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We combine three ideas, to create an immersive, interactive and personal way to learn German - one that supports retention, natural absorption, and steady progress toward fluency.
At Sloeful, our method combines three ideas: Comprehensible Input, Curious Content, and Varied Practice.
You get input that is understandable and meaningful, content that sparks your curiosity, and practice that helps you turn what you’ve understood into lasting knowledge.
Learners get input that is just above their level. This mirrors how people naturally acquire languages.
Learners explore curious topics such as culture, history, daily life, the news, etc. This fuels motivation - curiosity drives consistency.
After consuming input, learners reinforce what they’ve seen through active recall: flashcards, fill-in-the-blanks, quizzes, sentence builders, speaking practise, etc.
The result is an immersive, interactive, and personal way to learn German - one that supports retention, natural absorption, and steady progress toward fluency.
Let’s take a closer look at each part.
We are inspired by the work of linguist Stephen Krashen, who argues that people don’t truly learn languages by memorising rules. Instead, they acquire them by understanding meaningful messages.
Put simply: the key to learning a language is not drilling grammar, but understanding content.
Krashen called this comprehensible input - language that is mostly understandable, with just a little that is new.
This idea is often written as i+1:
When input is both understandable and interesting (ideally even compelling), the brain picks up words and grammar implicitly. In other words: when you can follow the meaning with ease, your brain naturally absorbs the language.
This principle has helped shape what we've built so far at Sloeful.
We provide comprehensible input in meaningful context, through:
Every resource is designed to keep you in context, so you can move smoothly between short, light pieces and longer, more immersive ones.
Learning German is easier when you’re genuinely interested in what you’re reading and hearing.
That’s why we focus on creating content that sparks curiosity.
At Sloeful, you’ll explore a range of larger topics:
Some pieces are short descriptions. Others are longer and more detailed.
All of them are designed to make German feel alive.
Because when you care about what you’re reading, your brain stops memorising, and starts absorbing.
Understanding is the first step - but to really remember what you’ve learned, you need to practise retrieving it.
Research in learning science shows that our brains remember things better when we:
This mix is what we call varied practice. It helps new words and patterns move from short-term memory into long-term memory, so you can use them naturally when you speak.
At Sloeful, we also take these principles into consideration, when creating new work for you.
For example, our reading materials often come with a variety of interactive exercises, so you can test, review and recall what you understood.
Along with providing comprehensible input, we give you varied practice to make sure what you understand is also what you remember - and can use with confidence when you need it.
We want to give special mention to our Digital Reader. It’s designed to make learning smoother, with these built-in features:
Our reader brings comprehensible input and varied practice together in one place. You’re not only understanding German as you read, but also reinforcing it - making the jump from recognition to confident use feel natural. A basic version is available on our public site, while the full version is included in our paid products.
