this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Tip: Avoid recitation! (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago by schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works to c/languagelearning@sopuli.xyz
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I failed out of Latin because I thought all I had to was be able to recite all the declensions and conjugations from memory--easy enough to accomplish, but not very helpful.

What happens is you learn the table as a sequential blob, you know this follows that, and you have to go through the whole table until you find what you're looking for. Not very efficient and extremely distracting.

What you REALLY want to do is be able to pick the form you need from it's USE, not from it's position out of the table.

The way to do that is to drill on picking out the exact form you need. Your magic tool for this is: flash cards (anki or physical), or a website like Conjuguemos or Linguno.

My experiment this week is to learn portuguese conjugations just from drilling the individual forms, without ever learning the table. Being able to recite the table should be the result of learning the conjugation.

Sorry if this is all horribly obvious to you, but it took me fucking forever to figure this out.

Any little tips you've learned?

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[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is a HILARIOUS French song about a picnic trip to the country that is basically a packing list of French foods. I think if you were ever to learn French, that song would be your lodestone.

I tried your exercise with Bojack Horseman in French. That is to say, I didn't need to translate or understand, because I knew what was happening, and that knowledge too easily guided my translation. Then I'd go to the next episode that I was NOT familiar with and largely be completely lost. It gave me a false sense of confidence..

[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

haha nice, what's the french song?

I can see how something really engaging or familiar like bojack would make it difficult to focus on the language aspect of a show. I was in China at the time I developed the same-movie/tv thing and after two weeks of watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon once a day, all the teaching assistants at the school suddenly started asking me "when did you learn chinese"?

A lot of them tried it with english shows after I explained my method and it went pretty well, two of them made it the whole two weeks and had the same radical boost.

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

https://youtu.be/WYMSjg3RxYk

Another problem with Bojack are the plethora of puns which are often punted on by translators.

[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 2 points 1 week ago

Ha, yeah there are a billion puns and so much muttered wordplay in that show.

Thanks for the song!