Best Practices for Learning a Language

🔁 Input Flooding (Massive Exposure)

• Listen to native content daily—even before you fully understand.
• Use subtitled TV, music, podcasts, etc.
• This acts like unsupervised pretraining: your brain starts modeling the statistical structure of the language.

🗣️ Active Recall & Output Practice

• Use spaced repetition (SRS) for vocabulary and grammar.
• Practice speaking from day 1—even if it’s broken. Output drives fluency.
• Shadow native speakers (mimic pronunciation in real time).

🌳 Understand Grammar as Structure, Not Rules

• Don’t memorize grammar—internalize it through examples.
• Think of grammar like a codebase that builds sentences: learn common patterns as templates.

🌍 Immerse with Purpose

• Use the language to solve real problems: journaling, chatting, watching cooking videos, playing games.
• This brings pragmatics online.