Learning a new language is hard, and it can be difficult to know whom to believe or which stories to trust. Many polyglots claim that certain techniques or strategies are the best for learning a language, but how can we be sure that they are telling the truth? It is challenging to differentiate between those who are lying and those who are telling the truth.

For beginners, it is even harder to decide which techniques to follow. Although numbers or calculations can be convincing, most people try only one strategy and conclude that it is the most effective without comparing it to other methods.

How can they be certain that their strategy is the best if they haven’t tried other strategies or tools? They don’t have other things to compare it to.

This is why we created the Language Experiment, inviting anyone who likes to learn languages or wants to prove the effectiveness of their strategies or techniques to participate. However, there are rules that need to be followed to ensure fairness. For example, if one person is a polyglot and the other is a total beginner learning the same language, the polyglot will likely learn faster due to their prior experience.

Similarly, if two people are beginners, but one person’s native language is part of the language family they’re learning, they may learn faster due to similarities between the languages.

In the Language Experiment, we compare experiments with the same starting point, background about languages, and level, evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies or tools used.

You can watch their videos to see their progress, and every day, they record how their experiment is going. To participate in the experiment, please visit https://langexp.com/start to learn how to get started.