Learning a language is a loooong journey.
And most people crash because they fall asleep.
Let’s be honest. Traditional way of learning languages is boring, and not that effective. Why? You spend more time on conjugation tables and reading meaningless sample sentences than actually spending time listening and reading to real language.
At Obstino you learn language indirectly by learning things you actually like.
Obstino U mimics a real university where you take classes about the things you are interested in like climate change, the history of china, cognitive biases, diets or investing. Eventually we want to have 100 classes.
Oh, and you take those classes in the language you want to learn.
Enroll in classes that interest YOU.
They are very real and very Spanish.
Cognitive Bias
Time Management
Geography of Spain
Cold War
Political Systems
Becoming a Digital Nomad
How It Works
Cosmology
Meditations
North Korea
Living a Healthy Life
History of China
Basics of Physics
Space X
Money Investing
Global Warming
“... but how can I understand classes about topics like Climate Change in Spanish if I’m just a beginner?”
Good question, Ollie. That’s our secret sauce.
But we don’t mind sharing the recipe.
We use simple words to tell rich stories.
In our classes, professors use only the most common words in that language.
We’ve got three levels of difficulty. Each level has their own set of words that can be used in classes. For example in the preschool level we only use 500 most common words to tell stories.
Beginner — 500 words
Intermediate — 1000 words
Advnaced — 1500 words
But that's not all.
All classes use the following three techniques so that students can understand them better.
1. Gesticulation
Have you ever tried to communicate with a person who doesn’t speak your language? Most likely you used some form of gesticulation. Non-verbal communication is extremely helpful for beginner students as your mind easily connects the sounds of words to their meaning.
2. Drawing
Another helpful tool in helping you understand the story is use of drawings. Professors can point at things while speaking certain words to make sure that you understand their meaning even if you have never heard those words before.
3. Context
Context is king when it comes to language learning. If you listen to a real story or conversaton, you can guess the meaning of some of the words. Having context is like having a strong expectation of what follows next.
Count 1 Million Words To Your Basic Fluency
Instead of showing you progress as meaningless points, we actually count the number of words you listened to and read in each task you complete.
You can use that number to find out when you’ll reach basic fluency. What does basic fluency mean to us? It means you can watch and read content made for natives.
Traditional learning has been in power for far too long…
