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"Vocabulearn" series | ||
Tags: Linguaphone | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 38 23 March 2005 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If anyone has an old Spanish version without the music, I'd love to have a copy. I did pay for the new messed-up version, so I don't think there would be a license issue. I'll gladly send you my copy to show that I own it.
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7314 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 10 of 38 23 March 2005 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Try http://www.abebooks.com/. There are all sorts of used language courses on this site, even the older editions of Vocabulearn.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 11 of 38 24 March 2005 at 3:30am | IP Logged | |||||
I have the version with music, but found if I do the sound cuts during the off beat just before the next word is spoken, the music jumps don't distract much. If your audio editing software shows the wave form, this kind of edit is easy. By off beat, I mean the quieter lull between the musicians plucking their instruments.
I think the pause between utterances is excessive too. That was the unspoken reason behind the "How I use Vocabulearn" part of this thread. Editing sound files can be time consuming, so I was happy to think of a way to learn around the pauses. That way I only have to edit once per vocabulary word, rather than twice. Working around the jumpy musical background problem is what led me to these "using the pauses" techniques. Edited by luke on 24 March 2005 at 3:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 12 of 38 29 March 2005 at 2:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I read a couple of papers about learning vocabulary
that suggest out of order learning is superior to thematic learning. One of the points was if you study a list of words in order, you'll have a harder time recalling the words when they aren't in that order. This is slightly different than thematic versus random order, but both topics were mentioned. I bring this up because I earlier said I thought Vocabulearn should be thematically ordered. That may not be correct. When learning something from context, using the theme is helpful. When you are just trying to put various atoms of knowledge, like words, into your head, perhaps variety is the spice of life. I can see how the mind would be more active if it has to move around without a topic, versus settling into the cozy room of a theme. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7206 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 13 of 38 05 April 2005 at 10:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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How much are the 24-series courses?
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| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 38 05 April 2005 at 11:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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US$62.97
Search for Penton 24 on Amazon 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7246 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes | Message 15 of 38 06 April 2005 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I’ve had the German version of Vocabulearn for almost a week now and here are my thoughts:
The course seems to be designed for duality. What I mean is that the booklet that comes with the CDs has English instructions in the beginning of the book and a duplicate of those instructions in German at the end of the book. Half the vocabulary on each disk is presented in English/German and the other half is German/English. I guess they want to be able to sell the same course to Germans learning English. They’ve tried to choose the single most exact match for each word in the two languages. Sometimes more than one word is given but mostly it’s one for one. I can’t remember if this has been mentioned already, but the source word is given in the left ear, and the target word is given in the right. And as has been noted, Mozart is played in the background for about half of each track. Pros: - There is lots of vocabulary. I counted 168 word pairs in the first of two tracks on the first CD. From this I can approximate that there are roughly 4000 words and phrases in whole series (Luke says 4500 so perhaps there are more words in later CDs). This is enough vocabulary to function well in a language. Further vocabulary can be acquired through reading which should be done anyway. - Native speakers are used for a model of proper pronunciation. - Convenient learning as all you need is a CD player and can learn while doing other tasks. Cons: - Left/right sound business is irritating. Perhaps they are trying to access different hemispheres of the brain or maybe the stereo effect is to help the listener separate the different languages. To me it’s just annoying and I have converted the lessons to mono. - The music in later levels is too loud. Also, the music hinders editing such as cutting out vocabulary for individual review. I like Mozart and if I didn’t plan on editing the files I probably wouldn’t mind. - There are too many words per track. There are limitations on how many tracks a CD can have but clumping 170 words all together is too much. I would prefer to have groups of no more than 30 words for more manageable learning. The best proof that their format needs improving is that everyone who has posted to this thread has mentioned how they are editing the sound files in one way or another. I’m currently cutting out each word to make my own groups and it’s a lot of work. - The spacing between words is erratic and sometimes much too short and other times much too long. - Not enough distinction of words that are similar. Here’s what the booklet says about that, “When words that are used have multiple meanings, the context will be noted in parentheses, Example: the square (city).” Maybe they mean words contained on the CD and not words in general, but there are many words that need clarification and don’t have it. For example, match is given as in “competition” and my first thought was as in “fire”. Also, no clarification is given for words that sound the same. I was confused when I heard “seller” because I though it said “cellar”. This is an audio course and I don’t think most people will be following along in the book. All in all I’m happy I bought Vocabulearn. It’s not perfect but it is unique as an (mostly) audio-only course. There are plenty of vocabulary lists but few give examples of the correct pronunciation or are in a format that you can easily use just about anywhere. However, with the amount of editing I have to do to meet my needs, I may have been better off just taking one of the vocabulary lists I have and creating sound files from other sources at my disposal. It would be about the same amount of work. Added: Some extra ideas I started pulling out the individual words from the Vocabulearn MP3s I made to use in SuperMemo and because I don't like having half of the word pairs in reverse order. However, it's a lot of work so I wonder if it's the best use of my time. After this post I started thinking of ways that I could get started using Vocabulearn without so much effort. Here are the ideas I came up with: Listen to the course as it was intended to be used <gasp!>. I'm sure with enough repetitions I will learn the material. It just seems like a lot of time would be wasted listening to words I already know well while searching for the few I need to repeat. But if I just take a more relaxed attitude and accept that 95% retention is good enough then it's not such a problem. Learn in smaller segments. I was put off by the large number of words in each track. Then it occurred to me that most CD players have an A/B loop function so I set my player to loop after 30 words and it worked great. I learned two sets of 30 words on the way home and probably could've done three since I already knew a lot of the words. I just didn't feel like pulling off the road and resetting the loop. I didn't even have to count the number of words each time. I just figured out about how long such a group is and fast-forwarded that amount to set the end of the loop. It helps to write down the begin and end times so you know where to start the next loop. Make play lists for my MP3 player. I could quickly cut my MP3s into groups and then make play lists from those groups and listen to them randomly. When I know a group well I can just remove it from the play list. If there are words in the group that give me trouble, I can cut them out and let them stand on their own for more practice. Once they are in the list I would treat them like a group. Edited by pentatonic on 06 April 2005 at 9:24pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| heartburn Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 355 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 38 06 April 2005 at 11:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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A very accurate summary. How do you feel about the random order of words? Do you think that if the words were presented in context it would solve the seller/cellar issue? And do you think that would help or hurt your memorization? Did you try the karaoke filter idea to get rid of the music?
BTW, I wrote a review of Penton's Spanish 24 on Amazon yesterday. Edited by heartburn on 06 April 2005 at 12:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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