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Thought experiment about memory | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 10 08 April 2011 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
This will certainly be the case with 'grammatical' words (prepositions, pronouns) and other very common words. But you don't have to get far down the frequency lists before there will be words which even the most avid reader only hits upon once in a blue moon, and the situation is even worse if you look at idiomatic expressions. Furthermore you see a lot of words whose meaning you either guess or just don't care about, and it is debatable how much that helps you. I have sometimes shocked people by saying that I don't learn words by reading or listening, but mainly by doing wordlists and other intensive kinds of study. The extensive exercises are nevertheless very important, but for another reason: they train your 'on the fly' skills, ie. your ability to crunch an incessant stream of information. But this is the opposite of getting down to the details and learn them. Even looking up words while you listen or read stops you in the activity you were supposed to train. The only terms it would be logical to learn primarily during extensive activities are those that are directly linked to the subject matter and where the explanations are given in the source itself - such as bird names if you read a field guide, names of pop stars if you watch certain kinds of TV or technical terms if you study a do it yourself handbook. If you get more than that then it can be seen as a bonus. Edited by Iversen on 28 June 2011 at 1:05am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| futurianus Senior Member Korea, South starlightonclou Joined 5011 days ago 125 posts - 234 votes Speaks: Korean* | Message 10 of 10 28 June 2011 at 12:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Confession of an Ex-addict of Memorization: I used to do a lot of very strenuous memorization exercises in different fields since my youth. When I was in a Russian speaking country, I was doing it for about 40 days non-stop with Russian, usually about 12-16 hours every day, after having already become familiar with the main structure of Russian language and become somewhat conversant in it. I could literally feel my brain muscles become exercised stiff and aching. It was indeed a mental activity, but also a very physical activity. My body was quite exhausted all the time. Looking back, I was so obsessed with it, going at it on and on from the time I woke up till the time I went to sleep, day after day relentlessly for about 40 days. It was crazy, a madness! If there was a contest for the longest non-stop performance in memory exercise, I might have been given the gold medal! Had I continued to stay there, would my memory exercises have helped me to progress quickly in Russian? I do not know. I, however, had to leave the area and abruptly stop learning Russian. This was the most intense and prolonged memory training I had done with a language. I, however, sad to say, forgot most of the vast number of words for which I had worked so hard to memorize to make them mine. I thought I had an extraordinary ability and skill for memorization, but I learned it the hard way that all the memory exercises with their associations and imageries did not prove to be effective for mastering a new language, at least for me. I had attempted to radically short-cut the path to complete mastery of Russian and went all out for it like a samurai engaged in a life and death duel, but I could not overcome it even with all of my passion and persistency. There were certain principles at work which were far more powerful than all of my ceaseless efforts. After that, I do not do memorization work so intensely anymore. As an ex-hardcore practisioner of memory exercises, however, I am still drawn from time to time to exercise my brain with wordlists(often within sample sentences) to jump start learning a language with which I am not very familiar. I am aware that doing so will not easily get the words into my longterm memory, but I nevertheless would do so just to get a feeling for the language and to get my feet wet in it. Not a strenuous athletic training, but just a light warming up exercise. Like saying hello to that language.
TAO of Reading and Listening: Reading combined with listening has become my primary way of absorbing the words and phrases. I would like to think that what I am doing is not so much that of studying and memorizing them, but more of eating and drinking them. I do make concious attempt to make my primary focus to be that of intaking of the contents, and let the process of chewing and digesting of words and expressions become a subsidiary process, turning it into a relaxing, enjoyable and satisfying experience.... Edited by futurianus on 28 June 2011 at 2:07am 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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