What your textbook does, and what a novel does
A textbook teaches you the language explicitly. A novel builds your ability to handle language in context by making you infer meaning as you…
Read more →
Blog
Method & Research
Why reading works, and what the research actually says. The thinking behind how these books are built, and why calibrated reading closes the gap that leaves most learners stuck.
Nobody teaches you to read a form
A few years ago a research team gave a group of people with no legal training a task: take a simple rule and write…
Read more →
Simplified is the wrong goal
A lot of what you read has been simplified for you. The instructions you got when you left the hospital. The letter telling you…
Read more →
The advanced class looked exactly like the intermediate one
After I came back from a year abroad in Seoul, enrolled in an advanced Korean class, and just wasn’t inspired by textbooks anymore. The…
Read more →
The intermediate plateau: why you can order coffee, but novels still feel impossible
Here’s a specific moment a lot of language learners know well. You’ve been at this for a year, maybe two. You can hold a…
Read more →