Our mission at the FluentU blog is to help you learn a language effectively by providing useful information, in a friendly and engaging way.
Purpose
Help people learn a language, understand a different culture, and expand their world.
Values
Practical information for real life communication. No fluff. Authentic reviews. Doing the work and providing readers substance.
Why the FluentU Blog?
We’ve been obsessed about this since 2011 and have a team of 10 people who speak 10+ languages. We’ve seen a lot of tools and techniques, so we can give you an informed view. We also have a strict editorial policy of fair and balanced reviews, so you will get a nuanced perspective.
About the Founder
Alan Park
Alan started blogging after creating FluentU in 2011. Alan became fluent in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, through the power of movies and TV shows. Inspired by that experience, he started FluentU. Before starting FluentU, he worked as a management consultant in the Boston Consulting Group, and graduated from Harvard Law School (JD) and Duke University (BA, summa cum laude).
About the Editing Team
Maureen Stimola
Marketing Manager (Blog Team)
Maureen has 6 years of experience managing content marketing strategy—all with FluentU and related projects—and she’s dedicated to the performance and growth of our blog team. Before FluentU, she earned a degree in biology from Columbia University and spent 2 years living in the Ecuadorian Amazon to drive the sustainable scaling of agroforestry systems in indigenous communities. She speaks fluent Spanish and not-so-fluent Japanese, Portuguese, Italian and Kichwa. Maureen lives in rural Vermont, travels often to Latin America (especially back to Ecuador) and enjoys spending time with her two babies, running, and shooting trap.
Becky Abbott
Blog Editor
Becky has a degree in linguistics from Cal-State Northridge, and her work experience is mostly in search engine evaluation and retail customer service. She’s a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, CA and she enjoys drawing, computer games, and learning new things however she can. She is currently a part-time student and taking a few music classes, with a focus on singing. Becky has long been fascinated by topics related to comparative linguistics, phonetics, and language learning. She studied Spanish in high school and college, and she continues to study the language independently when she can. Her current Spanish proficiency level hovers around intermediate. She also took some Russian in college. She enjoys using apps and websites to try out new languages, and in that way she’s learned a small bit of Japanese and Yiddish.
Yuliya Geikhman
Blog Editor/Writer
Yuliya is a freelance writer and editor based in NYC. She’s been writing professionally since 2009 and editing since 2018 and has a degree in English education that’s gathering dust in a drawer. She’s a life-long language learner and speaks English, Russian, a decent amount of Spanish, some basic Japanese and, somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, Hebrew.
Michael Cristiano
Blog Writer
Michael Cristiano is a Canadian writer, teacher and language learner. He began learning French at the age of 6, and from then, he knew he wanted to learn all the languages in the world. Seriously. When he is not studying languages or writing blog posts, he can be seen writing fiction, teaching languages or travelling the world. His work has appeared in various FluentU Language Learning Blogs where he specializes in French, Italian, and German.
Aromie Kim
Blog Writer
Aromie Kim is a freelance writer whose fascination with communications was spurred by her upbringing in a diverse multilingual environment. She has taught and tutored youths locally and abroad in English and other subjects. Her true greatest passion lies in being an eternal student, constantly learning and sharing new knowledge about all kinds of matters.
Sheena Dizon
Blog Writer
Sheena is a freelance writer based in Shanghai. Growing up as a third culture kid, Sheena had to learn Tagalog, English and Mandarin all at once. After traveling the world, she’s back in China again, rediscovering Mandarin, exploring other languages and sharing her tips with fellow learners.
Nicole Maric
Blog Writer
Nicole graduated from Clemson in 2020 with a degree in Chinese and International Business and a minor in Global Politics. While in undergrad, she studied abroad in Serbia, and China x 2. She’s currently a full-time graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis (she’s also originally from the St. Louis area) pursuing a master’s degree in East Asian Studies. She grew up with languages all around her; her family is from the Balkans so they always switched between Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and English, and she was often the translator for her family. She’s a certified TEFL teacher and has been teaching English online since 2019. She’s also a portrait photographer and has her own blogs related to photography & language learning.
Cassandra Ling
Blog Writer/Editor
Cassandra Wardinsky (Ling) has been a resident of Kyoto, Japan since 2013. She graduated from Kyoto Institute of Culture and Language in 2015 and has been working as a translator for Kyoto University ever since. The Japanese language has been her passion for over a decade and she continues to work on various freelance projects to help beginners learn the language. In her free time, she loves playing board games, reading, and hiking with her toy poodle Koichi.
Louise Maclaurin
Blog Writer
Louise Maclaurin is an avid language learner from New Zealand, who has been engrossed in ways to self-learn languages since 2013. While Spanish is her greatest love, she is also excited by good food, travel, and new books. When she’s not writing about Spanish on FluentU, she’s talking about it on @seeinginspanish.
Narine Barseghyan
Marketing Assistant
Narine lives in Yerevan, Armenia and is a long time VA and marketing assistant of FluentU. Her background is Linguistics (university diploma in TEFL and she’s also a TESOL Worldwide and British Council certified tutor to young learners). Languages are her passion – she speaks Armenian, English, Russian and understands basic French. She enjoys teaching English, reading, and traveling with her family.
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