I've learned several languages to a decent level, and ten times that number to a beginner level. Frankly, I don't really care to learn any more languages to a beginner level — I would rather just skip to intermediate. Let me explain.

Beginner level knowledge gets old

By far my biggest criticism is that when you first start learning a language, you spend so much time on the basics. You memorize all the conjugations of to be, and learn all the dozens of ways to say the. You learn all of the verb categories, and memorize tables of adjectives.

However, by the time you get to intermediate level, every single sentence has these. Every single one! I always forget all the rules that I learned in the beginner stage because you just pick up a feeling for these things. In fact, I've gone back and looked at the "rules" I learned in Italian and French about when to use the perfect vs imperfect and dear god, those rules are so full of holes they were definitely sabotaging my language progress.

It turns out that all the stuff you stress over as a beginner as table stakes for a language. If you were to never spend a single moment studying the basics, you will still pick it up through acquisition if you spend any time with the language at all

Beginner level conversations get old

If you've just learned your first language to a beginner level, then congratulations! When you can first start speaking a language at a beginner level it can be extremely rewarding. I don't want to disparage anything anyone has accomplished, and I too have felt that excitement of being able to say something, anything in another language.

However, the conversations you can have are always very limited. They're always very sanitized. And some of the time, they can be downright patronizing.

Once you've learned 2, 4, 8 languages to a beginner level, the novelty wears off. The stress of speaking another language and not being able to say anything I'd like to is more than the joy of stringing together a few sentences.

Again, this is absolutely not applicable when learning your first foreign language. Don't let some crusty internet nerd take away any of the excitement from speaking in tongues. Theres no language like your first foreign language, so enjoy :)

Beginner level content gets old

The title says it all for this one. I can watch maybe 5 minutes of someone pointing to their face saying words before I have to go touch grass. I know this is valuable to do, but I'm sorry, I just can't anymore.

How to skip the beginner level

I built Phrasing to skip the beginner level and get straight to the good stuff. The app is built on teaching you the words that will benefit most from spaced repetition, aiming for that sweet spot between common enough you need to know them, and uncommon enough they'll be near impossible to acquire.

Along the way, we explain everything very clearly, so you get exposed to the basics in the same spaced repetition manner, naturally acquiring all those pesky articles.

Phrasing is also built to teach you quotes from content you want to binge, getting you to comprehension of real native movies in months, not years.

Just input sentences from your favorite book, movie, tv show, podcast etc and well analyze them, explain everything, and teach it to you one word at a time. You just sit back, use our addicting Humane SRS, and click around when your interested!

Give Phrasing a try today. To fluency, and beyond.