Within applied linguistics, a number of approaches consider the ideas that lay people have about language-related topics. Taking those ideas as a serious object of research is essentially what can be subsumed under the folk linguistics approach. This issue of the AILA Review connects the study of folk beliefs about language(s), language learning and communication to the field of applied linguistics. It discusses current research and studies addressing applied folk linguistic topics and their relevance for the understanding of people's language-related everyday problems on the one hand and the practical application of those insights to such everyday problems on the other. The issue considers theoretical foundations, empirical methods and practical solutions derived from folk linguistic investigation. The contributions cover a wide range of thematic fields for which the study of folk beliefs is essential, among them language learning and teaching, language policy, language variation, multilingualism and diachronic developments in language assessment.