LingoflyA language for those who moved
Everyday life trips not on grammar but on a shop sign, a pharmacy prescription and a government form. Plus the feeling of being a stranger here, which grows thicker with every month without the language. In a week or two, at half an hour a day, start recognising the letters on signs and understanding what is written on price tags.
The order
- First the script, not words. While you cannot read the signs, the whole city stays a picture. Armenian has 39 letters, Georgian 33, and they are figured out in a week or two, a few per sitting.
- Then — rescue phrases. “I don’t understand”, “repeat, please”, “slower”. These are not taught for politeness: they bring back a conversation that has already gone wrong — and you will have one in your very first week.
- Next — everyday life. Shop, pharmacy, transport, rent. Not “the thousand most frequent words” but the three hundred you will need before the month is out.
- And one phrase about yourself. “I am learning your language, speak slower”. Admitting that your language is still bad almost always makes the other person more patient — that works more reliably than any stock of words.
Languages
What this is based on
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
- Deciding exactly when and where helps more than deciding to study at all. “After my morning coffee, in the kitchen, ten minutes” works; “I really should get to it” does not.checked many timesGollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38 · 94 trials, more than 8,000 participants, d = 0.65.
- Fear of making mistakes gets in the way of learning a language, and noticeably so. The link turns up study after study, and together those studies cover almost twenty thousand people.checked many timesTeimouri, Goetze & Plonsky, 2019, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41(2) · 19,933 participants from 23 countries; correlation with results r = −0.36.
Frequently asked
Plenty of people here get by in English — why bother with the local language?
In the centre — yes. In a government office, a neighbourhood pharmacy, at the neighbours’, in documents — no. And how people treat you changes from the very first phrase in the local language, even if it is a single one.
Is it worth learning the language if I am leaving soon?
Maybe. But reading shop signs pays off within a week, not a year — it is the only part of the language that starts working almost at once.
What if there is no time for classes?
This is not a course anyway. Half an hour a day, split into a few sittings on the way, fits any schedule, and spaced sessions stick better than the same hours in one go — that has been checked many times.