How to make the most of your time at home: Learn a language from your couch

Living in the digital age has its perks – especially when it comes to language learning (and dog videos): gone are the days when you had to lug around a heavy book filled with English grammar and trudge to the library. Now you can learn a new language and prepare yourself for your global future without leaving your couch – and it doesn’t involve textbooks or exams.

We’ve put together a list of entertaining and relatively effortless ways you can sharpen your language skills from the comfort of your living room:

Listen to free podcasts to boost your language skills at home

What could be better than lying on the couch with a pair of headphones and listening to your favorite podcasts? It’s up to you to choose the topic and listen to it in the original language. Here are some fantastic free language learning podcasts to help you boost your skills – choose from our top five podcasts in German or search Spotify or iTunes for more.

Learn a language at home with Netflix

Netflix is the perfect place to work on your language skills in the most laid back way possible. Here are our top picks for Spanish, German and French Netflix shows.

Read books in the original language

Everyone may be on their smartphones all day every day nowadays, but there’s something uniquely charming about sitting down to read an actual book. There’s also something particularly effective about it for those of you keen on improving your language skills. This is the right time to dust off those literature classics. Reading a book in its original language will allow you to see it with brand new eyes – and give you a great vocabulary boost!

Learn languages through songs

People always say that singing along to songs can help you learn a new language – but what if the people who wrote the lyrics weren’t quite sure about all of the language rules and quirks themselves? Your music library can be a battlefield full of word crimes and grammar felonies, which is actually good news. Check our or international playlists on Spotify!

Learn new words each day

Along with pronunciation and grammar, one of the biggest challenges for English language learners is vocabulary. Try to enrich your vocabulary by learning new words every day – and why not get started with one of our handy lists. Discover 17 German words with no translation or take a gander at the strangest words in ten different languages.

Then why not trick your brain into learning a new language better and faster?