Build your own customised Memrise course.
Get off the beaten track and stop learning the vocabularies which other people require by making your own word lists, which are relevant for you.
learning nerd | beginner-intermediate-advanced
Cancel that hotel, put away the Lonely Planet, re-imagine your next holiday. Live and work with a local. Get immersed in someone else’s reality, culture, routine, accents and words.
studious recluse | beginner-intermediate
Get the difficult words before they get you! Memrise the words and then encounter them in context.
knutselaar | spiritual learner | intermediate-advanced
Language immersion, through a relationship, the oldest and best way to fluency.
dare devil | beginner-intermediate-advanced
Class-sensitive Exercise Books
Existing exercise books re-written for the people for whom learning the language is truly urgent. Exercises for survival.
political-learner | beginner-intermediate
Work with a local artist, throw yourself in the spotlight, take your control of the language to the next level in pressure situations.
dare devil | beginner-intermediate-advanced
Read your way to fluency with this technique which feels like torture but liberates.
spiritual learner | beginner-intermediate-advanced | experimental
Find a way to access your subconscious and start dreaming in your desired language. Undertake vivid dialogues in strange places, which you never thought possible.
spiritual learner | experimental
Discipline your ass into talking to yourself in your desired language throughout the day. Resist the urge to think or speak your mother tongue.
disciplinarian | spiritual learner | beginner-intermediate-advanced
Comic books have been unfairly categorised as low-brow by the world of literature. Use their blend of dialogue and images to begin effortlessly reading in your desired language.
lazy-learner | intermediate-advanced
No sleep, 5 or 7 native speakers, sugar and water, or sugar-water and caffeine tablets. A non-stop bombardment over a 70-hour period to taste the rewards of fluency and even the promised land of native speaker language levels.
** PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS TECHNIQUE HAS NOT YET BEEN VERIFIED BY THE INSTITUTE **
dare-devil | disciplinarian | beginner-intermediate-advanced
De-Imperialize Your Cultural Immersion
Trace all of your cultural sources of linguistic immersion and change them. Overcome the cultural and linguistic shock of leaving Hollywood and begin to feel the benefits of appreciating non-dominant language culture.
stubborn student | political-learner | intermediat-advanced
Fuck grammar, fuck rules, just use what you’ve already got up your sleeve. Some experts estimate that 40% of English words come from French. Use what you’ve got already to get a running start in the language.
lazy learner | experimental | beginner
A technique specially designed for those of us attempting to learn a language taken from us through colonial or migrational violence. Get ready for an emotional rollercoaster as you acquaint yourself with untranslatable words from a past you and your mother/father/granparent/uncle/aunty never had.
diaspora | spiritual learner | intermediate-advanced
Integrate walking into the use of your favourite language-learning app to create a sensorial experience of remembering words and phrases.
spiritual learner | beginner-intermediate-advanced
It feels slightly feindish but analysing the mistakes native speakers of your desired language make while speaking your language can sometimes shed light on certain grammatical rules in a very practical manner.
sly student | intermediate-advanced
Whether it’s a language you’ve lost due to migration or an economically powerful language you believe will help your children to succeed in the future, learning together with your children can provide you with a beautiful experience and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
spiritual learner | beginner | slow-boil
Many of us are scribbling or typing little notes throughout the day. A simple language disruption to this system can provide a handy extra practice and encounters with words you are not getting elsewhere.
knutselaar | beginner-intermediate-advanced | disciplinarian
Already tried a bit of Broken Journaling? Now it’s time to fix it and get into the deeper practice of language-learning journaling by committing to a Fixed Journaling practice and unlocking the power of the act of writing in cementing those niche words you desire.
spiritual learner | intermediate-advanced | disciplinarian
Learn Esperanto, the apparently easiest-to-learn language, as a step to expanding your ability to fathom language as a whole, to then tackle your desired language with renewed capabilities.
unverified | beginner intermediate | scientific thinker
Cross-Generational Reading Buddy
Tap into the unrecognised powers of children - not yet tainted by the disparate pedagogical experiences in non-artistic and non-anarchic learning institutions - as teachers.
experimental | political | spiritual learner? | beginner-intermediate
Schaamte Lijst (List of Shame)
Put all of that pent up, good-for-nothing shame, which you have built up along your language learning journey, to use. A Schaamte Lijst works wonders when it comes to avoiding repeating the same mistakes twice or several times. Let’s re-wire that shame.
sly student | hacker | trigger warning | intermediate-advanced
It’s so easy to let language become a cerebral thing. Let’s reclaim our body when speaking a new language and dare to let those words permeate it and penetrate it deep into our pores.
Attach movements, grunts, tongue trills and sighs into your language learning-process in order to access a different type of memory; bodily memory.
spiritual learner | beginner-intermediate-advanced | knutselaar
A great anarchic and artistic language learning technique as it allows the language learner to earn a living while they are learning the language. Perhaps one of the most efficient techniques on offer at the Institute.
opportunist | beginner-intermediate-advanced
Annotated Novels are attempts to read literature far beyond our language level, documenting the struggle along side the narrative, with underlined words and highlighted phrases. While demanding, the reward comes in moments of comprehension of complex sentences and nuanced cultural codes.
learning nerd | studious recluse | intermediate-advanced