The third Language Learning Grand Master that I bring to you here at The Language Learning Blog is my friend Steve Kaufmann. Kaufmann is another amazing language learner which isn’t a linguistic or an academic. When young, Kaufmann traveled the World, living in France, China, Japan, etc. After learning 10 (or more!) languages, he started working on a project for language learning, which resulted in his great website LingQ. LingQ is a complete system for language learning, where the ideas of Steve Kaufmann can be seen in action. At LingQ you can select texts from a vast library, listen, read and save words and phrases from the texts to further studies. You can also have you writing correct and join discussions with native speakers (although these features aren’t free). Free or not free, LingQ is great and you definitely should take a look at it.

However, if want to know more about Kaufmann and his ideas on language learning, I suggest you visiting both his blog The Linguist and his YouTube Channel. Although he sometimes seems a bit extremist, I agree with many of his ideas, like for example:

- language learning should be fun, you have to have interest on what you’re reading/listening to.
- you learn far more by reading and listening than by speaking and writing
- perfectionism isn’t good when it comes to language learning
- grammar and even pronunciation are usually overrated
Here are two video by Kaufmann: the first is a recent one where he talks about Stephen Krashen. In the second one he talks in different languages, which is very interesting.