Let me share a story about how an encounter with my two-year-old nephew completely changed my perspective on language learning, and supercharged my language learning skills.

Here’s the situation: I had moved to Poland.

While I didn’t technically need to speak Polish immediately—I worked remotely in English, and my lovely wife and I spoke Spanish at home—I still wanted to be a part of the society I was living in.

So, naturally, learning the language was a must. But Polish is so hard! Or is it?

The Start of the Journey – The Traditional Route

I did what many people do when they want to learn a new language: I signed up for a course.

Twice a week, I attended classes. Over time, I went from knowing absolutely nothing to… well, still not knowing much. Sure, I learned a few new words here and there, but my progress was painfully slow and there was zero chance I could use the language in everyday situations.

After a few months, my level of Polish was embarrassingly basic. I couldn’t blame the school—let’s be honest, the real issue was me. I wasn’t a great student.

The truth was, even though I wanted to learn Polish, I wasn’t excited about it. It felt like a chore. And when you’re faced with something as hard as learning a new language, excitement makes all the difference. Without it, the journey feels endless and not worth taking.

I didn’t want to study harder. I didn’t want learning Polish to feel like a chore.

I needed a different approach.

The Turning Point: A Lesson from a Two-Year-Old

That’s when I remembered my nephew, Manu. He was just two years old at the time, and my wife and I had visited my sister’s family in Mexico. We spent a few days by the beach, enjoying some family time together.

Manu barely spoke a handful of words. One of them was “agua”—water in Spanish.

But what amazed me was how he used that one word to communicate just about everything.

When Manu wanted water, he said “agua.”

When he wanted to go to the pool, he said “agua.”

When he wanted to go to the beach, “agua.”

When he wanted to go to the showers between the beach and the pool, “agua.”

When he DIDN’T want any more water, he said “agua.”

Even when he wanted ice, it was “agua.” (awesome).

This one word was his entire vocabulary for anything remotely related to water.

Now, keeping up with what Manu wanted wasn’t easy. Sometimes, he’d start yelling “agua, agua, agua!” If you handed him a glass of water, but he really wanted to go to the beach, he’d push the water away and insisted until you figured out which sort of water he wanted this time.

All this time, not only he was not feeling ashamed, he was actually thinking I was the idiot.

He didn’t get discouraged. He didn’t stop communicating. He used what he had, insisted on being understood, and did NOT give up. And I played along.

So instead of signing up to another two months of painfully slow classes for almost no progress, I decided to give this approach a try: I would learn like a child.

The Plan

Here’s what I did.

I asked my wife if we could speak only Polish at home for an entire month.

To guarantee success, we set a few rules:

• Rule 1: We would always speak in Polish for the whole month, no exceptions.

• Rule 2: Well, one exception: after dinner, we could switch to Spanish. This rule made sense for us because we follow the Uruguayan-Spanish tradition of eating dinner late—around 9 or 10 pm. By then, we only had about an hour left in the day before bed. If you’re someone who eats dinner earlier like at 6pm, you could adapt this rule to allow you to speak your common language only for the final one hour of your day.

• Rule 3: There would be no attempts to correct me or get annoyed if it’s the tenth time I get told the word for “fork” but I just keep forgetting it – essentially, just try to communicate, like you would with a child who really has no other option.

And that was it — that was basically the entire plan.

Why It Made Sense (And Worked)

A big part of why this approach worked stems from something I learned in the Coursera course Learning How to Learn. Two key concepts were especially helpful:

1. Active Recall:
   This is when your brain works to retrieve knowledge rather than passively absorbing it. Watching videos, listening to podcasts, or reading can be helpful, but those methods rely on passive recall—you’re being reminded of things by the material itself.
   Active recall, on the other hand, forces you to dig into your brain and figure out how to express something and make those brain connections. When speaking Polish with my wife, I constantly had to ask myself, “How do I say this?” or “What’s that word again?” That mental effort supercharges your learning.

2. The Brain’s Diffuse Mode:
   This is when learning happens in the background, while you’re not actively focusing on the task. This was one of the reasons for our after-dinner “escape valve”—it gave our brains some time to relax and process everything.

3. Maintaining Sanity:
   This was our own reason, not from the course. Speaking only Polish for a full month is intense. That evening break wasn’t just about giving our brains a breather; it was also about preserving our sanity—mine and my wife’s. We needed that balance to make the experience sustainable.

And the good thing is that if you really have something very important to say, you just have to wait until the evening to express it. Sometimes you realise it’s not even needed! But the option is there if you really need it.

What I Learned

After a month of this experiment, here are my main takeaways on what made it work:

1. You Need a Basic Vocabulary: If you have zero words, this method won’t work. But with a small foundation of vocabulary—functional, everyday words—you can piece together meaning and start communicating. I learned that certain types of words unlock a lot of potential for expression. For example, verbs like “to want” are incredibly versatile. You might not know how to say “I’m thirsty,” but you can say, “I want drink,” and people will understand you. You may not know how to say “that’s enough”, but you can say “I want stop”. Functional language is the key to being able to express yourself.

Here’s a list I put together of some of the main concepts you need to make this happen. Once you know this list of words in your target language, you’re ready to carry out this experiment.

2. Use Manu’s Rule 1: Don’t Be Afraid to Sound Like an Idiot: This mindset is critical. Embrace the mistakes, the awkwardness, and the moments where you feel ridiculous.

3. Use Manu’s Rule 2: Don’t Give Up: Perseverance is everything. Language learning is hard, and the progress feels slow at times, but sticking with it makes all the difference.

Practical Examples

I also made it a point to seek real-world situations to use Polish.

One time, I went to the pharmacy with a prescription. I didn’t have to say much—the prescription explained most of it—but the pharmacist started speaking to me very quickly. I could barely follow what she said, but I caught the word “tomorrow” and noticed there were only two packs out of the three I was supposed to pick up. And from her tone and gestures, I understood there was an issue.

When she finished speaking, I responded in my best caveman Polish:

“Okay. Today, two packs. Tomorrow, I come back. Three packs. Yes?”

She smiled and said, “Yes.”

And that was it. We communicated. No perfect grammar, no fancy words—just functional language.

Here are some other tips for making basic vocabulary work from personal examples:

At one point, I wanted to say "a knight in armour". But I didn’t know how to say that in Polish, so I said "pan metalowy garnitur", which means "sir metal suit". Crystal clear.

Another time, I wanted to say "boat", but I didn’t know the word for it. I said "samochód wodny", which literally translates to "water car". Also impossible to not understand.

The same principle applies to other situations. For example, you might not know how to say "chocolate", but you can say food, black, yummy, and the other person might understand you mean chocolate.

Practice being resourceful and remember takeaway #3 – do not give up!

The results

After this month, my Polish EXPLODED.

I didn’t become a native in a month (far from it, I’m still actually developing) – but the difference was night and day.

We’d meet some family members or friends who we hadn’t seen in a while and they were blown away that I spoke Polish.

The crazy thing though, is that I didn’t really learn many new words or phrases during that time. I just had WAY more access to the ones I did know, and I could string them together half decently to be able to express my thoughts.

Isn’t that what speaking a language is?

Notes on Working with a Partner

The biggest challenge in this kind of setup is patience—specifically, the patience of the person doing the understanding.

It’s easier for the person trying to speak, even if they’re struggling.

For the listener, however, it requires real patience to piece together what’s being said. My wife was the one working hardest during this whole month!

Advice on Partner Selection AKA what to do when you don’t have a significant other at home able to do this with.

If you’re not married or living together with someone who speaks your target language, it’s obviously harder to immerse yourself in the target language.

What can you do?

Still seek language exchange EVERY DAY for a month, and have a commitment of at least 30 minutes of non-stop ACTIVELY SPEAKING in the target language.

Not reading, not listening to podcasts, not watching videos. ACTIVE SPEAKING.

If you live in the country where they speak your target language, find yourself a friendly local or two who are willing to help you out with this, either live or via phone.

If you do not live in a country where they speak your target language, then use the apps that facilitate language exchanges, like Tandem or HelloTalk.

Instead of asking people to teach you the language and correct you, explain what you’re trying to do, and ask them to act as your “understanding uncle” in the language. Their role is simply to try to decode what you’re saying while you practice expressing yourself with the limited vocabulary you have.

Set up these chats as a focused practice session where your main goal is to practice speaking, and that’s it.

During the rest of your days, completely forget about switching to your common language during the whole month. And seek out more chances to use the target language – in shops, restaurants, everywhere.

Force yourself to use the target language.

When you’re out and about trying to speak to people in caveman, a common issue is that people might notice your broken language skills and switch to English.

While they’re trying to be helpful, this won’t actually improve your target language, so you want to go back to your goal.

One strategy I used to use was saying in Polish, "I’m sorry, I don’t speak English. Do you speak Spanish?".

This usually worked because most people didn’t speak Spanish, so they stuck with Polish—even if it was broken.

If they did speak Spanish though, I’d often found myself a new friend, as they were super excited to practice it.

If you’re a native English speaker and you sort of don’t have other “Plan B language”, I’d recommend claiming to speak a less common language instead— Icelandic, Indonesian, Swahili, whatever language people would have almost zero chance of speaking in your target country.

If you do happen to bump into the one Icelander in the whole of Uruguay though, then admit they caught you, and explain your experiment. They’ll be interested and super supportive.

Why Not Rely on ChatGPT?

You might be tempted to use tools like ChatGPT. While it’s an incredible resource, I recommend avoiding it as much as possible, and use it only as a supplement, once you’re already doing the above.

One of the biggest hurdles in learning a language is the fear of sounding like an idiot in front of others.

Embrace that.

Even better – remember that you’re just a child (which you actually are in the target language).

While ChatGPT can help you with improving your language skills, it doesn’t tackle the root issue: being afraid to sound like an idiot in front of actual people.

Eventually, you’ll need to face it. And the sooner the better! Even if you sound like a caveman, it’s a step forward, and each step is a small win.

Final Thoughts

If you want to supercharge your language learning:

1. Learn a few basic functional words, with good pronunciation. My functional word list is here.

2. Fully commit to use them actively for a month.

3. Don’t be afraid to mess up – embrace it as part of the learning process.

4. Don’t give up.

Best wishes on your language learning journey!