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Foreign Language dictionaries and books on display Oli Lynch/ Pixabay

Alas, non-essential travel to other countries has been limited or discouraged for months because of the pandemic. This is such a huge bummer since it limits your opportunities to practice and improve conversation skills with native speakers of the countries you desire to go to in the future.

Fortunately, online learning platforms like Fluent City will help you get past that hurdle. This platform combines real-time conversations with AI-aided vocabulary and grammar lessons to help teach aspiring multilinguists around the world. They offer flexible courses in 11 languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese and Japanese, among others. It ensures that you will learn how to speak with any native speaker online with little effort and without the need to be physically present.

Interested in learning foreign languages with native speakers around the world online? Read on.

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Converse with other eager language learners with Fluent City Julia M Cameron / Pexels

Language learning tips and tricks

Before finding out how Fluent City works in helping you learn your language of choice, here are tips and tricks straight from the learning platform's blog that can guide you in learning and becoming fluent in one in the future:

  1. Immersion - Because travel can be difficult at the moment, you can learn the language through more creative means at home. Some ways to learn include watching non-English shows on Netflix or other streaming services and reading media (news, newspapers) from other countries, with the latter helping you understand multiple perspectives greatly. What is important is by immersing yourself in various non-English media, you can see the language as it is spoken by natives, allowing you to learn new grammatical structures as well as learn slang words or phrases.
  2. Make friends - Making friends help when studying another tongue. These friends can either learn with you and keep you motivated or be already fluent (or both). You can speak with and message them in your chosen language, and the more you practice, the better. Alternatively, if your friends are already fluent, they can speak with you in their mother tongue, ensuring you learn its definition as well as its proper pronunciation.
  3. Learn little by little - When practicing your speaking skills at home by yourself, use the words that you know and replace the ones that you don't with English. As you keep learning, you can fill each sentence with more words from the language you are learning and less of your own.
  4. Set realistic goals - Avoid pushing yourself too much with impossible goals such as learning within 10 days. Instead, you can set small, easily achievable and more realistic goals weekly, like a short conversation with a friend, learning 40 or more words and listening to a podcast daily.
  5. Make mistakes - Making mistakes is a normal part of the learning curve. So if you do not get a lesson right, learn from your mistake/s and move on. What matters is that if you are practicing with native speakers, they'll appreciate your effort of speaking their language/s as opposed to not trying at all.
  6. Focus on your triumphs - Rather than getting overwhelmed by what you don't know, focus on what you do know. Take some time each week to ask yourself what you can do now that you haven't done before. It won't be long before you realize that you are progressing faster than you thought. You can start by tracking how much of your time is spent with the language.

How it works

The lessons in Fluent City are taught either individually or in groups -- both via Zoom. The option of learning online private lessons lets you learn one-on-one with a language tutor on a monthly basis, allowing you to schedule your classes whenever you are available and even customize your lessons according to your goals and interests. Online group classes, on the other hand, lets you do Zoom meetings with a small group once or twice a week. Focusing on conversation skills, this beginner-friendly approach helps you build confidence in speaking with fellow students online while you get feedback from your instructor.

If you are wondering what learning level are you in, the website also comes with a free assessment tool so that you may not have to start all over again in learning the languages you are planning to take.

Fluent City's foreign language lessons start at $49, but the price varies according to how many lessons you want to take monthly:

  • Starter - 1 lesson for $49 per month
  • Basic - 4 lessons for $199 per month
  • Plus - 8 lessons for $299 per month
  • Premium - 12 lessons for $399 per month

Alternatively, if you choose the prepaid plan for either of the listed subscription plans above, you get to pay for the hours you must use to learn within a year starting from the purchase date.

With Fluent City, you can be well-equipped with the languages you want (or need) to learn for your future trips abroad.

foreign language learning
Hello in various languages Gerd Altmann/ Pixabay