NOTE: The original list here has been updated, revised and expanded (again) for 2020.

If you’re after a high quality resource for the language you’re learning then have a listen to this. It’s one of the most comprehensive and detailed natural dialogue courses I’ve used (see my review here).

Also be sure to visit my Essential Language Learning Tools page for the best of the best resources to help you with your language learning.

I thought I’d put together a short list of who I consider to be some of the most prolific and authoritative bloggers on language learning at present.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list of every language blogger out there (there are loads of others I deliberately didn’t include for one reason or another and probably a lot that I don’t know about as well). I haven’t included popular websites (e.g. HTLAL forum) that aren’t blogs either.

When I started scouring the net for the best language learning blogs 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 them have languages of specialization or expertise to some extent. Many of them may blog about language learning in general but each of them have specialist knowledge of certain languages.

If you know of a blogger (either language-specific or general language learning) that should be mentioned here, add your input in the comments section below and I’ll update this list! 🙂

UPDATE: Interested in starting a language blog of your own? Click here for my detailed post on how to do it.

Olly Richards

Blog: I Will Teach You A Language

Languages: English (native), Japanese, Cantonese, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian.

Products: Spanish Uncovered, Italian Uncovered, German Uncovered, French Uncovered

His site in his own words:

“I’ll show you the techniques I’ve used to learn seven languages and how you can do it too.”

Olly’s a friend of mine who works as a language educator and is currently in Egypt learning Arabic. He offers loads of sound advice for language learners based on his own many years of experience as both a learner and teacher.

Check out his post: 7 year old speaks 5 languages

Mondly

Blog: Mondly Blog

Languages: All.

Product: Mondly

Mondly is an outstanding language platform and gamified mobile learning app that covers dozens of different languages. It has a great blog with multiple contributors on various languages updated frequently.

Check out this post: Why Better, Faster Learners Are Often Better, Deeper Sleepers

Benny Lewis

Blog: Fluent in 3 Months

Languages: English (native), Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Dutch, American Sign Language

Products: Fluent in 3 Months Premium, Fluent In 3 Months Challenge

UPDATE: Benny has teamed up the Teach Yourself series and produced this outstanding ‘Language Hacking’ series.

His site in his own words:

“Over the past 10 years, I’ve developed a simple system for learning languages. Using this system, I can be confident at speaking any language in as little as three months.”

Benny has a popular blog that follows his travels and short-term language learning missions where he documents his progress speaking from day one.

Check out his YouTube channel: Irishpolyglot

TalkInArabic.com Blog

Blog name: TIA Blog

Languages: Arabic.

Product: TalkInArabic.com

Our website which is focused solely on spoken Arabic dialects that features a blog on Arabic language topics, recipes and music lyrics.

Check out the post: Why Learning Arabic Is Easy

Eoin Ó Conchúir

Blog: Bitesize Irish Gaelic blog

Languages: English (native), Irish.

Product: Bitesize Irish Gaelic (which I reviewed here) and Learn Irish With Eoin

I’ve always recommended Bitesize Irish Gaelic to new learners of Irish but I’d also like to mention here that Eoin runs a blog where you’ll find some excellent posts about Ireland and the Irish language. The posts by Audrey Nickel in particular are very good.

Check out this post: Irish Gaelic: The Problem of Phonetics

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 a while back. 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

Angel Huang

Blog: MandarinHQ

Languages: Mandarin (native), English

Product: Spoken Chinese Vault

Her site in her own words:

“We’re here to help you bridge the gap between textbook Chinese and real spoken Chinese.”

I’ve included Angel’s site here because I think her videos are amazing and I love her approach. If you’re learning Mandarin you should definitely subscribe to this.

Check out her post: “Become” a Native Chinese Speaker with the Character Shadowing Technique

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 a co-founder of the Polyglot Conference and is a prolific YouTuber. He’s very clear about the fact that language learning takes a lot of time and that there are no shortcuts.

Check him out on Twitter.

Shannon Kennedy

Blog: Eurolinguiste

Languages: English (native), French, Mandarin Chinese, Croatian, Russian, Korean, Italian and German.

Product: Say Goodbye To Shy

Shannon’s one of my favorite language learning bloggers and her site has loads of useful content for different languages (she’s also a great musician :)).

Check out her post: How I Memorized 600 Chinese Words In 2 Weeks

italki

Blog: italki Articles

Languages: All.

Product: Language Teachers, Tutors and Partners

italki is by far the best site for finding language teachers, tutors and conversation partners at very affordable prices (some are less than $8 an hour depending on the language!). The article section they have is huge and full of outstanding blog posts on all languages.

Check out his post: 7 Great Resources To Improve Your Russian

Lindsay Dow Williams

Blog: Lindsay Does Languages

Languages: English (native), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Mandarin.

Product: None.

Her site in her own words:

“For me, a big part of my job is inspiring others to teach themselves languages. Whether that be in a lesson with me when I’m in your home, a class on Skype when I’m in my home, or a blog or video you enjoy when I’m doing absolutely anything miles from you, I want you to know that it’s possible for you to learn a language.”

Lindsay’s one of the most energetic and infectiously positive language bloggers I know. She guest posted here a while back and I guest posted on her blog here about Arabic.

Check out her post: 8 Free Japanese Learning Resources

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 the European Ambassador for Multilingualism and founder of the Polyglot Conference. He offers some very solid and useful language learning advice through his YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Check out his post: The Language Monkey

Harilyn Tahir

Blog: theLevanTongue

Languages: English and Arabic (MSA and Levantine)

Product: None.

Her site in her own words:

“The reason why I started theLevanTongue is to help fellow learners of Levantine Arabic to ultimately experience the joys of connecting with native speakers through conversations in a language that goes straight to the heart.”

Lyn’s blog is an excellent resource for Levantine Arabic learners (particularly Jordanian).

Check out her post: An Honest And In-Depth Review Of Talk In Arabic (Levantine)

Maha Yakoub

YouTube Channel: Learn Arabic With Maha

Languages: Arabic (native), Italian, Hebrew, German, English.

Product: None.

Maha’s a Palestinian living in Italy who runs a massively popular YouTube channel where she teaches Arabic (Levantine), Hebrew and Italian. Definitely aimed at low-level learners but I really enjoy her videos.

Check this video out: 5 Reasons That’ll Make You Fall In Love With Arabic

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

Andrew Dempsey

Blog: The Arabic Learner

Languages: English and Arabic (Egyptian).

Product: The Egyptian Arabic Absolute Beginner’s Course

His site in his own words:

“I help Arabic learners take steps toward fluency by drawing on lessons learned in my own journey of interacting in Arabic. This journey has been ongoing over the past 25 years of living in the Arab world.”

I met Andrew a while back in Egypt and we’ve had mutual friends for over a decade who have often talked highly of Andrew’s strong grasp of Egyptian Arabic. He posts some very insightful content on all things related to Arabic.

Follow his active Twitter account: @andrewdempsey

Catherine Wentworth

Blog: A Woman Learning Thai… and some men too.

Languages: English (native), Thai.

Product: None.

Her site in her own words:

“WLT aims to post Thai language learning tips and techniques, local quirks and insights of Thailand. Anything Thai language, culture, or travel related.”

Catherine’s blog should be your first stop if you’re interested in learning to speak Thai or about life in Thailand.

Check out her post: Onomatopoeic Words In The Thai Language

Corey Heller

Blog: Multilingual Living

Languages: English, German, Spanish and French.

Product: Multilingual Living Magazine

Her site in her own words:

“Multilingual Living is a place where parents raising children in more than one language and culture can find inspiration, tools, advice, wisdom and support! It is about *living multilingually*, in each and every way possible.”

Corey’s blog differs greatly from the others listed here in that it’s focused on families and raising kids who are multilingual. I consider her an expert on bilingualism and a wonderful person who is full of encouragement. I also guest posted on her blog here.

Check out her post: What Bilingualism is NOT

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

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: Why You Should Care About Endangered Languages

John Fotheringham

Blog: Language Mastery

Languages: English (native), Japanese and Mandarin.

Product: Master Japanese and Master Mandarin

His site in his own words:

“I created this site, The Language Mastery Show, The Language Mastery Insider, and my series of language guides to help adult learners reach their foreign language acquisition goals as quickly, cheaply, and enjoyably as possible”

John shares lots of insightful language learning content on his blog and runs his own podcast series where he interviews prominent language bloggers (listen to our interview here).

Check out his Language Mastery show podcast here.

Mike Campbell

Website: Glossika

Languages: English (native), Mandarin

Product: Glossika (available in lots of languages – see my review here)

His site in his own words:

“Glossika delivers an efficient foreign language learning method to people who want to acquire a new language.”

I have a lot of respect for Mike and he’s probably the most interesting language/linguistics blogger that I’ve come across. In particular, I’m very impressed by the work he’s done with the aboriginal languages of Taiwan and his Mass Sentence Method is based on solid research (it’s very similar to the Lexical ‘chunking’ method that I adhere to).

Mike had a fantastic YouTube channel that unfortunately was shut down recently but you can subscribe to his new channel here.

Randy Hunt

Website: Yearlyglot

Languages: English (native), Italian

Product: None.

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 was one of the first prominent language bloggers back when I started many years ago. He’s always been (in my opinion) one of the most insightful and intelligent bloggers in the language niche.

Check out this post: 5 Things To Know Before Buying Lingualift (Review)

Steve Kaufmann

Blog: The Linguist

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 a prolific YouTuber. Steve’s language repertoire impresses me along with the frequent YouTube videos he puts out on many important language learning issues.

Check out his post: A Discussion With Stephen Krashen

Conor Clyne

Blog: Language Tsar

Languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Catalan, German & Dutch

Product: None.

His site in his own words:

“The Language Tsar website and YouTube channel are dedicated to teaching you how to learn languages, travel more effectively and become a ‘digital nomad’.”

Check out his YouTube channel here.

…and of course:

Donovan Nagel

Blog: The Mezzofanti Guild

Podcast (iTunes): Language Learning Made Simple

Languages: English (native), Egyptian Arabic, MSA, Korean, Russian, Irish, Ancient Hebrew and Greek.

Product: TalkInArabic.com

I know it’s cheating but I had to include myself in this list! 🙂 In case you’ve just landed on this blog for the first time, I’m a linguist, translator and language instructor with a huge heart for minority languages, cultural immersion and Arabic. I have a bit of a preference for languages of the East (both Near and Far Eastern) and I use my own proven method that I’ve developed based on the Lexical Approach to language learning.

Check out this post: The Uncomfortable Truth: Social Risk-Takers Are Better Language Learners

Who would you add to this list? 🙂

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