You want to learn a language.
I will save you hundreds of dollars and hours by the end of this video.
I will show you three paths to fluency,
the most effective one you've probably never heard of.
And then I'll show you how to deconstruct any language,
how to start understanding it, and how to achieve fluency.
When most people start learning a language, they are blinded by grammar issues.
Focusing on each aspect of grammar, you can't see the whole forest because of the trees.
The language will only start to make sense when you rise above the trees.
Let's start your path to fluency and get out of that grammar forest.
You don't need grammar ; you need sentence patterns.
The patterns determine the grammar.
Only knowing the grammar is like having a lot of ingredients but no recipe.
Sentence patterns is like the recipe.
Get all of these sentence patterns with audio.
That's the fastest way forward.
To acquire the patterns, practice the audio daily in a spaced repetition format.
The phrases will become like lyrics to a song:
they'll bounce around in your head for days and weeks,
and you'll find yourself repeating them, knowing the meaning or not.
Other spaced repetition training on the market only reminds you when you're about to forget.
Glossika is built differently:
we intensively build the patterns
so you know them intuitively without a need to remind you.
By now, you probably have a good basic working knowledge of vocabulary, at least 500 words.
We'll only focus on sentence and word manipulation in full sentences.
We won't add too much vocabulary,
which you can expand later when you need it.
This is primarily an audio training path.
You can start the second path up from here.
On that path, you will work more with the written word,
and I'll come back and describe it in more detail.
This is where it's just lots of hard work:
keep practicing all those sentence patterns with the vocabulary you already know.
Don't get stuck on any one vocabulary or pattern.
Just go on to the next one!
This is just something you do every day!
The magic here is that your brain is actually doing most of the learning for you in the background,
and our GSR schedule helps you consolidate while you sleep.
Without analysis paralysis on a small number of sentences,
it's easier for your brain to learn the patterns intuitively.
Writing Systems will slow down your learning process.
Make sure you download our guide for using Glossika where we talk about writing systems more.
Writing is something cultural and is better suited for native speakers.
Native speakers consider their writing system as very important and dear to them,
as it represents their identity.
However, writing systems do not affect how a language is spoken,
and thus are not even part of linguistic science.
Since writing systems are not phonetic even when written with an alphabet,
they are in no way the fastest way to get where you're going.
What should you do?
Get everything in transcription until you're speaking,
then come back and learn the writing later.
Think about native speakers: they were exposed,
they mimicked, they mumbled, they talked, they communicated.
Then they went to school and started learning to read.
Then a few years later they started learning grammar.
Then they learned how to craft essays.
Then they had a language class that taught everything in the opposite order, and nobody got fluent.
Those who took the harder second path, will have joined us by now.
It would have taken twice as long to get here,
because they focused on learning the writing system first.
If you're feeling tired, be proud of your gains and how far you've come.
From here you really can see the big picture and how the language works.
The grammar forest below also makes better sense though you may not be able to see all the details yet.
You're better off up here than standing down there,
because all those tiny little details in the leaves can't compare to the big picture you now have.
Before going on, let's take the alternate route and see what happens.
This is the harder path where we learn how to read the foreign language.
Since you've already learned how to speak,
you'll recognize words that you already know in speech and it will help you learn the writing much faster.
Don't be fooled by Latin writing either.
Many languages are not spelled like they're pronounced and each language has a different system.
Difficult Asian writing systems can be learned quickly by following Glossika's guides.
Your language learning will feel like it's slowing down, but this is only temporary.
Start reading short stories that you already know because you can guess what the story is talking about.
Don't look up every word,
just think about the meaning of the story and the words will start to make sense.
Practice reading everything aloud or after a native speaker.
The repetition of common phrases and vocabulary means you're going to start acquiring vocabulary extremely quickly.
Progress feels slow. Retell the stories in your own words.
You'll force yourself to start using more vocabulary this way.
Keep trying to retell the stories with a tutor or friend, or make a video.
Fluency means you speak what you want and it flows without hesitation.
You're lacking vocabulary, so it's easy to plateau and give up.
Now is the time to add vocabulary.
Learning the writing system allows you to do lots of reading,
and live and use the language daily (to acquire specific cultural references).
You may be able to speak fluently,
but you still have a lot to learn to mastery.
This is likely the most difficult of all stages.
Few people get past this point.
You now read and speak the language with little effort.
Complacency has set in. You have little to gain by going farther.
You understand almost everything.
Things you don't understand,you may incorrectly blame the speaker or call it a dialect.
You might not care if you don't understand proverbs or cultural references.
If you want true mastery, you should care.
This is a steep slope, and the hardest work is required here.
Hit the books for a year or two:
read the high school and college literature books in your target language.
Try translating a novel back to your language to earn your C2 level.
You know you've mastered the language when you start using it for big chunks of time.
Your first language will definitely be your hardest to learn.
Once you've mastered a language,
you'll be curious about other languages and realize they're not that hard anymore.
Each language will open a new world of opportunities and experiences that will enrich your life.
Don't wait; get started today!