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Super-fast vocabulary learning techniques | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6627 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 97 of 255 19 March 2007 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I would recommend any materials that contain dialogues and reading texts. Materials that contain interesting readings or a series of dialogues with an interesting storyline are always better. Graded readers are also very good for comprehensible input. Destinos and French in Action are two courses I know of (but have not used) that have been developed to provide comprehensible input. I should point out at this point that I do not consider it important that the language be understood by context. Consulting a translation, a wordlist, grammar notes, or a dictionary are all perfectly acceptable. The goal is to get to the point where you can understand the dialogue or reading text without these aids and without translating or thinking in your native language.
I am the source of the comprehensible input, which I provide orally. I adjust the input to accomodate the learner's current level of understanding, and I address any particular difficulties the learner is having by modifying the input. I make sure there is sufficient repetition of vocabulary and grammar for acquisition of these to take place. Edited by Linguamor on 19 March 2007 at 4:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6952 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 98 of 255 19 March 2007 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Iversen, I very much understand your goal of getting to the holy grail of "genuine stuff" as soon as possible, but it's not at all clear to me that this "initial heap of hard work" is actually the fastest way to get there, even for you, unless corrected for the fact that you seem to enjoy, savor, and need this "heap of hard work" to stay motivated, which, however, is not the same as saying that the method itself is necessarily optimal. To go through 6000 words in a month, you must be doing 200 words per day. I am guessing, of course, but it would seem that just to look up that many words in a dictionary may take a couple of hours, if not more. And you are also studying grammar. Now, for someone as experienced as you, with the time budget of several hours a day, it's not out of the question that you could get even further along towards the goal of reading unabridged texts with some facility using a somewhat different approach. A familiarization read through a grammar book, then 3 graded readers based on 500, 1000, and 2000 words, that you could probably finish all off in a week or two, while also driving home a nice chunk of grammar. This would be followed by a more detailed study of grammar in parallel to assiduously working through an authentic text with a dictionary, copying and memorizing something like 100 to 200 words per day, which you clearly know how to do. Are you sure this course of study wouldn't be faster, if less enjoyable, than what you are doing right now? Edited by frenkeld on 19 March 2007 at 9:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6712 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 99 of 255 20 March 2007 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't expect to learn 6000 words in a month, but maybe half that amount, which is entirely feasible, - when I fold a sheet of paper in half there is room for at least 75 words (as my Cyrillic letters become more neat they also shrink in size), and I do at least one of these quartersheets daily, sometimes two. Even with repetition a few days later it will just take 1-2 hours.
One major reason that I have chosen to do the exercise in alphabetical order (which may have made some people lose their confidence in my sanity) is that this minimizes the time spent on searching for words in the dictionary. I still have to read through much of the dictionary in order to choose 'my' words, but even this is useful because of the examples and the remarks on grammar. Besides I don't expect that this phase will last forever: after my Easter holiday I am going to spend less time on word lists and more time on trying to read real texts. Of course I cannot expect exactly those words that I have learnt to show up in my subsequent reading, but I know from my other languages that it becomes easier to learn new vocabulary when you already know a fair amount of words, and I don't see any reason that Russian will be different in this respect. Edited by Iversen on 20 March 2007 at 4:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6559 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 100 of 255 21 March 2007 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Sorry about the mess; I'm just trying to understand your method, since it seems to be a really good one. So assume I've learned enough words to get up to 95%, and have started reading. I read for one hour, encounter 300 new words, and learn 15 of them. Now what? Read something different? Re-read the passage? Look up the other 285 words? Also, have I left out anything critical here? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| MeshGearFox Senior Member United States Joined 6704 days ago 316 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 101 of 255 21 March 2007 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Where would one go about finding graded readers, annotated and glossaried text, and whatever else is similar? I hardly ever see them in actual bookstores, and I'm not really in a position to order stuff online right now because my dorm handles mail in a way best described as "highly peculiar."
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6952 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 102 of 255 21 March 2007 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Dover and Penguin bilingual editions can often be found in regular bookstores. They certainly exist for German, I am not sure about Russian. Also, visit your campus bookstore and look at the materials used in language courses at your university. The university library and used bookstores are definitely worth trying too.
Otherwise, a good option may be to find a friend or relative whose mail doesn't get lost and have Amazon, or some other online store, ship the books to his or her address. As far as graded readers, http://www.continentalbook.com/ carries quite a few for German, if you can stomach their prices. You may also be able to order things directly from the countries of interest (http://www.amazon.de for German and, for example, http://www.ozon.ru for Russian). For Russian books, I know of at least one online store in the US - http://www.kniga.com - but I've never checked if they carry any learning materials for non-native speakers. There are also several US stores with online presence that specialize in foreign-language materials (I recall Adler books, probably this one: http://www.afb-adlers.com/ , and Shoenhof's: http://www.schoenhofs.com/.) Edited by frenkeld on 21 March 2007 at 7:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6627 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 103 of 255 22 March 2007 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
My approach to reading has varied. My "standard" approach, the one I used with most of my languages at least some of the time, was to read with a dictionary. I used this approach most consistently with Spanish. I subscribed to the Spanish language edition of Reader's Digest and read each issue, looking up every word that I did not understand. I read for understanding, making no special effort to remember words. I had used a variation of this approach with French. The difference being that I used a monolingual dictionary when reading French, rather than a bilingual dictionary, and I would sometimes read without a dictionary. I used the same approach with Italian as I used with Spanish. However, I stopped using a dictionary sooner. I used the same approach with Portuguese as I used with Spanish and Italian, but with even less dictionary use than with Italian. I learned to read Norwegian without using a dictionary. I was staying in Norway, not sure how long I would be there, and not convinced I should learn the language. However, I was interested in the country, and what was going on there and in the world, so I began to read Norwegian newspapers, understanding what I could from context. After I had learned Norwegian, I learned to read Danish and Swedish, reading books without a dictionary. I decided to try a new approach when I decided to learn to read German. I read the German translations of a couple of popular novels originally written in English. I used a technique I call "parallel reading". I read each sentence of the original version in English, then the corresponding German sentence in the German translation. I read two novels this way. After that I read a novel using a dictionary, then more novels and the German edition of Reader's Digest without a dictionary. My approach with Dutch has been to read without a dictionary from the beginning, understanding from context.
The important thing is to read for understanding, and to keep on reading. I think it is usually better to go on to read something different, and then if you want to reread something, to come back to it later. The critical element in acquiring language while reading, as in all language acquisition, is ample exposure to language that you can understand. Edited by Linguamor on 22 March 2007 at 7:27am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6559 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 104 of 255 22 March 2007 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thanks for the great post Linguamor.
Would you recommend this to everyone from the beginning, or only those who have a strong background in similar languages to the target? The idea of not using a dictionary appeals to me, but I'm a little chicken.
What exactly are graded readers; what makes them different from plain 'ol readers? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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