It was something people lived — through conversation, culture, humour, slang, music, friendship and everyday life.
They were not just speaking English. They were living around it.
What if other languages could feel just as natural, social and motivating as English already does?
Fluency is not only about knowing more words. It is about feeling comfortable enough to join the conversation.
NewWave Fluent began in Lille, with a question Tijn kept coming back to. He was studying there, surrounded by international students from across the world. Most of them did not speak English as their first language. But English was still the language they used with each other — to joke, text, make plans, share memes, talk at parties, switch between cultures, and fill silences with words like “like,” “you know,” and “I mean.”
They were not just speaking English. They were living around it.
That was the insight. People do not become confident in a language only because they memorise more grammar. They become confident when the language starts to feel familiar — the rhythm, the pauses, the slang, the humour, the references, and the way people actually speak when they are not trying to sound like a textbook.
English had given those students immersion by accident. Through music, TikTok, Netflix, games, online friends, memes, comments and slang, English had become part of their daily world long before it became correct. So Tijn started asking a different question:
What if other languages could feel just as natural, social and motivating as English already does?
The answer was already around him. He started asking the native speakers around him how they would introduce their own languages if they did not have to sound like a classroom. A French speaker could explain what sounded too formal. A Spanish speaker could show why a phrase worked in a meme but not in a textbook. A Dutch speaker could point out the small words people actually use without thinking.
Who could introduce a language better than the people who grew up inside it — the people who scroll through its TikTok, hear its slang, watch its shows, understand its jokes, and live its culture every day? Young native speakers. People who know not only the correct version of a language, but the version people actually use.
NewWave Fluent grew out of those conversations — with international students, native speakers, and learners who understood the gap because they were living it themselves. The idea was simple: bring together everything language learning usually keeps separate. A community where learners can enter the language instead of just studying it. Courses that give them a clear path. Flashcards that help them remember what matters. And native tutors who bring the human layer — real feedback, real culture, real conversation.
Fluency is not only about knowing more words. It is about feeling comfortable enough to join the conversation.
Learn language as it’s lived.
Every language on NWF is led by a native speaker who lives and breathes it.
They change, they evolve, they sound different depending on who's speaking and where. Teaching a frozen version from a textbook is like teaching someone to swim in a bathtub.
AI can quiz you on vocabulary. It can't tell you that 'gezellig' means something different in Amsterdam than in Brabant, or that saying 'tú' in Buenos Aires marks you as a tourist.
We'd rather you use the wrong conjugation with the right slang than speak perfect grammar that makes you sound like a robot. Communication is the goal. Perfection is the enemy.