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Language learning: 10 common pitfalls that slowed my progress
1. Studying grammar
Studying grammar is one of the greatest cognitive dissonances of language learning. We all know that babies learn to speak with perfect grammar without once consulting a textbook. To this many reply, “adults learn differently than children, I can’t learn a language without studying grammar.”
I got to A2 level Finnish without once studying grammar. Finnish grammar is impossibly complicated and not worth studying. Once I discovered full video immersion, the language came to me magically. After immersing myself with the same short videos 2–3 hours per day, I was conversational in a few months (Scroll down to read more about my specific process of immersive learning).
Of course, I still make many grammar mistakes, but I know the genetive from of keittio (kitchen) is keittion because I heard it 1000+ times in context.
2. Extensive video immersion at the very beginning
I made a huge mistake my first summer of studying Finnish. Excited at the possibility of full immersion, I binged watched entire series including Sorjonen (Bordertown) and Karppi (Deadwind) with subtitles. I learned almost nothing. I lost an entire summer familiarizing myself with the sounds of the language, but I…
