But when you do speak the language fairly well, then you can actually turn grammar lessons into your mini-mission.

I suggest only learning grammar in small chunks for the absolute basics, or going through courses that are much more conversation focused and sprinkle a little grammar into it in interesting ways. For most language learners, going for pure grammar or taking grammar-focused courses at the start is a mistake.

once you have that basic flow, it’s time to go to those book courses to start to get some solid footing in communicating formally in the language.

I think it’s a mistake to focus just on pure content issues for the start of your language learning project, especially the way they are presented in most courses; they’re simply too boring, and they’re not immediately relevant, because there are so many rules to cover that you feel like it will take years to get through them. But if you first focu

vocabulary, and so on), as opposed to confidence issues or a lack of familiarity, which are actually much bigger problems most of the time for beginners.

But at the end of the day, many of these problems can be what I’d call content problems—problems with how the language itself operates (how to conjugate verbs, structure sentences, acquire

the “I” and “you” (singular) conjugations are my first priority. After this, I start to use “we,” then “he/she/it” and “them.” (Generally, “he/she/it” verb forms, known as the third-person singular, follow the same conjugation pattern in many languages.)

can (able to) should would like to must / have to want to

With any language, I suggest learning the following modal verbs: