Recommended resources

If you’ve already got a good grounding in German and are ready for decisive focussed action to get yourself well on the way to “independent user” status, check out my flagship course “Dr P’s Weekly German Workouts: Into Intermediate German”. It’s a self-study programme that runs for ten weeks. You’re not on your own: you’ll have my one-to-one unlimited email support throughout.

Regular practice SPEAKING your new language is essential if you want to get fluent.  Almost all the live one-to-one lessons I have online (via Skype or an equivalent platform) are booked through italki.  There you can find literally thousands of teachers or informal conversation partners in tens of languages.  

You create your own profile (I’m Efrogwr) and load up some credit.  You can check out other members’ profiles and a teacher’s experience and prices.  Booking slots is made easy as the calendar shows everybody’s slots in your local timezone. 

Olly Richard’s exciting new story-based courses. Let the story carry you along, with video lessons, worksheets and more.

Will take you from complete beginner to lower intermediate.

Available for: German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese.

Grammar explained in the context of short stories. The best way to learn!

Available for French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian or Brazilian Portuguese.

You’re leaning because you want to speak. Here are courses that will get you understanding real language and using it yourself in less than 90 Days.

Available in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

100 short conversations. Hone your listening skills and learn those key phrases you need to use your language. With transcripts, short vocab and grammar notes and handy culture notes. From Kris “the Dane” Broholm from Actual Fluency. Available for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian and (soon) Danish.

“Supercharged phrasebooks” from Michele “Intrepid Guide” Frolla. All about getting you from clueless to confident in some basic travel phrases for when we can hit the road again. Video lessons, engaging explanations and quizzes, audio and dialogues with a “role play” twist.

Master French for Travel, Master Spanish for Travel, Master Italian for Travel

The most comprehensive guide to getting started (or improving) your Japanese. This isn’t a language course, it’s all about showing you how to get good at Japanese yourself. All the advice on mindset, methods, materials and insights into the language itself. From John Fotheringham at Language Mastery. Check out the deal: Language Mastery Japanese

The ninety-day Fluent in Three Months Challenge is a great way of providing a bit of a framework, accountability and community to your language learning.

You decide at the beginning what your regular study commitment will be. The goal: a 15 min conversation with a native speaker at the end of the three months. Included: extensive training vids, lively FB group, live hangouts (often with expert guests).

I’ve used the “Add1Challenge” (as it used to be called) three times for my beginner’s Basque and once each for my advanced Russian and German. Check out my posts on Howtogetfluent for my reviews and you can see my videos on the H2GF YouTube channel. My most recent direct involvement with the Challenge, though, has been to join Benny and Shannon as a judge and guest on the live Q&A as the Sept-Nov ’20 Challenge came to an end.