I was recently asked to summarize my opinion on how to learn a language. Given that I’ve built a language learning application, it seems like a question that I should have an answer to. The problem is, not only do I have an answer to this question, I have several.

So here I’m going to recollect my thoughts and explain how to learn a language for real. This will be broken into two parts: how to learn a language in general, and how to optimally learn a language (or several) with Phrasing.

How to learn a language in general

Before starting work on Phrasing, I did about 35 user interviews with successful polyglots — people who have learned multiple languages to fluency. Almost everyone had a different process day to day, but in general, they all boiled down to the same thing:

1. Take some native content

2. Break down the native content into pieces

3. Learn and/or study these pieces

4. Consume more native content

In the end, learning a language is just about exposure and repetition, with some explanations sprinkled in along the way.

How to learn a language with Phrasing

Phrasing was always intended to be an application to skip all of the boring ‘up-front’ work and get you straight to understanding native content as soon as possible, because that is where you really learn a language.

In using the application daily for 6 months to study 18 languages, I can boil my advice down into four actionable pieces:

Learn complicated Expressions from day one

This is my number one piece of advice. Add expressions that are at a native level, full of complexity, intricacies, multiple verbs and tenses — things that are interesting. They should be long, and they should be overwhelming at first, but Phrasing breaks them down one word at a time and teaches you them. In just a few weeks, you will understand 90% of any Expression.

The goal of these Expressions is not to just remember the words and move on. You will learn the words in a few weeks - Phrasing's Humane SRS makes that easy and inevitable. The real goal is to internalize the structure, the sounds, and the flow over years.

Learn Expressions with a completable goal in mind

Learning a language is not a completable goal. Plenty of English natives spend their whole life studying the English language, and there’s always new words, new expressions, new idioms and new slang.

Therefore I think it’s best not to think of learning a language as your goal. Start by trying to sing along to a song, or understanding a movie or TV show. Once you can do that, move onto the next goal. Always work towards something you can conceivably “check off.”

Each one of your expressions should move you towards this goal. You can either use direct quotes from your favorite content (Phrasing can align multilingual documents and extract quotes), or generate sentences about a book or movie. LLMs, for all of their weaknesses, have every book, movie, and show in their training. You can easily generate sentences topical to the content.

It should also be mentioned that not all clear goals need to be media-related. I’ve generated tons of sentences in Cantonese about ordering my favorite dim sum dishes, as I know that’s something I’m going to do. You can prepare an entire script - write a story about a yourself or a topic you’re interested in - and ask a friend, tutor, or LLM to translate it, then study this script. If you want to converse with someone in particular, record the messages you exchange with them and translate them into your target language.

Learn Expressions with a clear theme

There is an idea I love in language learning called Language Islands. The idea is simple — add a bunch of expressions around a single topic, and get really comfortable talking about that subject. Dive deep, then branch out. This will not only improve your recall, but it will help you really be able to see and feel your progress.

There’s another term for this: microfluency. This term is great because it communicates one of the main advantages better — you can start to engage with native material about that topic substantially sooner.

If you’re using a book or movie as a goal, this will happen naturally. For example, I’m learning Croatian from Eragon, where there is a lot of talk about dragons, elves, magic, etc. I decided to also add sentences from How to Train Your Dragon due to how similar it it thematically.

However even if you’re just adding generated Expressions, you can thematically group them. For example, all my Estonian sentences are about Clojure and Elixir, the programming languages I use, and the functional programming paradigm they eschew. Cantonese I generated a bunch of scripts for Dim Sum I would order at a restaurant.

Same concept from a difference POV: In Japanese and Turkish, if I run across a grammatical construct that is too foreign for me, I’ll generate 2-4 expressions that use that grammar expression. So the ‘theme’ can also be grammar related, although I would reserve this for constructs that you really struggle with, as they’re much more different to resonate with.

Learn Expressions that emotionally resonate

There are so many reasons for this - from increased recall, to more engagement during reviews, to more attachment to the language/study sessions. The more you can emotionally relate to an Expression, the better and easier you will learn it. However, I think there’s one layer deeper at play.

Language is the medium, not the message. When we speak a language we know, we’re not thinking about the language, we’re focused on the idea we’re trying to convey. When we hear a story, we’re not thinking noun verb preposition determiner adjective adjective noun, we’re imagining and relating and creating a paracosm in our minds eye (and I say this as something with mild-to-severe aphantasia).

If you can find expressions that carry additional meaning to you, not only will you remember it better, but it forces you to relegate language to this ‘background’ process. I find that the sooner this happens, the sooner you see words for their meaning and stop seeing them for their grammar, the better.

Conclusion

I think if you do this - generate complicated sentences, directing towards a clear goal, in identifiable themes, that emotionally resonate - you’ll get the most out of Phrasing.

In just a few months, you’ll be able to give monologues, watch your favorite movies or TV shows, read a few chapters in a book, and pick out key words and phrases from native speech.

Once you can do that, learning a language is just about exposure. Listen, read, watch, repeat. You got this 💪

If anyone is interested in learning and maintaining multiple languages, consider signing up for phrasing.app. It’s an independently run language learning application built by a polylgot, for polyglots. With great support for over 120 languages, you can finally learn a language (or multiple) like a professional.