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Learning vocabulary without a dictionary | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4387 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 1 of 8 25 July 2013 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
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Having finished assimil I would have about 2000 words in russian ,how could I bring my vocabulary up to
a level where I can understand well , for instance documentaries,news etc without using a dictionary ? Is it even possible ?As For German I reached this level reading and listening a lot but I used an on line dictionary all the time . Would it be possible by getting texts that you can listen to and get a rough transalation without google translate , are there better translator available for free on the internet . I find that using a dictionary is the only boring part in learning a languages , so I am eager to hear your opinion 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 8 25 July 2013 at 1:21pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know how common translations of Russian books into Italian (or vice-versa) are,
but if you can get them, you could also use Russian and Italian version of the same book "side by side". Possibly not so convenient as parallel texts, but still workable with a little effort. If used in conjunction with an audiobook, then so much the better (or so I think). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 8 25 July 2013 at 2:18pm | IP Logged |
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I agree that bilingual texts are a great way to learn vocabulary without a dictionary. Here's a link to a Global Voices.org article in Russian about Solar Panel fraud in India with the Italian Translation here. The articles are short and often include tweets and blog excerpts. Making a bilingual side by side text is easy with a word/open office document by inserting a table with one row and two columns. Click the printer icon and copy and paste the Russian text to the right and the Italian text to the left, ignoring the photos when possible.
Global voices has many such texts available in their archive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4143 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 8 25 July 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged |
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I learn a lot of vocab from reading a novel that I already own and know well in English.
I understand a lot of the vocab in context, and when I get stuck, I can compare it to the English version. If I don't understand a word, I'll just keep reading - unless it leads to a breakdown in understanding. I'm reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory right now, and I'm learning and retaining a lot of new vocab simply by reading for 15 minutes every night. I find myself using a lot of this vocab in my Skype language exchanges, so some of it's definitely making its way to my active vocab, even though I'm not "studying" it in any formal way. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 8 25 July 2013 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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Perhaps some version of L-R might be the right thing, such as as listening to the foreign version while reading an L1 book. Or just take two books side by side, one in L1, one in L2. Another choice is just massive input. Words and their combinations get repeated so you will remember them from various context and numerous encounters. If you find using a dictionary useful, just not comfortable, than getting a kindle or something like that with very easy way to look for words, that might be an option too.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 8 of 8 26 July 2013 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
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I work a lot with bilingual texts, but I still look words up to get the basic form, morphological group, other meanings and maybe some additional idioms. And sometimes I just want to check a translation. But the time expenditure with paper dictionaries is definitely a problem, and my main reason for sticking with them (apart from the fact that I sometimes don't have a switched-on computer within reach) is the low quality of most internet dictionaries. But the development is definitely going in the direction of comprehensive electronic dictionaries activated by clicking or hovering, and then the time factor won't be a problem. Totally dropping the feeling of certainty you get from a qualified dictionary lookup would be totally against my principles, but it doesn't have to be a paper dictionary.
Btw. I have already dropped general knowledge lexica on paper - the internet is so much more informative than my twenty-or-so volume old paper lexicon, so now I have relegated it to the humble role of support for some bookcases. Edited by Iversen on 26 July 2013 at 11:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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