How to make comprehensible input videos in under 15 minutes
Comprehensible input is engineered, not easy. Here are the rules I follow as ThatGermanWord (start with meaning, stretch one level, control the unknown words, repeat them within a video and across videos), the 15-minute workflow I use in Reelang Studio to script, record, add visuals and publish, and why posting the same video to every platform brings language teachers new students without spending anything on ads.
Chief Language Geek @ Reelang
I speak five languages, and in July I started posting comprehensible input in German as ThatGermanWord. Since then about 18,000 people have started following along, and some of the videos I made in Reelang Studio have passed 100,000 views and are still climbing. This post covers the rules I follow when I plan a video, and then the exact workflow I use to go from an idea to a published video in about 15 minutes. If you'd rather watch, the video below covers the same ground, with the full walkthrough in the second half.
How do you make great comprehensible input?
What comprehensible input is
Comprehensible input is speech a learner understands at their level, with a little in it that sits just beyond that level. Watch enough hours of it and the beyond part slowly becomes the level.
It is hard to make as a native speaker, because you know every word and every grammar rule, and you no longer notice which ones a learner doesn't. Easy content is not the same as good comprehensible input. Good comprehensible input is engineered. It is planned so that it is:
- understandable enough that a learner stays with you to the end of the video,
- interesting enough that it appeals to an adult, not just to a textbook,
- repeated enough that the same words and the same grammar come back again and again, without you ever teaching them. The learner gets a feel for what sounds natural over minutes, then hours, then days of listening.
The rules
These are the rules I worked out over time. Each one lines up with what the research on input-based learning says.
1. Start with meaning
A learner should understand the situation before they analyze the language. Show what is happening: gestures, images, props, context. Don't explain every word, because that turns a video into a lesson and makes it boring. If you point at yourself while you say ich, nobody needs a translation.
2. Tell a story that carries the language
Pick a story an adult would actually want to hear. Breakfast in Germany, a trip to the dry cleaners, your first day at a new job. The story holds attention, and the language rides along with it.
3. Stretch one level, one small step at a time
Aim for language just above the level you are targeting. An absolute beginner video is possible, but it has to lean heavily on visuals. Whatever the level, stretch the learner one step and no more.
Bad comprehensible input changes many things at once. Good comprehensible input changes one. Flip between the two plans:
4. Control the unknown words
This does not mean translating anything. It means keeping most words either known (from what a learner at that level has already heard) or guessable (from a visual, a gesture, the situation), and introducing only a few new ones. Those few are your teachable words.
Start with high-frequency words, the most common ones in the language. There are word frequency lists for almost every language, and checking your script against one tells you quickly whether a word is in range for your learner or far outside it.
5. Recycle every new word
A new word that shows up once is noise. Bring each teachable word back several times in the same video, and do the same with a new grammar structure. Repetition is what lets input stick.
6. Repeat across videos, not only within one
Repetition is the engine of comprehensible input. A learner who hears a word five times in one video and never again will lose it. So let words and patterns come back over the course of many videos: the Brötchen from your breakfast video turns up again in a video about the bakery, the ich esse pattern returns when you talk about lunch. Don't make it a review session. Weave it in where it fits the story, the way the same words keep coming back in real life.
The workflow: from idea to published video in 15 minutes
Following all six rules by hand is a lot of work, which is why we built Reelang Studio. This is the workflow from the video, step by step, using a one-minute A1 video about breakfast in Germany.
Pick the language, level and format
I choose my dialect (standard German), the level (A1 on the CEFR scale, a real beginner), and how I want to make the video. There are three formats:
- Scripted with visuals: you record yourself in front of a webcam, reading from a script.
- Freestyle: you talk into the camera without a script and add visuals afterwards.
- Footage: you upload something you filmed out and about (a supermarket, the dry cleaners, a hospital) and add visuals to that.
Write the script, with the frequency check built in
I type the idea and a bit of context ("the typical German breakfast: bread rolls, jam, butter, honey, coffee or tea"), pick a target length, and AI drafts a script in a minute or two.
The draft is colored by word frequency: the darker the yellow, the more common the word. Words with a solid outline are the teachable words of this video. Words with a dotted outline are ones you can gesture, like gut (a thumbs up) or ich (pointing at yourself). A level check at the top compares the script with what an A1 learner can handle, so if a rare word slips in you see it right away. I edit the script until it sounds like me, and the level check updates as I type. It is rough guidance, not a rule you have to obey.
Record with a teleprompter
Studio records in the browser with the script as a teleprompter, paced for the level, with pauses where a beginner needs them. I can retake as often as I like. Once I keep a take, Studio transcribes what I actually said (not what the script said, since I always change a few words while recording) and cleans up the audio so a webcam recording sounds closer to a studio one.
Add visuals that carry the meaning
This is where rule 1 happens. Studio suggests visuals for the words that need them, and I keep the good ones and skip the rest. For anything missing I have three options:
- reuse an image from the existing library (Deutschland, das Brötchen),
- generate a new one ("a clock showing 9 AM", "a sunrise for Morgen"),
- paste a link to a photo or video from Pexels, with a start time if the good part of a clip begins a few seconds in. For actions like eating or cutting bread, a short video usually works better than a photo.
A visual stays anchored to its word, so every time I repeat Kaffee the same coffee shows up again. That is rule 5 doing its job on screen. I also drag labels inside the safe zone so TikTok's and Instagram's buttons don't cover them, then watch the full preview once and fix what bothers me.
Publish everywhere
I connect YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn once. Studio renders the video (you can also download the file), drafts a title, description and the hashtags learners actually search on each platform, and posts it in one click. If your Instagram account has more than 1,000 followers, you can also publish a few different cuts of the same video as trial reels: Instagram shows them to people who don't follow you yet and you see which one holds attention best.
Post to every platform. You can't predict where you'll land.
I would never have guessed where my own videos work best.
As ThatGermanWord, my most active audience is on TikTok, and the videos that do best there are the ones I record out and about and then edit in Studio. On Instagram it is the other way around: the more produced videos, where I talk into the camera at home with strong visual cues, do best. YouTube hasn't really taken off for me.
My co-founder Roman makes Russian comprehensible input as ThatRussianWord, and for him it is almost inverted: Instagram is his strongest channel by far.
Neither of us could have planned that. The only way to find out is to post the same video everywhere and look at the numbers. Once your accounts are connected in Studio, trying another platform costs you nothing except creating a profile. That includes LinkedIn, which pushes video hard in its feed and has far less language learning content competing for attention.
For language teachers: the cheapest way to find your own students
If you teach, this section is for you.
Around 30 people have asked me if I teach. I've never said that I do.
I don't teach. I've never advertised lessons, and nothing in my profiles says I give classes. Even so, in the past few months around 30 people have messaged me on TikTok and Instagram to ask whether I teach and how they could book a class with me.
That happened because comprehensible input shows learners exactly what they'd get from you. They have already spent hours listening to you, they understand you, and they trust that you know how to pitch the language at their level. TikTok's and YouTube's algorithms push this kind of video to people who are learning the language, so the audience that finds you is the audience that might book you.
For a teacher, that means a way to find direct clients outside platforms like italki and Preply, with no commission and no ad budget. The video takes 15 minutes, posting it costs nothing, and learners are grateful for it either way. There is more on how this works for teachers on our page for language teachers.
Where your videos can go next
Reelang is a feed of comprehensible input from real creators, sorted by level, for people learning a language. When your videos are on Reelang, learners watch them on your channel (the views, likes and follows are yours), and they find you at the level where your videos actually help them. More on that on our page for comprehensible input creators.
We also run a Top Creators program for people whose videos work especially well for beginners: in the target language, a real human voice, everyday topics, and something to look at. I wrote up what we look for in how we choose top creators. If you follow the rules above, you are most of the way there.
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