TrentBooks Triglot Groupie United States TrentBooks.com Joined 4863 days ago 43 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Guarani Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Japanese
| Message 1 of 20 26 September 2011 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
If you've read any of my other posts, you may have noticed that I enjoy incorporating research in my language learning efforts. I also blog about language learning and try to incorporate research and experience in my blog posts. So far I have come to really value the opinions and experiences of other members on this forum, and would like to conduct small scale research right here in this thread. My plan is to post very simple questions right here in this thread. I hope you will participate by answering the question and (if you feel inclined) including a very SHORT reason why you answered the way you did.
I would like to leave these questions "open" for a week each, and at the end of the week I'll post a summary of your responses so you can all see some basic data about the question. If you have a question you would like me to post, please PM me, so we can keep this board organized and simplified.
The first question I would like to pose is this:
What would you consider the most appropriate number of vocabulary words to learn in one day? Why?
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Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5600 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 20 27 September 2011 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
Definitely sounds like a good idea. I'll participate.
I only try to learn 50 words a day. I'm a fan of Iverson's word list method, so I like to
make five columns of ten words each. I like to see the word in a sentence as well but I
don't write that down. After reviewing each column, I make more columns combining the
words I couldn't remember the first time around. Eventually I record the ten most
difficult words to remember on some note cards to carry around during the day. For me
anything more over fifty words becomes too difficult to review.
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Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5092 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian
| Message 3 of 20 28 September 2011 at 4:50am | IP Logged |
I dunno, I don't have a specific daily allotment. Perhaps that means I learn more slowly,
but the words I try to memorize are any key words from songs I've been listening to or
articles/posts I've been reading.
If you can put in the effort, I think 50 wouldn't be a bad goal. However, I found that
when I focused on memorizing previously unseen vocabulary rather than learning from
actual native materials (i.e., from context) I found it too hard to learn the words. And
in a given day I usually wouldn't have the time to translate and memorize 50 words from
songs or texts.
Edited by Saim on 28 September 2011 at 4:51am
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TrentBooks Triglot Groupie United States TrentBooks.com Joined 4863 days ago 43 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Guarani Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Japanese
| Message 4 of 20 28 September 2011 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
Saim wrote:
I dunno, I don't have a specific daily allotment. Perhaps that means I learn more slowly,
but the words I try to memorize are any key words from songs I've been listening to or
articles/posts I've been reading.
If you can put in the effort, I think 50 wouldn't be a bad goal. However, I found that
when I focused on memorizing previously unseen vocabulary rather than learning from
actual native materials (i.e., from context) I found it too hard to learn the words. And
in a given day I usually wouldn't have the time to translate and memorize 50 words from
songs or texts. |
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So for you, what is the "most appropriate number" of words to learn per day?
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Sierra Diglot Senior Member Turkey livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7133 days ago 296 posts - 411 votes Speaks: English*, SwedishB1 Studies: Turkish
| Message 5 of 20 28 September 2011 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
In the beginning stages when I'm really focusing on vocab, 50 (give or take) sounds about
right to me.
At a more advanced level, maybe 3 per day. I lessen the intensity on vocabulary in favor
of grammatical nuances, and I try to nail down all the possible uses of each new word
rather than just the handiest one or two. I really despise rote learning of vocabulary,
and while I find it necessary in the beginning, I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel
that I've reached a stage where I can ease up on it.
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Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5837 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French
| Message 6 of 20 28 September 2011 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
I like to do between 10-30, so I guess the average is 20. ;) Although sometimes I may "learn" 100 or more in a day
and put them all in Anki for reviewing, I then only encounter 20 new cards per day so in a way even that is still
"learning" 20 per day. I don't put much effort into remembering the word the first time around anyway, I let Anki do
the work for me.
In the past I've experimented with more and found that retention just becomes too difficult with any more than that.
Oh, I should mention that is is with regards to Japanese. I can handle up to 50 in western languages, probably
because of the higher incidence of cognates and the lack of kanji.
Edited by Luai_lashire on 28 September 2011 at 9:02pm
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darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6049 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 7 of 20 28 September 2011 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
Around twenty seems to be my average especially if I'm learning the correct spelling
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Lexii Senior Member United States Joined 5231 days ago 162 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 8 of 20 28 September 2011 at 11:42pm | IP Logged |
For me, it depends on the definition of "learn". How many new words am I exposed to in a day? Who knows, I don't keep count. Some days I guess I may be exposed to 50 or more unknown words, depending on which websites I visit or what books I look at. Other days, I may encounter only 10.
I can't say that I've "learned" any of them (as in can recall, recognize and/or write, define and/or use in a sentence), only that I've learned of their existence.
In case that makes a difference in the survey, I'm working on Japanese and I'd consider myself an upper-beginner.
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