Owen McNally
fluent in four languages because I flamed out on three others first
$20/hour , set by Owen McNally. Your first session with them is free.
I failed Russian in college, failed Mandarin with an app streak of 340 days that produced basically nothing, and failed Arabic twice, once while actually living in Cairo. Somewhere in failure number three I noticed the pattern: I kept studying languages and never using them.
Spanish broke the streak in 2016 because my roommate in Valencia refused to speak English to me. Portuguese, German, and Korean followed, each faster than the last. Not because I got smarter. Because I finally had a method that starts with speaking badly on day one.
If we work together, expect to be mid-sentence and uncomfortable within ten minutes. I coach the system: what to do daily, how to find conversation partners, what to ignore (most of it). I'm not your tutor in the language itself. I'm the guy who makes sure you're still doing it in March.
More background
Solid ground: input methods, spaced repetition without letting Anki eat your life, finding and keeping exchange partners, breaking the B1 plateau, learning as an adult with a full-time job, and the specific psychology of quitting (I have detailed field notes). I speak Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Korean well enough to be wrong in interesting ways in each.
Good for: adults on their second or third attempt at a language, heritage speakers embarrassed to talk to their grandparents, anyone about to buy another $300 course instead of just speaking. Not good for: kids, test-prep grinding (DELE and TOPIK cram schedules bore me and I'd be taking your money), or people who want daily drilling from me personally.
I check in twice a week by voice message between sessions and I expect a reply in your target language, however mangled. Evenings US Eastern, some early mornings for European clients. If you cancel twice in a row I'll ask whether we should stop. Honest answers welcome.