Comunista Homer

“Such happiness! Equality both in space and on Earth!” USSR, 1970s

“Your brain loves context.” Learn phrases rather than words. 

The most common way to learn vocabulary is to write lists with your target language on one side with the translation on the other side. 

THIS DOESN’T WORK!

x Lists usually end up being far too long and the words are weakly related to one another.

x A list of words provides no context for your brain.

LEARNING PHRASES HOWEVER..

✓ You can learn faster: you’ll be learning several words from each sentence, rather than just one word as with the list system.

✓ You can learn the correct word order from the beginning, rather than learning word order as an entirely different concept: by studying phrases you’ll always see the natural position of each word.

✓ You can also learn grammar with minimal effort: this is because the words are always in the correct form, according to the rest of the sentence.

AN EVEN BETTER APPROACH YET…

Learning your target language through stories:

✓ Stories provide a much richer context, as there’s many things going on in the story 

✓  Through stories you can learn your target language in a more subconscious, natural and deeper way, making it easier for you to speak and write in your target language.

✓  Short stories, particularly children’s stories if you’re a beginner, have easy sentences and help develop your reading skills meaning you can move onto more challenging books, extending you vocabulary as you go.

(If you’re not big on reading, you could always watch children’s stories on Youtube and read along, with subtitles in your target language of course.