The Secret of Learning: Why You Still Can't Do It After Watching All Those Tutorials

I need to confess something first—I'm the poster child for "loves learning but sucks at it."

You've definitely met people like this. They buy tons of books, bookmark dozens of tutorials, take better notes than anyone else, but the moment they need to apply anything? Total deer in headlights. That's me. The most embarrassing part? I genuinely love learning. I put in so much effort it even moves me. But the output? Basically zero.

This gap forced me to think: what the hell went wrong?

From "My Brain Sucks" to "My Method Sucks"

First instinct? Blame my brain. After years of exam-oriented education grinding me down, I had to admit I'm not exactly gifted. But who wants to just accept that fate? If the hardware's bad, you gotta make up for it with software, right?

So I started this long, tedious "method-hunting journey," reading every learning methodology book out there—from How to Learn Efficiently to How to Read a Book. I practically wanted to read every damn book about learning.

The process was actually pretty interesting. At first, I loved reading articles that criticized school education. They felt so right—it's not my fault I can't learn! But then I thought about it: why can some people still learn just fine? If it's really the education system's fault, shouldn't everyone be failing?

That thought hit me: it's not that methods don't exist—I just never found the right one.

Why Are Classrooms Still "Teacher Talks, Students Listen"?

Have you ever thought about this: it's 2025, why is classroom teaching still the same format from hundreds of years ago? Teacher lectures up front, students listen below. Technology has evolved so much, why is education still so "backwards"?

I used to think this showed education's refusal to innovate. But later I figured something out—what survives tends to touch the essence.

Why haven't all those "innovative teaching models" replaced traditional classrooms? Not because they're not good enough, but because traditional classrooms captured the core of learning: letting students observe up close how someone who "gets it" does things.

That's the power of imitation.

Imitation Isn't Copying Answers—It's Stealing Skills

Let me tell you about learning Python.

I used to hate typing out code from examples. Felt like a waste of time—if there's already code there, why not just copy-paste? But now my thinking's completely changed. Even if it's AI-generated code, I'll type it out line by line.

Why? Because I discovered the act of copying isn't simple duplication—it's your brain actively reconstructing that code.

While you're typing, you think: why is it written this way? Why name the variable like that? Could this function be written differently? These thoughts don't happen when you copy-paste, but they naturally emerge when you type character by character.

This reminds me of learning English. My English actually improved through the iPhone translation feature—yeah, that most basic translation tool.

My method: when I encounter a sentence I don't know how to say, I use translation to see it once, then imitate and translate it myself. Not memorizing words, not studying grammar. Just seeing how others say it, then saying it myself. After a few months, my expression skills improved dramatically.

That's the essence of imitation: not memorizing "what it is," but learning "how to do it."

Why Is Internship a Hundred Times More Useful Than Class?

Last night I was with my attending in the ER, saw a tetanus patient. The doctor showed me some videos demonstrating typical symptoms. When I got back and looked up resources, asked AI tools, I found the impression incredibly deep—those medical terms just jumped into my brain. (The doctor even said, "Knowledge you discover yourself leaves a deeper impression.")

Compare that to my previous learning method: memorize theory first, finish memorizing without knowing what it's for, forget it all after the exam.

What's the difference? The order is reversed.

Traditional learning: Theory → Practice Internship-style learning: Observe → Imitate → Understand theory

Why is the latter more effective? Because your brain has an "index." When I saw that tetanus patient's symptoms, "opisthotonus" was no longer just four words in a textbook—it became a specific, visualizable image. Then when I learned the theory, I was adding explanation to an existing image, not building concepts in a vacuum.

This is why internships, apprenticeships, and mentorship—these ancient learning methods—are still so effective: they let you see the complete workflow, including details that textbooks never mention.

Find Your "Imitation Target"

If learning's essence is imitation, the question becomes: imitate who?

My mentor told me, if you want to write good papers, read the best papers. Sounds like stating the obvious, but think about it carefully—your imitation target's level is basically your ceiling.

I have a habit now when learning anything: find the best person in that field, watch how they do it. Learning writing? Watch Li Xiaolai. Learning programming? Study top open-source project code. Learning product? Reverse-engineer the most successful products.

But here's the key: what you need to see isn't the result—it's the process.

Most people's problem is they only see others' finished work, can't see how they made it. You see an amazing article, only see the final text, can't see how many drafts the author went through, how many times they restructured it. You see elegant code, can't see how the programmer refactored it from a tangled mess to what it is now.

This is why video tutorials are easier to learn from than text, why pair programming with experts accelerates growth—because you see their thinking process.

From Imitation to Creation

Li Xiaolai said in Self-Learning Is a Craft that learning has four stages: "learn, practice, use, create."

I get it now—these four stages are actually a deepening process of imitation:

• Learn: Observe how others do it
• Practice: Imitate and do it once
• Use: Apply it in real scenarios
• Create: Form your own style

Most people get stuck between "learn" and "practice" because they're missing the observation step. You just read theory, don't know how to actually do it. You want to practice, but don't know what to practice.

Once you find something to imitate, the path becomes smooth. You don't need to think "how should I learn?" You just need to think "how did they do it, can I do it the same way?"

Now when I learn anything new, the first thing I do is find a sample to imitate—a project, an article, a video. Then like an elementary student copying calligraphy, I recreate it stroke by stroke.

Dumb? Sure is. But does it work? Absolutely.

You might say, imitating so mechanically, can you learn anything deep? My answer: once you imitate enough, understanding happens automatically. Just like when you practice calligraphy enough, you naturally understand what brushwork is, what structure is.

Learning was never a linear process. You don't need to understand all principles before starting. You just need to start, and understanding will gradually emerge in the process.

Maybe this is learning's most humble truth: find someone who knows, watch how they do it, then do it yourself.

It's that simple.