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Super-fast vocabulary learning techniques | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6444 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 177 of 255 21 August 2008 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've been using Anki for nearly a year, and quite like it. I'd certainly recommend it over SuperMemo, which is bogged down with so many features and options, I find it nearly unusable. You can download Anki (for free) at http://ichi2.net/anki. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 178 of 255 22 August 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've used supermemo and anki heavily. Both are good, but anki is free and easier to learn how to use.
Very cool. Congratulations! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tigernerve Newbie Suriname Joined 5854 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 179 of 255 12 November 2008 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sure learning as many phrases as possible are important. And of course you need to learn a little grammar.
But I think one of the main things I used to waist too much time with was with random vocabulary of words I may never use. Instead I recommend vocabulary organized by how frequent it is used. Like frequent wordlists. For example you can google "top 100" "top 1000" or "top 10000 words in Dutch" and you might find something much more useful. It's best to find out first how to type it in the language you want to learn. This may not be necessary in more popular languages. In dutch for example you would write, "Top nederlands woorden" That's how they say "Dutch" in Dutch. Also google "top Spanish Wordlists" or the like. By doing this I can read and understand so much more of what I am reading now. After all only around 2000 words are used on a daily basis in most languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 180 of 255 14 November 2008 at 4:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Before you go studying the top 10000, be sure to check out Zipf's law. Some of those words aren't going to get much use....
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 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 181 of 255 14 November 2008 at 7:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm somewhat sceptical about the use of frequency tables. The first layer consists of words that you will find in almost any text: pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs. You will learn those even without frequency lists precisely because they are found everywere.
The next layer consists of very common 'content words'. There is absolute no harm done in for instance learning all words up to no. 4000. But people read about different things, and chances are that the most important words in your preferred reading aren't covered. For instance I like to travel, so for me words like "embassy", "visa", "check in", "Lonely" and "Planet" and "reception" are important. OK, you will meet them in your reading and learn them there, you might say. My answer would be that the same per definition would hold for any words on the frequency list. Therefore my advice would be not to use the frequency lists to learn words from, but to use them as check lists when you feel that your vocabulary already is fairly large and you just have to fill out the holes. If you have the kind of mentality that can accept learning words from frequency lists - and not all have that - then you will be much better served with ordinary dictionaries with translations and explanations and grammatical annotations and maybe even examples. You just have to recognize from the beginning that it is OK just to pick some of the words and not learn them all from A to Z. A good dictionary will warn you against obsolete words and things like that, and for the rest you should trust your own judgment. For an earlier discussion about frequency lists see this thread Edited by Iversen on 14 November 2008 at 10:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 182 of 255 14 November 2008 at 10:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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In fact, frequency lists are further limited by the fact that (for example) "brother" and "brothers" are considered different words. So if your chosen language has a lot of inflection on words, simple verbs like "be" and "go" might count for over a dozen "words".
As Iversen says, you're best picking and choosing your words. For two reasons: 1) you know the sort of things you're likely to talk about. 2) vocabulary that has is important to you personally (in my case musical instruments and cameras) is easier to remember. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Almond Diglot Newbie Yugoslavia Joined 5814 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishB2 Studies: Spanish, French | Message 183 of 255 24 December 2008 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I make short lists, and than try to remember words. First I recall in my target language, than in my mother tongue.
I also make some flashcards. But the most important thing for me is to revise those words after some time. If I don't do it, I forgot the word. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6048 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 184 of 255 25 December 2008 at 1:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I simply dump words into Anki and memorize. This works for me. Learning strickly in context works, but is too slow in my opinion. Tons of words can wait until the moment they need to be used and brought into context.
I learn out of context first, then contextualize with feedback if necessary. If the context is clear (simple nouns, for example), I just memorize the word. If the context is unclear, I memorize it in a phrase (also that way I get both a new phrase and a new word). Later on, when I remember that word I know that it works in that phrase, but I will have to experiment with another context in the moment and ask "is this right"? I have asked "es correcto?" probably about 1 million times in the last 6 months. All my unused words and phrases go in a waiting room in my mind until they are used in the situation and contextualized, but they ARE there, waiting until I bring them over. I have successfully amassed a decent Spanish vocab this way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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