Fluent Forever is a very helpful book for someone currently learning a new language or someone who will be learning a new language soon. However, it should be noted that this book can be better described as a course, or instruction manual, for how to learn, or how to teach yourself, a foreign language. Be prepared to use some or most of the tools Gabriel Wyner recommends in the book. If you do not intend to utilize the toolkit, you probably should avoid this book. There is no magic formula to learning a language which excludes putting in the work. However, Wyner provides tools and resources which are very effective for retention of a foreign language if you put in the work.

The book does seem to be a bit of a long slog. Part of this is because of the various tools and resources Wyner introduces. Perhaps core to this book is the use of an SRS (spaced repetition system). An SRS makes use of digital or paper flash cards which you review with decreasing frequency over time until you've learned a word or concept. Wyner describes the science behind why this works very well, in addition to the science about language learning, and its benefits.

Wyner will instruct you to either use Anki (a computer and mobile app with digital flash cards) or a Leitner Box (paper flash cards organized by level, with a schedule/calendar for reviewing cards in each level, and rules for when to move cards to the next level) as your SRS. Exploring either of these methods will take some time away from continuing to read the book.

Wyner often points readers to resources available on his website. While these will add extra time to finish this book, I definitely recommend taking advantage of these resources. The videos and resources help provide additional context which cannot be fully conveyed in the book. This is particularly true when it comes to the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and demonstrating where a person's tongue and lips are when pronouncing various letters and sounds. The harder your language, the more powerful the supplemental resources will be.

You may find that this book will result in your spending even more money. I ended up buying the Anki mobile app that allowed me to sync my SRS between my computer and my iPhone. Additionally, I purchased a grammar book recommended by Wyner for my target language (Hungarian), and from Wyner's Fluent Forever website I also purchased a word list and pronunciation trainer in my target language. These will all be excellent tools as I build out flash cards in my SRS.

I've been learning Hungarian on Duolingo for several years, but I'm still not at a point where I feel like I could even have a basic conversation. I can build sentences if I had to, but wouldn't get very far with them. With the tools and methods introduced in Fluent Forever, I'm ready to move to a more productive and more exciting stage in my learning Hungarian.

When I first found this book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, part of what got me to buy it was finding a few Hungarian flash card examples as I flipped through the book. Wyner was actually learning Hungarian around the time he wrote this book and created his Kickstarter. No one language seems to dominate in the book, so it was really cool to see examples in Spanish, French, Russian, Hungarian, Italian, and Icelandic among others. But since I was already learning Hungarian, it was helpful finding a book on how to learn a language that was written by someone who successfully learned Hungarian too. It was a fortunate find since publishers do not cater heavily to learners of this language. And while the Hungarian resources on his website are no longer supported, had Wyner not been learning the language himself, I doubt those helpful resources would've been created by Fluent Forever for Hungarian.

One final note: the Fluent Forever website has changed since the book was written and Kickstarter content was delivered. They now focus on delivering content and helping people learn foreign languages through their Fluent Forever app. Unfortunately, Hungarian is not supported in the Fluent Forever app. However, twelve other languages are supported. The app helps streamline a lot of the workflows covered in the book to better help you learn how to learn, learn, practice, and retain what you've learned.