this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Tip: Avoid recitation! (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks 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 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

How do you define grammar?

Overall, i agree. Grammar is too abstract to learn unless you have examples embedded in your mind already.

Focus on vocabulary and you can largely guess on the grammar until you catch up.

Your method sounds like input-first, which seems to be dominating learning theories since the internet made finding content trivially easy.

Edit: I think one principle is learn the least amount you need to understand what you are reading. That is to say, let your reading guide your learning. Don't go in learning a bunch of abstract stuff because it's the next lesson. This way you are immediately rewarded for everything you learn and you create a virtuous feedback loop.