amount of bad advice circulates: unrealistic promises, oversimplified methods, and generic tips that ignore how different learners actually work.
I started learning Norwegian from scratch in 2005. Over the following 20 years I added Danish, Swedish, French, and most recently Spanish. I wrote four vocabulary books documenting what I learned along the way. What you will find in this series of guides is not theory — it is what actually worked, tested across multiple languages, over two decades of daily practice.
UP TO 51% DISCOUNT – Get access to your language course or try the free demo*
The six guides in this series
1. Language learning methods — which one is right for you?
Classes, immersion, apps, online courses, passive media input, formal studies — there are six main ways to learn a foreign language, and they are not equally suited to every learner or every situation. This guide compares all six honestly: what each delivers, where it falls short, and who it suits best. The key finding: most successful learners combine at least two methods. Which combination works depends on your goals, schedule, and budget.
→ Read: Language learning methods compared
2. How to learn vocabulary effectively
Vocabulary is the foundation every other language skill is built on. This guide covers the seven methods with the strongest evidence base: spaced repetition, thematic grouping, active recall, the association method, mnemonics, frequency-based learning, and daily consistency. All seven are drawn from the same approach I documented in my published vocabulary books — and applied across Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, French, and Spanish.
→ Read: How to learn vocabulary effectively
3. How to stay motivated learning a language
Motivation is not a feeling you either have or do not have — it is a system you build, and rebuild when it breaks down. This guide covers seven practical strategies: setting measurable milestones, anchoring learning to a concrete personal reason, making progress visible, social accountability, reframing mistakes as data, managing daily study time deliberately, and the anticipation phase before starting. All tested across my own learning over 20 years.
→ Read: How to stay motivated learning a language
4. How to improve listening comprehension
One of the most common intermediate-level frustrations: the course material is fine, but native speakers are impossible to follow. This guide covers six practical methods for improving listening comprehension — music with lyrics, films and series with the right subtitle strategy, podcasts and radio, reading native content, and comics. All can replace activities you are already doing, at zero additional time cost.
→ Read: How to improve listening comprehension
5. Can you learn a language fast? What actually works
Yes — but “fast” needs a realistic definition. This guide covers the five factors that most determine learning speed: language distance from your native language, daily consistency, method quality, front-loading high-frequency vocabulary, and speaking early. It also includes honest timeframes for closely related, medium-distance, and distant languages — based on what I have seen work across my own five languages.
→ Read: How to learn a language fast
6. What type of language learner are you?
Auditory, visual, or communicative — most learners have a dominant tendency that influences which methods work best for them. This guide explains all three types clearly, gives practical method recommendations for each, and includes an honest assessment of what the learning styles research actually shows. The goal: start with methods suited to your tendencies, then deliberately add the types of input that do not come naturally.
→ Read: Types of language learners
Where to start
If you are new to language learning or starting a new language, I recommend beginning with the methods guide to choose your approach, then the vocabulary guide to build your system. The motivation guide is worth reading before you hit your first plateau — which will happen, and is normal.
If you are an intermediate learner who has plateaued, start with the listening comprehension guide — that is where most intermediate learners are stuck, and it is also where the fastest gains are available with the least additional time investment.
These tips and tricks in other languages:
- Deutsch – Tipps & Tricks rund um das Lernen einer neuen Sprache
- Norsk – Tips og Tricks for å lære et nytt språk
Sven is the author of four published language learning books and has been learning languages through self-study for over 20 years. He speaks Norwegian and English at business level, Danish and Swedish conversationally, and is currently learning Spanish. Since 2018 he has been reviewing language courses and methods on Learn-A-New-Language.eu.→ More about Sven and his methods