The Refold Method is written as if you're learning from absolute zero — like you just decided, today, to learn German or Swahili or whatever. That's just the most logical way to organize the information.
But most people who come across this method aren't absolute beginners. Maybe you've had years of classes, or you're living in the country, or you have a 2000-day streak on Duolingo.
This article is here to help you figure out where in the process you should start, so you don't waste your time.
If you're a total beginner, you can skip the rest of this article and move on to Phase 1: Foundations.
A "false beginner" is someone who has taken classes in school or has been learning on an app for a few months, but still can't really understand anything in the language.
This is where the vast majority of language learners in the world end up. There's nothing wrong with being a false beginner — everyone on the Refold team has been one.
If you know a bit about your target language but can't understand more than basic sentences, you're a false beginner. Start with Phase 1: Foundations, but you can either skip or skim Phase 1A.
If you're here to learn the native language of your parents or grandparents, you're a heritage speaker. If you grew up hearing the language at home and picked up a lot of it naturally, you have a huge head start.
A common challenge for heritage speakers is that, while they often have very good pronunciation and listening skills, they have a limited vocabulary and little knowledge of the written language. This is especially true if the language has a very different writing system — for example, someone growing up in the United States with Mandarin-speaking parents.
If you're a heritage speaker, it's still a good idea to start with Phase 1: Foundations and work through the phases in order, but you'll complete them much faster — potentially in half or a third of the time it takes a total beginner.
Phase 1 focuses on how to learn. Phase 2 is about building up comprehension skills, which you may already partly have. Phases 3 and 4 you'll probably find pretty easy. Once you get to Phase 5 and beyond, things will even out and you'll be in more or less the same boat as other learners.
If you've been taking classes or learning for a while, you might be an upper beginner. You can read simple texts and understand basic conversation — maybe even hold a simple conversation yourself. You probably know 1,000–2,000 words and have a grasp of the basic grammar.
Your best starting point is 2B — Develop your Comprehension, but take a quick detour through 1B — Effort Tracking first. Phase 1B covers ideas that are very helpful for the method as a whole. You could just read it, then jump right to 2B.
Some upper beginners prefer starting from Phase 1A and working through it quickly, just to get a refresher on the basics and make sure everything is fresh. If you haven't studied the language in a few years, that's probably the best option for you.
Maybe you used to be pretty decent at the language — you studied it for years, or spent time living abroad — but then life happened. You stopped using it, and now, years later, you've forgotten a lot.
The good news is that reactivating a language is significantly faster than learning one from scratch. A lot of what you learned is still in there, just buried. Immersion tends to bring it back surprisingly quickly.
If you're not sure where you stand anymore, try watching a TV show or reading a short article in the language. If you can follow the gist with some effort, start at 2B — Develop your Comprehension or 2C — Solidify your Reading. If it feels like starting over, treat yourself as a false beginner or upper beginner (above) and start earlier. You'll move fast either way.
If you can read easy books, watch YouTube videos and mostly understand what's being said, you're probably intermediate. You may also be able to have a decent conversation or write text messages in the language.
But that's about it. Intermediate learners struggle with depth. Fast movies or TV shows are hard. When two or three native speakers talk to each other, you're totally lost.
If this is you, it's probably best to jump into 2C — Solidify your Reading, or even skip straight to 3A — Overcome the Listening Gap. I'd recommend starting with 2C just while you learn how to learn with the Refold method, then move on to 3A after a few dozen hours.
You should also read through 1B — Effort Tracking, since it covers ideas that are useful for the method as a whole. But don't start there.
If you already know several thousand words and have been learning for a while, but want to brush up and take things further, there are a lot of places you could start.
You'll probably benefit from the techniques and resources across all the phases, but you don't need to do them in order. Depending on what you want to focus on:
Once you finish a phase, you can jump to a different one or just keep going forward chronologically.
If you're already a high-level user of the language but want to use the Refold method to improve your study habits and pick up more useful techniques, it's going to be hard for me to point you to one specific place.
The best thing for you would probably be to read through the entire roadmap and then take whatever seems valuable and put it into your own routine. You might like some of the foundational activities taught in Phase 2: Comprehension, or the more specialized ones in Phase 7: And Beyond. Browse, experiment, and take what works.