Introduction

Learning a new language is one of life’s most misunderstood challenges. It is also one of its most rewarding. A new language is a gatekeeper to new people, places, knowledge and experiences. It is a passport to a country that we didn’t even know existed.

I’ve spent most of my life learning languages – either because I had to or because I wanted to. I was raised bi-lingual (English/French) and studied French, Latin and ancient Greek until I was 16. In the last few years, I’ve raised German to fluency and Mandarin, Russian and Spanish to somewhere between fluency and conversational.

This guide doesn’t claim to be the best or only way to learn a language. Instead, it’s a collection of my own experiences and mistakes, plus a few pointers and tools. Things, in short, that I wish I’d known about much earlier. I hope you find something in it that gives you the confidence or push to start or accelerate your own language learning journey.