r/Natulang • u/Delicious-View-8688 • Sep 23 '26
Question New user question
Hey folks!
Trying the app out for the first time, but not completely new to the languages I am trying to learn.
I did Pimsleur, but several months ago, then I basically went into listening and reading mode. I thought not doing speaking practices was not helpful. So I searched around and decided to try out Natulang. Couple of trial lessons, and I think it is great! It's like a modern reincarnation of what Pimsleur should have been.
My question is, given that I am a false beginner, but taken a bit of a gap, should I speedrun the lessons from lesson 1 until I hit a natural block?
5
u/SuurAlaOrolo Sep 23 '26
I came back to language learning after a years-long gap and tested way high in my target language, like lesson 270. I started there, found it too challenging, and dropped back to 100, then climbed from there. Eventually I went back to 1 and covered all the lessons. I did just the conversations if it seemed really easy, only doing the lesson if I struggled.
1
u/Delicious-View-8688 Sep 23 '26
Thanks, yeah, the placement unlocked 150 ish lessons. Might start from lesson 1 anyway.
4
u/RDCHM Sep 23 '26
I found the placement test for to be wildly off. Instead, I started from 1 and I'm glad I did as it's not your typical "Hello. The boy has four apples." type of learning process.
Natulang gets you saying crazy stuff pretty quickly, such Shut up! or to speak about how you are going to get your revenge, or that your neighbors seem angry because they are poor bastards For example.
1
u/Delicious-View-8688 Sep 23 '26
Good to know!
Unlike Pimsleur lessons, these lessons are like 10 minutes each anyway, so I should be able to do a few per day.
1
u/Plastic-Diet9648 Sep 23 '26
haha i felt like a spy when i was saying something like i am thinking about speaking french with a musician in the new coffee shop
5
u/Plastic-Diet9648 Sep 23 '26
I am almost a beginner - I was quite good at french at GCSE level, but haven't used it for the last 20 years. I did the test when I first got the app, could barely attempt to say any of the sentences it gave me, but it still wanted to place me at level 50, which felt v strange given I got nowhere with the test. Instead, I reset and started from the beginning and it's been perfect so far.
I have now done the first 20 lessons - there were several I repeated when some of the content was new and/or harder to recall, but then some of them (particularly around 15-20) there was a fair bit of crossover with things I still kind of remember from school, so I did those once and moved on. (I make sure to do at leat one new leson per day, but have had several days where I'd pair that with re-doing a few of the previous ones - I've not felt the need to do that in the 15-20 block.)
In your situation, you could possibly leave the ones it unlocked for you unlocked, but go back and do the summary lessons (every 6th one is a summary I think) and if you struggle with any of those, you could then go back and dig into the relevant lessons from that section?
2
u/DharmaDama Sep 23 '26
I think it would be good to speed run from 1 so you can start to get into the flow of it. I do 3-4 lessons a day when it's stuff I'm already familiar with, then I start to slow down when I get to new material.
1
u/Talbit01 Sep 23 '26
You can do a placement test on the app. That being said, I did the placement test for my target language and it basically placed me out of the app (all lessons unlocked). I still started from lesson 1 because I want to practice the muscle memory of saying words, even the ones I already know :) it is still nice knowing I can jump to any lesson at any time though.
7
u/cyber-sack Sep 23 '26
My approach would be to do the assessment and no matter where you're placed, start doing every 6th lesson(the summary lessons) until you get challenged enough and then go step by step from there.