New to phrasing?

Phrasing works by creating expressions, and then extracting them. Extracting them can take a few minutes, so let’s get one running while you read this article.

In the nav bar, you’ll find a create option with a feather icon. Click on that to open the create modal, then enter in the text field:

:: write an beginner sentence in french and italian about my glorious coffee addiction

(replace the languages, level, and subject with ones relevant to you)

Then click autofill, watch it come to life, and click on extract. That’s it! Your first expression is now extracting.

Choose materials

Learning some AI sentences is fine, but doesn’t unlock the full power of Phrasing. For that, we’re going to need some materials.

Our recommendation if you don’t yet speak the language is to start with a story you know well, enjoy, and was translated into your target language. Movies and audiobooks are the best places to start. We recommend Disney movies, the Harry Potter series, Anime has lots of languages dubbed, or anything aimed at a younger audience.

Note: If you haven't seen or read it recently, rewatch or reread it (either in your native language, or target language audio with native language subtitles).

Find it on Phrasing

If it’s a movie or tv show, you can search for it. If it’s a book, podcast, song, poem, article etc, you can upload it.

If it’s a tv show, choose one episode to start; if it’s a book, choose a chapter. It doesn’t have to be the first one — but you’ll be studying it and watching it often, so choose one you like!

Extracting materials

Remember how we extracted the expression before? It’s impractical to do that for every sentence in a book - but we can partially extract every sentence from the whole book.

When we do this, we can then align the expression across the different languages.

Since the result looks a whole lot like a bunch of partially-extracted expressions, we call this whole process extracting as well.

Choose Expressions

Now the fun part comes in. You can see the materials as a bunch of expressions. You can highlight important words, sort by important words, and choose a couple expressions you’d like to learn.

in a few weeks, you’ll know everything about every one of these sentences. So what do you want to learn?

We recommend learning your favorite quotes, or sentences that use the important words. You can also use the recommendations to get a shortlist - which 12 expressions would unlock the most comprehension of the show, for you, based off of your review history.

Study often

Once you have some expression studied, it’s time to learn! We strongly encourage you to start with Clozeword, and use it as much as possible.

It will be tough at first, but as you do reviews, the algorithm will kick in! We’ve optimized our algorithm to be as addictive as possible. You can use it however often and however much you like.

Start with memorization

At first, you just want to be memorizing the words. Don’t worry about all remembering the grammar details in the beginning. As you learn more words in the language, you’ll naturally start noticing patterns and getting curious. When you do, we have the answers!

Whenever you come across a new word that you don’t immediately understand, start by reading any information available in the chat! Each word comes prepopulated with a bunch of information that can help you make sense of the word.

Think of the material

These aren’t just random sentences. Who said these lines? What are they talking about? What is this saying in the larger context?

You should know the story they’re coming from. Attach these sentences to that story in your head. Hear the speakers voice. Think of the reaction to this line, the implications. Give your brain some context to cling to, and these expressions will come to life in your mind.

Grade gently

When just starting a new language, don’t worry too much about the accents, spelling, tones, etc. if you remember the sounds of the word, override the grade with remembered, or struggled if you want to see it again today. Each time you’ll see the correction and most of the time this is enough.

As the memory of the word grows, if you’re still spelling it wrong, start marking it as struggled or failed.

Mnemonics

Coming up with mnemonics is a great way to remember new words. If you aren’t familiar with this practice, there is a “Meme” prompt that will generate some for you.

Each time you see the word, try to recall the mnemonic. If you don’t remember the mnemonic after seeing the word, then create a new one! Good mnemonics are the ones you can’t help but remember when seeing the word.

Explore

Click around on the expression, and explore the sentences! Show the inline information, see how they line up, read the chat for various words.

Use the “Walk through” prompt to get an overview.

Curiosity is a prerequisite for good learning. Sometimes you just do your reviews, and that’s fine! It’s beneficial in its own right. However, whenever you get curious to explore the sentence, then it’s encouraged!

Repeat out loud

Whenever you can, try to speak out loud. Say the words as you input them. Try to read the whole sentence (turn on the inline text if you can’t read the script). Play the word audio on repeat and try to speak in time with the audio.

This can be very difficult - and if you’re in public, potentially embarrassing. That’s normal! Producing the speak highlights everything we don’t know.

Reproducing the sounds forces you to focus on each one, and will really reinforce your memory. Plus, it’s never to early to focus on pronunciation.

Go back for more

Once you’ve got a handle on your first batch of expressions, go back to the same episode, chapter, movie, etc and extract more expressions.

Expect to do this for 2-6 months

If you’re just starting, you have a lot to learn. however if you stick with it for a couple months, you’ll learn enough to go enjoy the material.

From there, you can…

… binge your way to fluency!

Go find the book, movie, tv, etc and binge it!

If you’re watching a movie or tv show, you can use subtitles the first time - but do not repeatedly use the subtitles!

Watch, listen, or read the material at least three times—each time you will feel like you understand twice as much. There’s no much thing as too much. Each time you’re hearing things you understand, and understand the broader context, you are learning. Some people do this over 50 times!

Each time you watch it will, words you memorized will work their way into words you can understand with ease.

You now have three choices:

- keep rewatching (it’s a whole lot easier to binge something when you didn’t understand it the first time — especially if you keep understanding more and more)

- create expressions for what you didn't understand and study those

- choose a new piece of media (and keep studying this one, coming back to it later)