About Us – The FluentU Blog 
Our Mission
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 10 years of experience managing content marketing strategy 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 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.
Sheena Dizon
Senior Blog Editor
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.
Louise Maclaurin
Senior Blog Editor
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.
Laura White
Senior Blog Editor
Laura has over 25 years of experience editing everything from biographies of very interesting Canadians to publications for a nonprofit educational organization devoted to experimental archeology. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of New Mexico, and a Graduate Diploma in Music from the Longy School of Music. Four years of Latin in high school, 3 years of French in college, some Italian phrases from a book, plus the random Italian she’d picked up as a musician and opera singer enabled her to help some Italians in Sicily who asked her for directions (yeah, she has one of those faces). She lives in a rural area across Puget Sound from Seattle, WA, and enjoys gardening, reading mysteries, plotting her own mystery novel, and studying metaphysical subjects.
Hanna Woloszyn
Senior Blog Editor
Hanna is a writer and editor focused on creating digestible content that’s concise and genuinely useful. When she’s not working or traveling, she spends most of her free time reading and gaming. She holds a degree in Film Studies and an ESL (TEFL) certification, speaks two languages fluently and one terribly, and has a background in marketing and career development.
Emily Bozigar
Blog Editor
Emily is a Florida native now living in Taiwan. After taking Spanish in middle school and Latin in university, she dabbled in Greek, Italian, Swedish and Esperanto, and currently studies Taiwanese Mandarin quite seriously. She has worked in the education field in numerous roles since 2014. In her free time, she enjoys books, dance, board games and traveling.
Renee Meijer
Blog Editor
Renée is a blog editor and English teacher. As a third culture kid with a Dutch father and Puerto Rican mother, language and communication have always been a huge part of her life. She grew up in Russia and South Korea and attended university in the Netherlands and UK. After freelance writing, editing and teaching in Germany the last few years, she recently left to travel the world for a while and search for a new home base. She knows Korean and Russian well, German at an intermediate level, basic Dutch and Japanese, and is currently learning Spanish.
Ima Ocon
Blog Editor
Ima Ocon is an editor and writer who’s based in Taiwan. She has been taking Mandarin language classes in Taipei since 2022 and was a recipient of the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship. She hopes to be able to read Classical Chinese (文言文) eventually, and she’s an avid fan of wuxia dramas. Since she came from a tech background, she’s also fascinated with language technology, especially with how AI can help people learn languages.
Brooke Bagley
Blog Editor
Brooke is a travel-loving, multilingual, Texas-based writer, editor and language enthusiast with Venezuelan roots. She speaks fluent Spanish, advanced Mandarin Chinese, decent Indonesian and is currently learning Japanese and Levantine Arabic. While in college, she double-majored in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish while minoring in Teaching English as a Second Language, which she later used to teach English online in 2021. In her spare time, you can find her in the gym, reading, taking long walks, planning her next travels and playing with her cat Yuki.
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.
Ana Mosciuk
Blog Editor
I’m Ana and I’m originally from Lithuania but have been living in London, UK for the past 10 years. I’ve been writing and editing digital content since 2017 and joined the FluentU team in January. I’m on my way to completing a master’s degree in Neuroscience and when I’m not working in the lab, I enjoy writing and editing blog posts. I speak English, Russian and Lithuanian and want to learn Spanish!
Emily Montoya
Blog Editor
Emily is a writer and editor from the UK. She speaks fluent Spanish, intermediate Italian and is currently learning French. Having spent a lot of her childhood traveling and building a love for learning languages, she decided to study Spanish at university and her love for Spanish led to her spending three years living in Madrid. While at university, she also worked at an international school teaching English and Spanish. Since graduating in 2022, she has spent time living in and traveling across Mexico and hopes to travel more in the future!
Blair Mastbaum
Blog Editor
Blair Mastbaum is a freelance writer and editor, and the author of the novels “Clay’s Way” (Alyson Books) and “Us Ones in Between” (Running Press) and the editor of Cool Thing: Best New American Fiction (Running Press). He’s also the co-writer of the film “It Takes Three,” which was released by Gunpowder & Sky in 2023. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
Katrina Phillips
Blog Editor
Katrina has a background in environmental advocacy and education with a lifelong passion for writing. After graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill, she spent over 5 years working on policy for clean water at a non-profit in Chicago. In 2019, she left her life in the U.S. to move to the Galapagos Islands. There, she taught ESL for 3 years and has greatly improved her Spanish fluency with daily practice and persistence. She spends most of her free time at the beach or exploring the highlands.
Issa Mirandilla
Blog Editor
Issa Mirandilla is a Philippine-based writer and editor. She can read, write and speak in English, Tagalog and Bicolano (Tabaqueño dialect). When not doing the job she loves, she makes room (or tries to make room) for studying Japanese, listening to podcasts and figuring out how she can make a difference in the world.
Georgina Smith
Blog Editor
Georgina Smith is a Blog Editor for FluentU from the UK. While at university studying for her English Literature degree, she decided to start learning Korean, and since then has been obsessed with the world of language learning. More recently she has also started studying Spanish, and is loving it so far.
Cristina Coronado
Blog Editor
Cristina is an experienced translator based in Madrid, Spain. With a Bachelor’s Degree in English Philology, she has a deep understanding of the language, literature, and culture. Her passion for languages has led her to pursue further training in teaching Spanish as a foreign language, where she hopes to share her knowledge and passion.
When she is not working, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, and learning about astronomy.
Usama Hassan
Virtual Assistant
Meet Usama Hassan, a talented freelance Virtual Assistant with 4 years of experience and a diverse set of skills. He is passionate about delivering top-notch assistance to clients and takes pride in providing exceptional services. In particular, he thoroughly enjoys working with FluentU and is impressed with our fantastic working environment. Outside of work, Usama loves to explore new destinations and cultures through traveling. When not on the road, he can be found curled up with a good book or swimming laps at the local pool. With a positive attitude and a dedication to excellence, he is a valuable asset to any team.
Md Jahidul Islam
Virtual Assistant
Meet Jahid, a highly skilled Virtual Assistant who is fluent in both English and Bengali. Originally from India, he holds a Master’s in Technology and has been successfully freelancing since 2015. With a love for internet browsing and keeping up with the latest tech trends, Jahid is always ready to take on new challenges and provide innovative solutions for his clients. When he’s not hard at work, you can find Jahid exploring the beautiful hill stations of the world, indulging his love for travel and exploration. With his technical expertise and thirst for adventure, Jahid is a valuable asset to any team.
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I am enjoying FluentU. I have been using this site for a couple weeks and I have definitely noticed a huge improvement in my vocabulary. I love that it uses a lot of relevant clips like Norman fait des videos to practice REAL French, and it is presented in such a fun way that it makes it easy to practice. Using this site has become part of my daily routine.
- Rachel Hollars
I really like learning with the videos. I have studied using other methods and it was very hard to put what you were learning into context. With the videos, not only are you learning new vocabulary, you are seeing how it is used. For example the tone which is used, the body language of the person using the phrase and the reaction to the phrase being said.
- Frederick Calestini
I love how I get to see videos, listen to music and learn about real and relevant aspects of the Chinese culture. I enjoy seeing faces in those videos of actors and people that I can recognize from other programs outside of Fluent U - which again tells me that the materials I get are relevant in the real Chinese/Taiwanese culture!
- Aileen Raquel Araúz