the 80/20 rule

the 80/20 rule, also known as the pareto principle basically means that everything in life is imbalanced. I'll give you some examples: you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time, 20% of school content makes up for 80% of the exam, 20% of your savings goes towards 80% of expenses and so on. It's not necessarily true but its a general statement. This can make your life a lot easier if you know how to apply it :) so in languages, 20% of words are used 80% of the time.

So, if you learn 20% of the language, you can basically speak it. Even if you can't speak it fluently, i PROMISE you it is so helpful, you can understand a lot more even if you can't speak it. Learning the top 1000 words helps you to understand context more and they're used more often :)

When I learned Dutch I also learned the top 100 verbs and prepositions. You'll probably find them in the top 1000 list but i found it nice to distinguish the verbs from the top 1000 words because then you can use them when you're learning new tenses. Anyways, here's a quizlet folder with everything I just spoke about!

• Go to Quizlet

There are a lot of really good apps like memrise, quizlet and google translate but let me tell you about my favourites and why i like them:

Duolingo

Duolingo, yeah yeah BAAASIC as HELL but honestly i learned a lot. It's useful to do! I used to do 5 minutes a day like before school (yeah i know what a language sweat...) but the great thing about it is it teaches you those basic words that are uncommon but they are useful. Duolingo have also implemented some good features like stories, listening exercises and podcasts which are all very useful! I would honestly recommend getting it and using it daily, even though a lot of people hate on it, honestly it does help just get into a routine of learning a language consistently, even if it's only a little each day.

Reverso

GOD i love this app. It helped me a lot. What it does is, it puts words that you don't really understand into contexts and gives you examples of how to use it. It's great for context and multi-purpose words.

HelloTalk

HelloTalk is great because you can talk to natives without getting judged :) Usually the people are really friendly and nice and also give you feedback on your conversation and how you could improve etc. It is great when you aren't comfortable talking to people you know who speak the language you want to learn, though i would really recommend speaking it to people you know. They won't judge you as much as you think they will! :) They do actually want to help. Don't be embarrassed. Remember, confidence gets you everywhere

CONSISTENCY IS EVERYTHING!

Without consistency, especially in the start, you are going to slowly forget things. You really have to be that mysterious parisian with a dark academic fashion studying and reading as much as you possibly can! Trust me it is TOUGH. But you will never be able to learn if you don't put the hard work in and it is harrrrd work. But there are ways around this :) So here is my advice for you:

Keep a Diary

Okay, now here is the point of your present: your diary :) Obviously you don't have to use it for that but it's a suggestion. (Do you notice i tried to match the notebooks look to this carrd) Keeping a diary helps you to develop your writing and also helps you to put new words you learn into context and helps you to practice how to use it and conjugate it (for verbs of course) but once you finish each entry you can go over it and check for mistakes blah blah blah you get the jist. Anyways just try to keep one, it is so helpful.

Immersion

WATCH TV SHOWS, TALK TO PEOPLE, LISTEN TO MUSIC ALLLLL THE TIME. Nearly every Netlfix show has an Audio dub for French. Use the Audio dub and listen to it in English if you're watching English shows that is, but just have it around you as much as possible. Obviously the best way to actually learn is to just go there but we have to work with what we've got and you have the whole fuckin internet so use it wisely.

have fun!! you will get there with a little bit of hard work, but you got this, i know you do <3 (idk if this is a weird gift ngl...but here u go anyway i hope it was at least useful!)