Start a new language with a handful of sentences about yourself
For beginners. Our view, and how to do it.
We think the first thing worth learning in a new language isn’t a word list. It’s a handful of sentences about yourself, ones you’d actually say, practised until they come out without thinking. Who you are, where you’re from, what you do, who’s in your family, why you’re learning. Ten or so sentences like that make a small, solid core you know properly, and that core gives everything you learn next something to attach to. We call them anchors.
Why start with anchors
- You will use them. The first real conversations in any language are about you: your name, your work, where you live, why you’re learning. A sentence you’ll say again and again earns its place. “The cat is under the table” may not.
- They are easier to remember. Memory researchers have long observed that material we relate to ourselves tends to stick better (the self-reference effect). A sentence about your own job has more hooks than an example about a stranger’s.
- Each one is a frame. “I work at…”, “I’ve lived here for…”, “What I like most is…”: once one of these is automatic, swapping in a new word gives you a new sentence. You learn the grammar as a whole sentence you already understand, not as a rule in the abstract.
- They fit your life, not a textbook’s. A printed phrasebook gives everyone the same “Where is the station?”. A nurse needs different words from a software developer, and someone learning for their partner’s family needs different words from someone moving abroad for work. Your first hundred words should be yours.
- Vocabulary grows in a logical order. This is the part we care about most. Every new word arrives attached to something you already know: your work leads to your job title, then to what the job involves, then to what you find interesting about it. That is a chain, not a list, and each link makes the next one easier to hold.
How to build your set
This works with or without any app.
- Pick three to five themes. Introducing yourself, your work or studies, your family, where you live, why you’re learning. Pick the ones you’d actually talk about.
- Write one simple, true sentence per theme. True matters. A sentence about your real life is the one you’ll remember and use.
- Extend one small step at a time. Each new sentence should add a single new structure or a couple of new words, building on the one before. An example in Spanish:
- Trabajo en un hospital. — I work at a hospital. (the starting fact)
- Soy enfermera. — I'm a nurse. (one new word, and ser for what you are)
- Trabajo de noche, así que duermo durante el día. — I work nights, so I sleep during the day. (a connector (así que) joining two facts)
- Lo que más me gusta es ayudar a la gente. — What I like most is helping people. (an opinion, with a reusable frame (lo que más me gusta es…))
- Say them the way people talk. Aim for how a native speaker would put it in conversation, not how a grammar book would. Contractions and everyday phrasing are a feature.
- Practise until they’re automatic. Listen to each sentence, repeat it out loud, rebuild it from memory, and come back to it the next day. The goal is being able to say it without assembling it word by word.
- Then move on. Anchors are a starting point, not a destination. Once a dozen or so feel easy, start reading simple texts. You’ll notice your own words and frames everywhere, and they will carry you through sentences you couldn’t have read before.
What to avoid
- Long memorised monologues. A paragraph learned by heart falls apart the moment someone interrupts. Short sentences you can recombine hold up.
- Sentences you’ll never say. If it isn’t true of you, or not something you’d talk about, drop it.
- Waiting for perfect. A slightly clumsy sentence you can say beats a perfect one you can’t. If a native speaker corrects you, adopt their version.
- Staying here forever. The point of a few anchors is to make the next step, real reading and real conversation, easier.
How Glossa helps
Glossa is a reading app, and its phrasebook (the “My phrases” tab in your library) is built for exactly this first step. It opens by default for readers who start as beginners or early intermediates. The point is that it is tailored: instead of a fixed list of generic phrases, what you learn follows what you actually need to say, starting from your own life and growing in the direction you take it.
- Start from a theme. Introduce yourself, work or studies, family, where you live, hobbies, your day, why you’re learning, or one you name yourself.
- Say what you actually want to say. Type it in your own language or try it in the one you’re learning, and you get back one natural sentence, the way people say it in conversation. If you tried it yourself and something was off, a short note says what changed and why.
- Grow the chain in your direction. Ask what you could say next and you get three suggestions built on what you already have: the next natural thing, a slightly harder step, and another way to say something you know. When a suggestion needs a fact about you, like your job title, it leaves a blank for you to fill, so every sentence stays true to your life and pitched at your level.
- See and hear every word. Each sentence is glossed word by word in your own language and read aloud, with the word being spoken highlighted. Tap any word to hear it on its own and see how it’s pronounced, syllable by syllable, with the stress marked.
- Practise until it sticks. Listen to a theme’s sentences, rebuild each one from its scrambled words, and mark the ones you know.
When the set feels easy, say it out loud to a tutor or a friend, and then start reading: your own words will keep turning up. On the free plan you can create 10 phrasebook sentences in total, enough for a first set of anchors; Pro is unlimited.
Free for 2 books and 10 pages of reading.