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Has anybody tried the Gold List method? | ||
Tags: Word List | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 9 of 222 15 March 2010 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Somehow -- though it might be because I'm older now ;) -- I find Japanese vocabulary harder to remember than Mandarin was. For instance jyouhou, kyoujyou, kyouchou, hyoujou, etc. all look so darn similar and they don't sink in as easily. Other than that, I'm not learning Japanese any differently than I did other languages, and it's coming along fine. Of course, it's taking 3 times longer than other European languages, but since you're studying Mandarin, I'm sure you know this already... EDIT: I often come across new words that I simply trust I will learn passively, until I'm writing something (or speaking) and realize I need one of those words. I look it up and use it, and I suppose this serves as my reinforcement. At least, this way, I'm not wasting any time on words I don't need. The Goldlist doesn't prevent you from studying useless words. Although arguably, if you plan on studying 10,000 words, there are no useless words... Edited by Arekkusu on 15 March 2010 at 5:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5812 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 10 of 222 15 March 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I watched a few of his other, longer videos this evening, and here are a few things worth noting that I gleaned from them.
First of all, most of you have probably already figured this out, but the Hugliginov character isn't real. It's a character created by a Brit named David James for his YouTube Russian lessons. As far as I can tell, the gold lists videos were first just supposed to be an extension of that series, but he got a pretty heavy response to them, so he made longer videos in the topic and in them he speaks in his normal accent. He seems to be a pretty talented voice actor, as he also does a pretty good neutral American at around 49:00 of the video of him lecturing the students in Moscow. But the real man behind the mystery is definitely British, and googling him turns up plenty of information. Second, his ideas do have some support and authority behind them. He claims to speak 20 languages, which (as we all know here) is not something that can simply be taken on face value, but it could be true, since at least one of our members actually speaks that many. More relevantly, the language skills that he actually demonstrates in small parts in the videos seem fairly legitimate. He spends a couple of minutes talking about Russian proverbs in the Moscow video, and in the one with the Aussie guy he's effectively teaching Polish. Not 20, but certainly a start. Also, based off some of his comments in a few spots, he has a good understanding of Arabic phonology. Most importantly, though, most of the people who've commented on the videos seem to have had success with the method. Finally, he strongly advocates going through some sort of grammar-based course before trying this. Personally, it immediately struck me as the sort of thing you'd want to do at that stage of intermediate learning where vocabulary inexorably starts to take up more and more of your time, and from the sounds of it that's exactly what it's best for. You don't need to word-list "he" or "to have" because you're going to see them thousands of times before you've learned the language. "Apricot" is an entirely different matter. Pyx: private experiments are well and good, but if you're willing, I think it would be fun and interesting to get a few people together to attempt this as a group project, so as to come to some sort of collective judgment. We could even start a group log or something like that. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 11 of 222 15 March 2010 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Lol - I always knew there was something funny about that accent ;)
You can count me in for the group experiment. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| neraTiki Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5373 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 222 16 March 2010 at 1:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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Somehow -- though it might be because I'm older now ;) -- I find Japanese vocabulary harder to remember than Mandarin was. For instance jyouhou, kyoujyou, kyouchou, hyoujou, etc. all look so darn similar and they don't sink in as easily. Other than that, I'm not learning Japanese any differently than I did other languages, and it's coming along fine. Of course, it's taking 3 times longer than other European languages, but since you're studying Mandarin, I'm sure you know this already... [/QUOTE] Are these words only similar in Romaji, or are their Kanji very similar as well? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 13 of 222 16 March 2010 at 3:13am | IP Logged | |||||
I meant romaji only... Well, the pronunciation is similar is really what I meant. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5987 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 14 of 222 16 March 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm still convinced that the true limit to vocabulary learning is motivation. There are plenty of really great memory strategies around, but only a few people can keep themselves going long enough to actually learn 8000 words using them. (I managed to learn several hundred digits of Pi in less than a month, but there was no way I could keep going beyond that, and it wasn't due to lack of "efficiency")
Usually the problem for me is getting enough of the "good" words supplied to me before my motivation burns out. If I could somehow keep the motivation going, then I'm sure I could easily do 10000+ words per year, but it just doesn't work like that for me. Wordlist memorization is therefore only effective for the very start, like burning through the first 1000 really common words, and then I have to either switch to real content like watching TV or reading books, otherwise I stop completely. Maybe some sort of savant could be helped by following a method that claims to be able to process 10000 words in a year through some sort of efficient listing, but otherwise I think it's not even worth debating because most of us aren't going to be able to follow through. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 15 of 222 16 March 2010 at 11:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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I had a similar experience with flashcards a few years ago. I bought a copy of Brown's "Russian Learners' Dictionary: 10,000 Words in Frequency Order", and manually inputted the first few thousand words and their translations into a handsome flashcard system I had at the time (IFlash). I followed this by adding audio recordings to each word with the help of a Russian friend. When everything was prepared, I got going with the vocabulary learning, and it all started off very promising; but as soon as I hit the 1000-1500 mark, the reviews became increasingly time-consuming and really quite boring. Within weeks, Ivor the Engine had literally run out of steam, and so I stopped in my tracks.
I know that Doviende draws on experience in learning vocabulary here, and is very right that motivation and the ability to pace yourself are key factors in these types of methods. I also think, when considering where to get these words, that learning words in context can be much more effective in the long-run. Lists taken from books that include an example sentence for each word, or that are grouped thematically, give the reader a better idea what the word really means and how it's used, and avoids confusions later. What I like about the Gold List method is that you're not required to actually study anything too actively. It's more to do with how you feel about words and passive review, and maybe it's just me, but I tend to get much more of a kick out of writing things down on paper and looking back on something I've made or put together (as in Prof. Arguelles' Scriptorium technique). I have no idea how efficient or effective it is compared to flashcards with SRS or Listening-Reading (perhaps a lot less), but as always with trying out new methods and finding what works for you, it's worth giving it a little go. I'm thinking of trying out this method later on as part of my ongoing language learning activities in German, and at the same time using the opportunity to practice different aspects of Spencerian script and hopefully improve my handwriting. Reiterating Pyx's question, has anyone on the forum ever given this a proper go? Edited by Teango on 16 March 2010 at 5:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5812 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 16 of 222 16 March 2010 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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