Fluent for Now

Creed

«La grammaire est l'art de lever les difficultés d'une langue ; mais il ne faut pas que le levier soit plus lourd que le fardeau.» Antoine de Rivarol

"Grammar is the art of lifting the difficulties out of a language; the lever must not be heavier than the burden."

Beginners start here ⭐️

Wanting to learn a language or develop a language learning habit, trying to work out the most efficient way to go about it, but kind of baffled/frustrated/confused by all the noise, all the resources, and all the gurus?

Or already had a few tutor sessions but aren’t sure how this is all gonna work moving forward? Or some college experience but don’t know what to do next?

Already come across Anki or heard people talk about how great flashcard are but don’t know how to get going?

You’ve found your way to the right place. 🥳

new email who dis? 🤷🏼

Fluent for Now is a simple, efficient, effective method using the most cutting-edge language learning tools. And this newsletter is somewhere to train and explore that method.

The power of the digital tools now available to language learners (you!) is crazy, and most people are sleeping on them. We hope to share them with as many learners as possible.

If you’re a newbie you should find pretty much everything you need to go from A1 to C1. If you’re a seasoned vet, there should still be tonnes here to make your life easier or improve your own workflow.

Bring us along for the ride, share your experience, and really actually learn a language.

what do?

Veterans 👵🏻

If you’re a seasoned language learner with a solid practice and a honed workflow, you can probably just skip to the Archive and see if there’s enough new insights and tools here to make it worth your while subscribing.

It is? Subscribe here 🥳

Newbies 👶🏽

Keep reading! If you’re in a rush (we all have our reasons) the best place to start will be the method page and iTalki upgrade post. You can also just skim a bit, browse a bit, see if any of the questions below tickle your fancy.

what’s Fluent Forever? 💬

Fluent Forever is/was the language learning method advocated by Gabriel Wyner in what became a bestselling book. But what used to be a book/method/community has since mostly turned into an app and its marketing, or “a fast-growing language-learning software company” if you want the official description. 🥴

But, over the years Gab has shared sporadic updates to the original method. With the latest version and its associated flashcard types being the best so far. Those two links are the place to start if you're serious about learning a language.

This site is a kind of a fork of that original method. For those who have been using its best elements in their own study but also for those new to language learning who want a solid, actionable method which cuts through the social media noise and the personal branding. Oh so much personal branding.

how to learn a language™

There alenty of guides and how-tos and ebooks and youtube videos and personal vlogs and apps and websites and web apps and subreddit sidebars and random pdfs out there to help you learn a language.

You could go ahead and use the Fluent Forever app, or Rosetta Stone, or sell your soul to The Owl1, or Babbel, or Busuu, or Falou, or Lingq, or Memrise, or Hellotalk… or the list could go on and on and on2.

There’s the og Benny Lewis, Tim Ferriss of course, Katie Harriss (she gets it btw), there’s even a Dan Blizerian wannabe. And the whole polyglot side of things with cool people like Luca Lampariello, Olly Richards, Steve Kaufmann etc.

There’s the r/languagelearning subreddit, the (dead) r/AnkiLanguageLearning subreddit, there’s a million and one Fluent-Forever-Method reviews.

And then there’s kind-of-actually-helpful-and-encouraging-but-also-totally-overwhelming success story write ups for specific languages like French or German.

And that’s setting aside Youtube (shocked-emoji thumbnails anyone?) and any/all language-specific tools and/or gurus.

It’s ALOT of noise. 📣

going solo 🚀

It should be clear from that that the resources to learn a language and to learn it with Fluent for Now’s principles are already available out there3.

*Fluent for Now and its associates does not deny this fact, and will make no secret of it.

**Neither does Fluent for Now and its associates deny that by its very existence Fluent for Now kinda lays claim to a piece of the pie, to your eyeballs and your overly-demanded attention, to having the best method, to being some kind of language-learning messiah. Although it’s aware of it, compensates for it, and is a fair bit off trying to sell anyone an ebook just yet.

You can go it alone! Strike out brave learner! You can use the tools listed and make a go of it. It’s totally possible, and this site is more than happy to be the one to furnish you with some of the tools to help you on your way.

bring a friend for the ride 🚗

What we think Fluent for Now does offer, however, is a solid, clear, and actionable method which the author has used and continues to use everyday. That’s constantly being iterated and refined, that will have an organic and active community grow around it, and that’s all in one place, no bs.

We’re also not trying to sell you a revolutionary new product or service (most of the 3rd party tools we recommend are free and publicly available), just our knowledge and experience in a digestible form.

The posts here over the coming months will include and explore all the practical tools, insights, and encouragement anyone could need to get you where you want to be in your language practice. 👍🏻

what do i get? ✉️

Subscribe to get full access to fortnightly posts, the post archive, the website, and the dope community.

Hacks, tips, tricks, workarounds, detailed how-tos, shortcuts, best practices, extensions, add-ons, theory, method iteration, encouragement, all coming from real world experience and use. And that doesn’t mention the feedback features and the community value.

Fluent for Now posts are for paying subscribers, however, some early posts are public to show potential subscribers the goods.

why do i got to pay though? 💵

The time this newsletter should save you in your language learning journey should be invaluable.

The content 👏🏻 should👏🏻 be👏🏻 quality👏🏻 . It should be a pleasure to read and learn from. If it doesn’t reach these standard, that’s an easy choice. Unsubscribe.

join the crew

Be part of a community of people serious about language learning. One of my hopes with this site is to bring together the community of people out there already using these tools (Anki, iTalki etc.). If that’s you please stick around and teach us your wisdom.

Light up those comments baby! ⚡️

Community-sourced hacks and tools and workarounds are one of the things I’m most excited for.

I don’t do social media (other than some reddit to launch the project) so Fluent for Now grows organically 🌱.

Please consider sharing it with other language groupies or group chats or wherever the people you know are who might get excited about spaced repetition software and language acquisition. 🙌🏻

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To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.