How do you people cram in so many? (Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies) Language Learning Forum

How do you people cram in so many?
Tags: Synesthesia \| Number of Languages \| Memory \| Learning Strategy \| Vocabulary learning
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Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies

73 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 2 ... 9 10 Next >>

betaquarx
Triglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5711 days ago
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Speaks: German*, English, Dutch
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 9 of 73

01 April 2009 at 5:44pm | IP Logged

portunhol wrote:

The other thing that is true is that if you don't use it, you lose it, but you can get it back. Brazilian linguist Carlos Freire has studied over 110 languages but can only converse in about thirty of them at the drop of a hat. He says that the other languages are deactivated but they can be reactivated in a few days to a week of review.

That is the amazing thing about our brain.
It does not really forget, it just attributes less priority to the things we don't use every day.
So you can easily reactivate stuff you once learned.
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DP
Newbie
Ireland
travbla.com/
Joined 5708 days ago
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Message 10 of 73

01 April 2009 at 10:46pm | IP Logged

I'd suggest learning more than ten words a day. Try thirty and review frequently. If you only learn ten years a day after one or two years you will still have a comparatively limited vocabulary.
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betaquarx
Triglot
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5711 days ago
70 posts - 90 votes

Speaks: German*, English, Dutch
Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 11 of 73

01 April 2009 at 11:21pm | IP Logged

DP wrote:

I'd suggest learning more than ten words a day. Try thirty and review frequently. If you only learn ten years a day after one or two years you will still have a comparatively limited vocabulary.

hence the "for starters"
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Satoshi
Diglot
Senior Member
Brazil
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Message 12 of 73

01 April 2009 at 11:57pm | IP Logged

I'd say that after 5000 words you won't need to care about words and you'll just look them up when you find them or learn by context.
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zerothinking
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6364 days ago
528 posts - 772 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 13 of 73

02 April 2009 at 6:05am | IP Logged

Tyr wrote:

Really. I'm struggling to understand how people can know so many
languages.
I'm currently struggling away at Swedish and I am quite rubbish at it. I don't see
myself as ever being able to totally master it- there are tens of thousands of words
in the dictionary, how am I going to learn all those?
Learning rules, grammer and all that is easily done and with that and a few basic
words if you're so inclined you can say you speak the language but that is of course
cheating. Truly speaking? agghhh. It'd be a full time job for me to get my Swedish up
to that level. For a bunch of languages including ones for placs I've never been to? I
don't see how it can be done.

(quasi-rant over)

A very easy 70 words a week.
10 words a day.

10 x 365 = 3650 a year

You would then know 10,000 words in 2.74 years. Not that hard.

20 minutes a day could do that easily.

Go out and get a book on language acquisiton and how to learn languages. I think you
are probably using the wrong method. If it is hard then you haven't found your natural
way of learning. languages are natural.

Over the course of 50 years of study some could comfortably learn several languages.

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TheElvenLord
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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1 sounds
Speaks: Cornish, English*
Studies: Spanish, French, German
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

Message 14 of 73

02 April 2009 at 11:12pm | IP Logged

I agree somewhat with Cainntear as in Cornish I have picked up a huge vocabulary - which I only just realised I have - without knowing it. How? Through assimilation and osmosis. I have never actually done proper vocabulary learning but in the year and 4 months I have been learning it, I have amassed a huge vocabulary - one which contains the 'needed' words and not the non-needed ones. So no - I don't know how to say "Saucepan" or "Pigsty" but I do know the need-to-know words like "Permission" "Need" "Meeting" and stuff like that.

I have many many conversations in Cornish all the time, and I am never short for words unless we go to a specialist subject - and even then I am learning words. How? Through repetition and assimilation.

I understand not all of us can live in an immsersion or (like me) semi-immersion environment but you can see my point.

Now, however, I am starting proper vocabulary training. the best thing is to experiment. Stuff the 10 per day limit maybe with a method you don't like or doesn't work. Experiment with all the different methods. Once you find one as you will and as I did, you will go through the roof. Stuff 10 a day, you'll be doing at least 50 per day.

TEL
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zerothinking
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6364 days ago
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Speaks: English*

Message 15 of 73

03 April 2009 at 4:22am | IP Logged

Passion + Fun + Time + Talent + Method = So many languages
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

Message 16 of 73

03 April 2009 at 10:57am | IP Logged

zerothinking wrote:

A very easy 70 words a week.
10 words a day.

10 x 365 = 3650 a year

You would then know 10,000 words in 2.74 years. Not that hard.

20 minutes a day could do that easily.

I've got to say that I'm dubious.

You do not "learn" a word in a day -- you learn it by revising and reviewing over a period of time. When do you revise those words?

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