I failed out of Latin because I thought all I had to was be able to recite all the declensions and conjugations from memory–easy enough to accomplish, but not very helpful.
What happens is you learn the table as a sequential blob, you know this follows that, and you have to go through the whole table until you find what you’re looking for. Not very efficient and extremely distracting.
What you REALLY want to do is be able to pick the form you need from it’s USE, not from it’s position out of the table.
The way to do that is to drill on picking out the exact form you need. Your magic tool for this is: flash cards (anki or physical), or a website like Conjuguemos or Linguno.
My experiment this week is to learn portuguese conjugations just from drilling the individual forms, without ever learning the table. Being able to recite the table should be the result of learning the conjugation.
Sorry if this is all horribly obvious to you, but it took me fucking forever to figure this out.
Any little tips you’ve learned?
Grammar should be learned late - most grammar rules should be result in the “lightbulb moment”: Oh, so that is why they say [whatever]. If you don’t already know of a place where that grammar is used it is too early, while if you already understand it is too late. Learn grammar at the right time and it helps learn faster.
In the early days focus on useful phrases “How do I get to the bathroom” (your ability to find a bathroom depends on gestures and pointing). Ordering in a restaurant…
I’m a fan of getting to “Listening-Reading” fast (google it). Once you understand a few things add grammar to understand why things are like that.