How to learn a language with Taalhammer

It looks like you are interested in learning foreign languages, or maybe you are already learning a language, like Dutch or Italian!

In either case, you have come to the right place. Welcome! My name is Mateusz.

Did you know that statistically you need to know more than 2500 words to have a meaningful conversation? But even knowing the whole dictionary won’t let you speak a language.

Why?

Because in order to speak a language you need to be able to combine those words into sentences.

In this demo I am going to show you how Taalhammer trains you on this important skill, and how easy it is to memorize a lot of words and phrases.

If you follow this advice, you will be able to speak calmly, with confidence and precision.

But in Taalhammer, you are not just learning a random list of words. You are learning a carefully selected content that consists of the most frequently spoken words, as well as simple phrases and sentences that illustrate how to combine those words.

Based on your feedback the algorithm precisely calculates the date of the next repetition. This algorithm was designed to facilitate the transfer of elements from short term memory to long term memory.

But there is more to it! Learning that way you’re not actually memorising sentences though, you’re memorising patterns!

What you learn consists mostly of words that you have previously learned. That way you don’t focus on the meaning of words, but how to arrange them in a sentence. So you are never bored nor overwhelmed. You are always challenged to stay motivated and keep going!

You start in the Learning mode.

Your first exercise is a board with five words or sentences. Read them, play the audio, and try to memorize them. In the next step, the app will test if you can repeat them one by one. Our short-term memory can store up to around five elements.

It is harder than typical exercises from other apps, like matching images with words, or arranging words in the correct order. And harder in this case is better because it stimulates your memory more which makes you remember faster and better.

Now let’s see what you actually remember, one by one. Click Next button

Here we always start by showing you the source language only. Research shows that learning this way speeds up your learning, because it actively recalls sentences from your memory.

At the beginning it will be easy, but with time it might become quite challenging. Don’t give up too easily if you have a problem recalling a word or a sentence! Take your time and scan your memory for the translation — this strengthens your memory muscles and makes you remember even better!

Are you ready? Click Show Answer

Now you evaluate yourself and based on this Taalhammer will plan repetitions for you.

Click Easy only if you can say the word or sentence without mistakes and within a reasonable time. You will repeat it only from time to time.

Click Difficult if you do not know the answer at all. You will repeat such words frequently.

Additionally, everything that is Difficult or Almost ends up in a drill, which is an extra exercise for things you are having problems remembering.

In Taalhammer we want you to learn grammar via discovering patterns, rather than by memorizing rules.

You will see words and lots of simple sentences that show how these words work in context. This is a very natural way of learning a language – you discover the rule yourself by seeing patterns in the examples. You will start feeling a language!

Sometimes, to help you commit a structure to memory, we will show you a short hint and a group of examples – like here on this Board, when we show you how to talk about the past.

Study this board carefully, play the example sentences and repeat them aloud. You will be repeating the example sentences again later.

We also want you to stay motivated and learn how to recognise speech rather than individual words.

For that we will give you listening exercises, on boards like this one. Click Play and you will discover that you always understand 100% of it because it is written using only the language that you have trained before. The complexity of these texts grows with time. This gives you a huge motivational kick!

The content that you learn comes from your learning stream. You can easily change your learning stream by going to our Editor and creating your own examples.