How to Find the Best English Forum for Your Learning Goals
No one likes waiting for anything, not for fast food or amusement park lines and especially not to have your English learning questions answered.
So why would you waste time on an English language forum that’s as quiet as a graveyard?
Instead, check out these seven English forums for learners that are popular and active.
You’ll get quick answers to your questions plus lots of interesting conversations about many different topics.
Contents
- Dave’s ESL Cafe Student Discussion Forums
- Linguaholic Language Forums
- WordReference Forums
- English Forward Forums
- English Baby Forums
- The Free Dictionary Language Forums
- English Language and Usage on Stack Exchange
- Why Are English Forums Helpful for Language Learners?
- How to Find the Best English Language Forums Online
- And One More Thing...
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Dave’s ESL Cafe Student Discussion Forums
Why this forum? It’s a trusted, well-established forum that comes with extra lessons and resources.
Dave’s ESL Cafe is known worldwide for being one of the best websites for ESL learning. It’s the perfect online meeting place for teachers and students from around the world.
On these forums, you’ll meet a variety of people who are willing to chat in English or answer your language questions. There isn’t any sugar coating (making something seem better/easier than it is) here, and you can generally count on a response to your posts. Discussion topics include computers, hobbies and English exam preparation.
Dave’s ESL Cafe also has a ton of resources to supplement instruction for language learners. Just go to the Stuff for Students page.
You’ll find grammar lessons, helpful quizzes and key phrases that you can learn.
Linguaholic Language Forums
Why this forum? There are lots of unique and varied discussion options.
Linguaholic is a super site that offers over 15 diverse forums for people interested in practicing foreign languages.
One forum is dedicated to apps that are best for language learning. You can join this forum and ask about apps that’ll help you with your language goals and find what works best for you.
In the translation forum, you can enter an English text that you don’t understand and others will help you with it.
Finally, there are tons of options just for English language learners. You can discuss everything from idioms to grammar to English literature.
WordReference Forums
Why this forum? This is a popular forum and learning resource with a built-in translation dictionary.
The WordReference forums support almost every language you could think of! You might want to get started with the English-only forum, where people can practice writing in English.
If you speak Spanish, French or Italian, you can also find forums specifically created for learners/speakers of those languages plus English (for example the Spanish-English vocab forum).
To make things even easier, you can use WordReference’s built-in translation dictionary if you ever get stuck.
English Forward Forums
Why this forum? You won’t be waiting around for a response.
This forum has a great feature that lets you know how long you can expect to wait for an answer to your questions. For example, when I was browsing on a weekday afternoon, the site told me that questions were currently being answered in under 20 minutes!
Want even faster online English discussion? Check out the live chat feature.
The guidelines to this forum are strictly enforced. If your post doesn’t follow them, it’ll be removed. If you want to anonymously post a question your identity will be protected. They cut spam and prevent duplicate posts to make your experience the best that it can be.
There’s an archive of the most commonly asked questions that you might want to know about.
The site also has a great free tests section with online lessons made by professionals, plus many other exercises and lessons. So no matter what you need, you’ll get the help that you want.
English Baby Forums
Why this forum? It’s a fun site with bonus celebrity videos for learners.
English Baby makes language learning even more fun than it already is! The forum is very helpful—sometimes the users even test your English sentence knowledge. It’s a very welcoming environment if you’re new to English forums.
It’s also a great place to pick up idioms and slang.
A fun bonus features on this site is the celebrity section, where you can learn English from your favorite stars! Yes, you heard right. The celebrity has a short video of them speaking English. The first step is watching the video and trying to understand what they’re saying. You can even study the transcript to practice. Then you can put your new knowledge to use in the forum.
There’s also a chat option available along with interesting English blogs to practice reading.
The Free Dictionary Language Forums
Why this forum? There are lots of discussion options for English learning professionals.
Need to learn English for medicine, business, technology or another work-related topic? These forums have you covered! There are lots of individual forums for many professional fields.
Better yet, there’s a built-in dictionary to help you with any words that you may not understand. The site also comes with a thesaurus that’ll help you spice up your language.
English Language and Usage on Stack Exchange
Why this forum? If you need quick help with your homework, you’ll find a fast answer.
If you’re serious about your learning, this site is for you! English enthusiasts uses this forum to ask and answer questions within minutes.
Once the community votes on the answer they like the most, it rises to the top of the answers list. You get the most out of your time without scrolling through all those replies.
Why Are English Forums Helpful for Language Learners?
Online language forums are super convenient for learning! They give you the flexibility to practice whenever you want.
In the comfort of your home, you can practice your writing skills and sharing your ideas and opinions in English. You can take your time writing and replying to others’ messages. There’s no rush.
Plus, when you join, you’ll be a part of a community! Members of language communities love to share their knowledge and experience with other users.
You’ll be able to keep up with current events and talk about your favorite hobbies in English. You’ll make new language buddies and be able to learn new vocabulary and grammar. Your communication skills will develop and you can see your writing improve over time with every forum message your write.
And you get all this for free!
How to Find the Best English Language Forums Online
It can be hard to tell the difference between a good forum and a terrible one. But we’re here to help you pick the best one!
A great forum has a friendly environment where all levels are welcomed. It has rules in place that you must follow to keep it safe and fun for everyone. The discussion topics are interesting to you, while also encouraging everyone to give useful feedback.
It’s a place where you can relax, be yourself and improve your English.
Even if it’s your first time joining an English forum for learners, it’ll be fun! You’ll meet people and learn while having a blast.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing...
If you like learning English through movies and online media, you should also check out FluentU. FluentU lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials, as you can see here:
If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.
The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.
FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.
For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you see this:
FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.
FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.
The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a truly personalized experience.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)
