1. Can you learn 1 Japanese word perfectly?
2. No? Come on. Don’t be such a used tampon. Go back to step (1).
3. Yes? OK, go to the next step.
4. Do you still remember the word from step (1)?
5. No? Maybe? Review it in an SRS.
6. Yes? Good. Now, pick a new word and return to step (1).

It’s maths, not magic. Arithmetic, not alchemy ¹. Arithmetic always works, anywhere in the Universe. And even street kids — who never got to enjoy things like a home to be ashamed of and books to avoid reading and a school to hate — can do arithmetic.

Let’s review.

1. Can you learn one word?
2. Can you learn another word before you forget the last one?
3. Then you, my friend, can learn a language.

You can learn a language. Any language. To the highest levels of proficiency. You can be the one telling native speakers what’s up (a lot of native speakers aren’t that good at their own languages; if you keep improving, you will outdo them).

You can learn any language to fluency. It’s a mathematical inevitability. It’s practically an industrial process, with some organic parts to keep it fun, that is, “psychologically ergonomic”, because neither your butt nor your brain is made up of right angles, planes, straight lines and other perfect Euclidean forms. Blah blah fractals blah blah Mandelbrot set blah freaking blah you get the idea.

When a dog attacks a human being, that dog is likely to get put down. Why? Because we figure that if s/he crosses the line once, s/he’ll cross it again. Well, you are a dog ². If you cross the word line once, you can cross it again — if you let yourself. If you can learn one word, you can learn a thousand. And ten thousand. The process is identical. In fact, it’s better than identical — it actually gets easier over time, because you can use the words you already know to learn new ones. How awesome is that?

Pretty effin ossome. So stop euthanizing yourself. Start showing up. Let yourself live to cross the line again and again and again…