Language Contouring

Language Contouring is way to combine "language acquisition" with "spaced repetition". It's goal is to have you memorize words that can/need to be memorized, and have you practice acquiring the rest of the language.

When you build a puzzle, you start with the corner pieces; the well defined and significant pieces. Language Contouring works with the same principle, starting with the edge words, and using those to frame the common words.

You start by adding full, complex sentences, and use spaced repetition to learn the highest leverage words in context, one at a time. High leverage words are ones that occur semi-frequently, carry a lot of meaning, and are overrepresented in the sentences you want to learn.

The point is not to understand everything you're exposed to for quite some time. Instead, you get used to listening for the words you do know, and (often unconsciously) trying to fill in the rest. When you're curious, you dig deeper; when you're not, you just move on.

Over time, you'll learn more and more words from the sentences. You'll go from just trying to remember the letters, then to remembering the words, then little phrases, and one day… the whole sentence will just click.