About Language Learning Advisor

Who Am I?

Hi. My name is Ron and like you, I have an interest in learning languages. Before I get into why I built the Language Learning Advisor website, I'd like to tell you a little about myself.

I am not a professional linguist, language teacher, philologist or translator. I am just a hobbyist. I am thinking seriously about going back to school to begin a new career path in languages, but up until now it has been a hobby and a passion to study languages on my own.

So, why should you listen to me? You shouldn't. But then again, you don't really have to. All of the information I have gathered on this site has been tried and tested by thousands of language learners before you and me. World famous polyglots like Barry Farber, authors like Graham Fuller or Frederick Bodmer, and many many successful self-taught language lovers. I have done the work to gather up the information and present it here so that you don't have to work as hard.

How This Site Works

All of the information on this site is free, it doesn't cost you anything to access any part of this site.

There is advertising on this site (you may have noticed), but I hope it is not obtrusive and in fact, I have limited its scope so that it may actually help you in your search for better information on learning languages.

Some of the links to products or other websites are affiliate links, that is, I earn a commission if you buy something from them. I try to link to merchants with the best possible combination of reasonable price, customer service and reliablility. When I can't link to a merchant meeting that standard, I still recommend the product but I don't link to a merchant selling it. You don't have to use the merchants that I link to from this site. You are free to shop around for another merchant if you'd like.

As a rule of thumb, I don't recommend anything I haven't used (and paid for) myself. I may also recommend or at least review products that I have borrowed or made a copy of. I don't recommend or link to products just for the sake of earning a commission.

Just remember that all of the content on this site is written by me and is just my opinion. You are free to disagree and I just hope that this site is able to help you in some small way on your quest to learn a language.

That is the main reason why I built this site - to help more people learn a foreign language and to make their language learning experience as effective and fun as possible. I have a lot in store for the site in the future, but it's still hard to believe it has come so far.

Why I Built Language Learning Advisor.com

You see, about the late 1990's, in the early days of the internet, I got the idea in my head to (finally) begin studying languages on my own. I was excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver free information from around the world to me at home. But the reality was a bit of a letdown.

Web Directories were incomplete and Google, Yahoo and other search engines delivered poor results. Lots of businesses were trying to sell something that they claimed was fantastic, but no one was offering anything for free. I was looking for information. I was looking for reviews of language learning products, free tutorials, ebooks with language learning tips, penpal sites etc.

It was difficult to find what I was looking for (and in many cases it just didn't exist) but I persevered, and in time I weeded out many sites and kept extensive bookmarks of sites that were useful or helpful in some way.

But still, there was something missing. I felt that there should be a site where all this information could be found, for free, without having to do all the work I did. It would have helped me a lot, but I couldn't find it and I'm fairly internet savvy.

I thought about the average person who may want to learn a language but didn't know how to go about doing it on their own, where to look for information or how to find what they needed on the internet. I realized many people want to do this, but may not know how to get started.

I thought about building a website about learning languages. I did some research into it and began to plan it out a little. But the actual impetus to build the site did not begin until I discovered Solo Build It! by SiteSell.

How I Built Language Learning Advisor.com

More than just a website host, SBI (Solo Build It!) solved all of my problems and answered all of my questions when it came to actually building a successful website. I wanted to focus on content and not on daily website management, hosting issues, learning html and javascript, etc. I just wanted to provide useable information and get it out to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. SBI helped me do that. Click here for a video introduction to SiteSell.

If that sounds like shameless promotion, well, it is. To put it very simply - if I hadn't discovered SBI, I never would have built this site. And if I had built it some other way, it would not have been successful or even lasted very long.

If you are interested in creating a website on a topic that you are passionate about, then I wholeheartedly recommend that you investigate SBI very seriously before you purchase with any other company. Don't just take my word for it. Do lots of research (your due diligence, as they say).

The Language Learning Advisor website pays for itself, and even supplies me with an extra source of income to pay a few bills or buy some more language learning materials. Just for doing something I enjoy and giving away that information for free to anyone who wants it. SBI made that possible for me, and the possibilities for the future are even more exciting.

I will continue adding to the Language Learning Advisor website for a long time to come. I have work and other hobbies, but thanks to SBI, I fully expect that this site will grow and change and I will never charge visitors for using the site. In fact, as the site grows every day, more and more people are getting involved with it and helping other language learners to achieve and surpass their goals. That is all I ever wanted from the site and I am overjoyed that I am able to help people, even just a little bit. Thanks to everyone who has ever visited or contributed, and all the people who will do so in the future!

Thanks!

Ron Tichenor, CPhT

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'Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.'

- George Orwell