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Vocab Memorization

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josiah
Newbie
United States
Joined 5979 days ago

12 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian)
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 5
27 August 2014 at 5:12am | IP Logged 
Hello Everyone.

I'm am studying Egyptian Arabic and I've been having trouble with the vocab. I've been just trying to learn with flash cards through rote memorization and it's not been very effective. I was wondering if anyone could advise me to a better way to learn.

I heard about "Mind Palaces" in a book called "Moon Walking With Einstein" and this website http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/ .

I wanted to know if anyone here has tried it and have found it or any other techniques particularly useful.

Thank you for your time.
1 person has voted this message useful



rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5226 days ago

881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 2 of 5
27 August 2014 at 11:09am | IP Logged 
The problem with flashcards is sometimes a lack of context. Maybe if you try to find a book/article/other text available and strip the sentences out of them to put into your ANKI/Flashcard program then you'll see not just a bunch of random words, but a collection of words with a meaning.

There is also a program which can strip subtitles, audio from movies and load them into your ANKI program (or perhaps other flashcard apps) go here to get it. Subs2srs

ANKI

2 persons have voted this message useful



Doitsujin
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5310 days ago

1256 posts - 2363 votes 
Speaks: German*, English

 
 Message 3 of 5
27 August 2014 at 1:16pm | IP Logged 
I found it helpful to write down Arabic vowel signs and long vowels in transliterated Arabic in different colors. (I used red color for Arabic vowel signs and long vowels in transliterated Arabic. I also used blue color for the root* consonants in transliterated Arabic.)

For example, you could write down the following for اشتغل:

Front: اِشْتَغَلَ ishtaghala
Back: to work; root [ ش غ ل] ↗ shughl = work

*You can find out the root with ElixirFM Resolve Online. (You can enter Arabic text using Latin characters (Arabizi). Yamli will then display the most likely candidates in a list.)

3 persons have voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 4134 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 4 of 5
27 August 2014 at 1:50pm | IP Logged 
I've never learned Arabic. But for vocabulary, I don't really think that memory palaces are the way to go. Memory
palaces help you remember a set of distinct facts in order. You don't need to learn vocabulary in order; you have to
be able to access in multiple contexts.

Try:

- spaced repetition flashcards with example sentences, so that you're reviewing more difficult words more often
- mnemonics (a silly mental image) for particularly tricky words
- using difficult words three times in writing and three times orally within a day or two
- getting lots of input from different sources so that the words appear in multiple contexts
- learning about how words and word families work in your target language
3 persons have voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5522 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 5 of 5
27 August 2014 at 4:24pm | IP Logged 
Middle Egyptian vocabulary poses similar challenges to Arabic: It uses consonantal roots (generally triliterals), the writing system is unfamiliar to most students, the vowels are unwritten, and there are far fewer cognates than you'd expect with an Indo-European language.

I find that the first problem is simply convincing my brain that Egyptian words are actually words, and not just random collections of annoying consonants. As rdearman and Stelle suggest, I find two things particularly helpful in this regard:

1. Making Anki cards with context. (I wrote an article with more details.)
2. Getting lots of more-or-less comprehensible input.

The more input I get, the easier it becomes for me to learn vocabulary and grammar. Seriously, it's almost as if the input convinces my subconsciousness that "this stuff is important, so pay attention!", and simultaneously lays lots of groundwork.

Brute force memorizing in the absence of input is hard. With input, learning almost feels like being reminded of something I already know. For more suggestions on getting input early on, see iguanamon's excellent article on the multitrack approach.


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