Vocabulary without flashcards! (Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies) Language Learning Forum

Vocabulary without flashcards!
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Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies

18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Serpent
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Message 17 of 18

21 January 2013 at 10:58pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

Quote:

I have a hard time seeing how you can absorb the necessary passive vocabulary fast enough without using some kind of structured technique - whether it be wordlists, flashcard og ANKI etc. But maybe some learners have a more 'sticky' memory than mine.

I guess it's more about what sticks in our memory.

I keep trying to experiment with Anki, but it just doesn't seem to work for me. When I look up something I heard, it often sticks immediately. But with Anki it seems that the words can't penetrate my skull. I do remember the words, I do remember the meanings, but I can't remember which word means what unless I've heard the word somewhere else.

Have you tried audio cards in Anki? You seem to be a very aural learner.
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Astrophel
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Message 18 of 18

06 February 2013 at 3:27am | IP Logged

Listening to how most people met success with a combination of methods, I tried
flashcards again.

I think I've figured out why they weren't working for me and it has nothing to do with
audio vs. written. Wordlists weren't good for me because I can always remember WHERE
something was written on the page, or what words it was around, so I can recall it
correctly without actually having memorized the meaning. To illustrate, I once had a
bunch of books in a haphazard pile and somehow memorized ~20-30 of them and their
positions, because I remembered what the pile looked like, and which books were on top
of or beside which ones. With Anki - even audio Anki - I was just memorizing something
like "vermutlich supposedly presumably" as a sort of "fill-in-the-blank" exercise - as
a unit without the meaning ever correlating outside the context of the card. Not
everybody does this - but some people on this forum have complained about being "good
at Anki" and unable to recall words actively...if this is your problem, maybe test your
memory against a pile of books and see if you're doing the same thing I was :) Or ask
yourself: how good are you at remembering where something you read was located on the
page? You're likely memorizing things spatially.

Besides the oral repetition I talked about here, which has definitely been a big help,
the best thing seems to be reading and re-reading the same article over and over at
spaced intervals, so as to see the vocabulary in context many times until I just
remember it. That way I get the benefit of written material, in that I don't forget
what I haven't recorded - everything is already THERE in whatever native material I was
using, and I always have that on hand, or bookmarked.
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