refold

The story behind Refold and our new course.

Hey there patrons!

Ethan here! Long time no see! I’ve been hard at work and haven’t been around the community as much as I would like, but I wanted to share something with you all.

Have you ever wondered why I teamed up with Matt to start Refold?

As part of our recent course launch, we created a whole video explaining how Refold came to be and what inspired my passion for language learning. Check it out. 👀

I also wanted to thank you for your continued support as...

Miss the April Q&A? Here it is!

Hi there Patreon fam! 

Thanks to everyone who made it to the April livestream. We had a blast answering your questions and we can't wait to see you next month. 

If you weren't able to make it to the live event, no worries! As a patron, you have exclusive access to the full recording.

If you have questions you want Ethan to answer in the next livestream, feel free to leave them in the comments of this post! 

Time Stamps:

• 2023-04-27 19:13:14 +0000 UTC View Post

April was AMAZING — Read all about it!

Hi Patreon fam 👋

Time flies, doesn't it? In the blink of an eye, April is almost over, and oh boy, have we been busy! We can't wait to tell you what we've been up to, so grab a piping hot cup of coffee, and let's catch up.

🗨️ Send Ethan your questions!

Join us on April 27th at 9 AM PT for our second community Q&A live event on YouTube! Submit your questions in the comments of 2023-04-24 19:09:15 +0000 UTC View Post

Whoops!

Whoops!

We got our time zones mixed up. The stream is at 9 AM pacific time, which is 12 PM eastern time!

Sorry for the mix up.

See you there 👋

Join our next Q&A event on 4/27 @ 9 AM PT

Are you ready for our next Q&A event? This is the perfect opportunity to get your questions answered by Ethan! 

To make sure we're fully prepped for the stream, please submit your questions in advance by leaving a comment below. 

We can't wait to hear from you!

Attend Q&A Event:https://www.youtube.com/live/p0lJe1WF0_w?feature=share 2023-04-21 19:10:30 +0000 UTC View Post

March Community Q&A Recording

Hi Patrons!

As promised, here's the full unedited version of the March Community Q&A!

0:00 Intro
7:00 How should I learn as a heritage speaker?
12:05 Are language parents still worth it?
19:34 What's up with the Refold Roadmap?
23:38 Does translated content cause problems?
31:37 What about Refold "learning paths" for specific languages?
37:08 Should I do more reading or listening?
43:45 Can I learn 2 languages at the same time?
49:51 How can I m...

Get your language learning questions answered LIVE on stream!

Hey patrons! 🎉

Have questions about language learning? We have answers! We're thrilled to announce our new Monthly Q&A livestream, where all your language-learning questions will be tackled by Ethan on the last Thursday of every month.

Our first community Q&A event is on Thursday, March 30th, @ 9 AM pacific, so mark your calendars!

Want your question featured LIVE on stream? Shoot your questions our way by submitting them in the comments below.

Can’t make ...

The KO1K V2 is LIVE!

Hi Patrons!

As many of you may be aware, we’ve been working on revamping the Korean 1K deck and a Korean grammar primer. We’re excited to announce that the KO1K V2 is now live! We completely rebuilt the KO1K from the ground up with…

🎙️ Brand-new audio
📝 Example sentences
📸 High-quality images
🔠 Grammar tips

Yes, you read that right. Instead of releasing a separate grammar primer, the KO1K is the first Refold deck to feature grammar explanation...

Behind the scenes look into Refold's latest projects

Hi Patreon Family!

As always, thank you so much for your generous support.

The start of this year has been a whirlwind! Here’s an inside look at everything we’ve been working on.

🚀 Coaching Launch

In December, we launched our coaching program publicly and received a great response! Over the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of helping more than two dozen learners across eight different languages.

Working with clients has given us an incr...

2-Years! Can you believe it!

We're rapidly approaching the 2-year anniversary of Refold and I couldn't be more excited.

The past two years have been a roller coaster of awesome. In just the past year alone, we quadrupled the size of our team, started working 1:1 with clients, started a podcast and more.

And we couldn't have done it without YOU!

As thanks, we're inviting you to celebrate with us on our 2-year anniversary livestream on Saturday, December 10, 2022, at 1:00 PM pacific time!

Join the p...

Stage 4 is here!

After many requests from the community, we have decided to release Stage 4!

We've spent the past few months writing, editing, and debating, and we're very excited to share this new release with Patrons. We think you'll find it illuminating.

We'd love your feedback before publishing on the main website. Feel free to comment on this post, or in the patron section of Discord, or shoot us an email at feedback@refold.la

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

October Livestream!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our livestream!

Check it out for an update on all the Refold projects including Stage 4, new Decks, a Refold App and more!

8:21 Refold Update (Ethan)

19:46 New Refold Content (Ben)

26:33 Seeder Playlists (Clayton)

32:34 Lessons from Coaching (Vanessa)

43:46 How we built the DE1K (Josh)

57:11 Community Conference

1:02:07 Cantonese Starter Deck (Cole)

1:11:10 German Server Update (...

10/15 Livestream @ 1PM PST

Hello to all our lovely patrons!

It's that time, once again, for our Patron livestream!

We've been heads down working on all sorts of projects we want to share with you.

The livestream is scheduled for Saturday, October 15th @ 1PM PST! 

Join us to learn more about :

- All the new projects we've been working on.

- A live Q&A session

- A community conference with updates from our moderators.

- Lots more goodies!

Patron Only Release! - Spanish Grammar Guide

This morning, we publicly released our Japanese grammar primer. A big thank you to all the patrons who helped proofread and provide feedback. So far, we've gotten a lot of really positive responses from learners, so we're expanding into other languages!

But Ethan, why is Refold writing grammar guides?

Because ...

JP Grammar Primer

Hi everybody!

We've noticed a problem with traditional grammar guides: they all try to teach you how to speak!

Speaking with grammar rules is hard, but learning basic grammar can help you understand your immersion better.

We wrote this guide to help with that process and we'd love your feedback! You can post it here or on discord.

Thank you!

PS: Big thanks...

8/20 Patron Livestream!

Did you miss the last livestream? Don't worry! We got another one coming your way.

We’ve been working on something special for our Patreon community for this livestream! Join for special appearances from Ethan (our CEO), Refold team members, and Refold community members. You’ll also have the opportunity to watch Lamont, from Days of French ‘n’ Swedish, interview Hulk about his astounding Spanish & Cantonese language learning progress.

You can watch live on 2022-08-17 23:19:24 +0000 UTC View Post

July 16th Public Livestream!

Link to Recording 

Can you believe it! We're already halfway through the year!

And that means we're overdue for a Refold public livestream!

Join our free public livestream this coming Saturday to learn about:

• Changes coming to the Patreon and the community.
• Data science in language learning.
• All our cool plans for the next 6 months.
• Meet all the new tea...
  2022-07-12 19:09:15 +0000 UTC View Post

Patreon Q&A - June 25th, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:

0:05 - I'm scared I'm losing the initial drive I had to learn my TL... how can I reverse this?

6:57 - How viable is a minimalist Anki approach?

9:51 - Is Matt going to do more interviews with successful language learners?

10:33 - What is the downside to doing only free flow immersion and no intensive immersion?

15:06 - How can I break the habit of constantly analyzing my TL during immersion?

19:37 - I'm an an intermediate level in two language...

Patreon Q&A - May 28th, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:

0:22 - Isn't it contradictory to say that "motivation is important" but also you "shouldn't try hard while immersing"?

22:55 - I understand a lot while immersing, but after immersing, I only remember the gist of what I listened to (and not the exact words). Is this normal?

27:33 - According to the FSI language rankings, a native English speaker can learn French 4 times faster than Arabic. Will this still be true while using Refold?

31:14 - How much progre...

May 13 Livestream + New Blog Post

Hey everybody!

Our next livestream with Matt and Lamont is this Friday at 1PM Pacific Time (GMT-7). All $10 patrons are eligible to attend. As usual, please post your questions ahead of time in the supporter discord server.

I also wanted to share a question and answer we got from a $10 patron a few weeks ago regarding improving listening ability.

The transition away from subtitles to pure listening is a challenge for a lot of learners (myself included). In the attached blog ...

Patreon Q&A - April 30th, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:

0:21 - What is the piece of language learning advice that Matt has given in the past but he most disagrees with now?

2:44 - What traits do people who learn a language relatively faster than others have in common?

9:02 - In Stage 3, what's the best way to make use of an iTalki teacher?

12:17 - Is it a good idea to have monolingual definitions of the back of Anki cards even if you don't fully understand them?

13:59 - Is this a good language learning r...

April 15th Livestream

Our monthly livestream is scheduled for April 15th @ 1PM Pacific Time. Lots of fun/exciting things have been happening in the past few weeks that we're excited to tell you about.

As usual, we'll be hosting in the supporter server and on google meets. If you have questions for me, Matt, or Lamont, please post them in the #questions channel!

I'll post the meeting link in the #meeting-link channel when ready.

Hope to see you there!

Patreon Q&A - March 26th, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Intro

0:53 - Should I focus on catching my listening ability up to my reading ability or continuing to grow my reading ability?

6:48 - What are Matt's favorite anime?

10:37 - What is Matt's definition of "conversationally fluent"?

13:33 - What's the best way to sentence mine on a Kindle or iPad?

17:13 - If Matt was to re-learn Japanese with an all-listening approach without Anki, how would he learn vocabulary?

19:16 - If bordem wa...

Last chance to download decks

As many of you know, we've been working towards moving off patreon. Patreon's tier model is very limited and their API is very buggy. We're planning to migrate all patron benefits to the website over the next few months.

One of the biggest complaints we get is that the deck download process is too complicated and that people don't want to sign up for a subscription to access the decks. Based on that feedback, the first piece we're migrating off patreon is the deck purchases so people ca...

3/18 Livestream

Attention $10 patrons! We're hosting our next Livestream Q&A this Friday at 12pm PDT. 

If you have questions for me, Matt, or Lamont, please post them in the questions channel of the supporter server!  I'll post the meeting link in the meeting-link channel when ready.  Hope to see you there!

2-minute survey

Got 2 minutes? Tell us how your immersion is going.

We want to know what you're struggling with so we can create the tools and guidance to help you overcome those barriers.

Thanks for your time!

$200 value for FREE

Hey everybody!

We’re very excited to announce a new partnership we’ve been working on for the past few months with a brand new language learning app called Nonsense. Nonsense turns your favorite Hollywood movies into language learning right on your phone.

Imagine if HBO, LingQ, and Tiktok had a baby and that baby was a language learning expert. They’ve taken hundreds of the best Hollywood films and added popup dictionaries, sentence mining, and language lessons all in the pa...

Patreon Q&A - February 26th, 2022

TIMESTAMPS:

0:33 - Are 1-mora accented nouns considered atamadaka or odaka?

10:23 - What are some pronunciation exercises you recommend other than shadowing?

12:11 - If I'm watching two shows and one is more comprehensible than the other, which should I watch raw and which should I watch with TL subs?

16:18- If I'm taking a trip to a country in 6 months from now and want to learn a bit of the language before going, does it still make sense to do Refold?

19:49 -...

When should you start output?

Hi Everybody! Ethan here.

After my last video, I got a lot of requests for more content so I'm going to start producing content more regularly. If you would like to see anything in particular from me, please respond to this post.

To kick things off: 

There's been a lot of debate over when learners should start output so I want to explain the reasons behind Refold's official recommendations so that ...

Past Month Updates

Hi everyone! I just want to give you a quick update on what we've been working on the past few weeks.

Deck updates

All decks have been updated! (JP1K, ES1K, KO1K, FR1K)

Thanks to everyone who submitted feedback! We've addressed most concerns, but there are some that will require a more significant upgrade to the decks so we're punting those until the next version.

Deck page

Not sure where to get the decks? Don't worry! We've now got a page on the w...