Turn It On And Leave It On

“Turn It On And Leave It On” 🔌

☝️ This mantra helped me learn more Spanish in 2 months than in 5 years.

The method has two simple rules of thumb:
1️⃣ Continuously play audio in your target language as long as possible.
2️⃣ Ensure the subject matter of the audio is something you already know.

I’ve been following these two rules recently as a beginner in Korean, and I’m learning many common, useful words, expressions, and sentences quickly by watching on repeat, e.g., a 5-hour Python basics course in Korean with Korean subtitles.
I work from home, so I’ve been starting the 5-hour video and putting it on repeat—only putting it on pause when I have a call.
Besides that, just like a lot of people do with TVs, I simply “turn it on and leave it on” as long as I possibly can. 📺

Furthermore, whenever I notice a pattern of the sounds that I hear in Korean, like what seems to be a word or an expression, I’ll type what I hear into Google Translate, where the Korean subtitles help with spelling, and translate it into a language I know. Then, repeat—maybe rewinding the video, but definitely keeping it playing as long as possible. ⏪▶️

Moreover, I’ve gone through Python basics many times over the years as a developer, so to watch a video in Korean about the absolute basics of a programming language I know already makes it so I know a ton about the context of the Korean I hear (since the Korean is about Python basics), so that I only need to focus the target language alone and not understanding anything of what the video is about. 💡

This is allowing me to draw recursive connections from the Korean language to meaning quicker and deeper, as my environment is all Korean all the time.

I don’t worry about trying to understand everything, but only focus on picking up a word, expression, the beginning of a sentence, the end of a sentence, etc., at a time. ⏳

And what if I lose focus?

That’s okay because the video is always on, and I go in and out of focus with the video just like other people do with their native language(s) and TVs.

I’ve only started learning Korean two weeks ago, and I can almost form sentences when I speak and type in Korean, thanks in large part to this method.

There’s more to acquiring a language than what I’m mentioning here, but to “turn it on and leave it on” is a method that makes the process a lot easier, IMHO.