Tips and strategies for intense learning (Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies) Language Learning Forum

Tips and strategies for intense learning
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Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies

27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

fiziwig
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4800 days ago
297 posts - 618 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 25 of 27

05 October 2011 at 10:58pm | IP Logged

I'm retired so I have as much free time to study as I want. What I do when my brain goes on strike, usually after an hour or two of intensive book study of Spanish is to kick back and spend the next hour or so watching a movie, usually a comedy, in Spanish from my growing collection of Spanish language DVDs. That way I'm not "studying", I'm relaxing and enjoying myself, but still exposing myself to Spanish the whole time.

When the movie is over I grab lunch and once again pick up the books or the irregular verb flash cards or whatever.

It also helps, I find, to spend some of my study time reading something that's actually enjoyable to read in my target language. I started with the Harry Potter series in Spanish and I'm now working on Alicia en el páis de las maravillas. And don't get discouraged when your reading goes slowly. The first page of Harry Potter took me nearly a week to wade through. By the end of the book I was reading 20 to 30 pages in a few hours.

And I find that vocabulary that I drill with flash cards is nowhere near as "sticky" as vocabulary I run across in reading. Sometimes seeing a word once in something I'm reading is enough to cement that word into my memory, while I can drill on it with flash cards over and over and still have trouble with it.

2 persons have voted this message useful

leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6485 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

Message 26 of 27

06 October 2011 at 5:04pm | IP Logged

Jeffers wrote:

You never said you disagreed.

really?

leosmith wrote:

I agree that there's some merit to the idea that one should take a break periodically, but it's probably
impossible to nail down the length of interval or type of language activities that need to be broken up.

leosmith wrote:

I agree that taking a break occasionally is
a good idea, but it's impossible to say what interval is needed for what activity. And saying that the second 30
minutes of grammar study is always less effective than the first is pure speculation.

Sorry about that.

1 person has voted this message useful

montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4763 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 27 of 27

06 October 2011 at 7:08pm | IP Logged

fiziwig wrote:

I'm retired so I have as much free time to study as I want. What I do
when my brain goes on strike, usually after an hour or two of intensive book study of
Spanish is to kick back and spend the next hour or so watching a movie, usually a
comedy, in Spanish from my growing collection of Spanish language DVDs. That way I'm
not "studying", I'm relaxing and enjoying myself, but still exposing myself to Spanish
the whole time.

When the movie is over I grab lunch and once again pick up the books or the irregular
verb flash cards or whatever.

It also helps, I find, to spend some of my study time reading something that's actually
enjoyable to read in my target language. I started with the Harry Potter series in
Spanish and I'm now working on Alicia en el páis de las maravillas. And don't
get discouraged when your reading goes slowly. The first page of Harry Potter took me
nearly a week to wade through. By the end of the book I was reading 20 to 30 pages in a
few hours.

And I find that vocabulary that I drill with flash cards is nowhere near as "sticky" as
vocabulary I run across in reading. Sometimes seeing a word once in something I'm
reading is enough to cement that word into my memory, while I can drill on it with
flash cards over and over and still have trouble with it.

I think that, for example, Steve Kauffman ("LingoSteve" on YouTube, also of LingQ
fame), would approve of your approach, i.e. basically doing what you enjoy. I enjoy
both reading and listening, so the L-R approach has come as a welcome "gift" to me,
and it doesn't feel like I'm working. I also watch target language DVDs and films at
the cinema when possible as well, and do look at specific points in grammar books, and
do wordlists. For now that's about it, but I will also try to write from time to time,
and also do grammar exercises (particularly German adjective endings, which are a weak
point of mine).

Quote:

And I find that vocabulary that I drill with flash cards is nowhere near as "sticky" as
vocabulary I run across in reading. Sometimes seeing a word once in something I'm
reading is enough to cement that word into my memory, while I can drill on it with
flash cards over and over and still have trouble with it.

I'm not sure if that is the case with me or not, but what I tend to do is build up my
wordlists or flash cards based on words/phrases I've found while reading (or just
occasionally listening, e.g. to radio), either new words/phrases, or interesting ones I
want to find out more about.

I'm quite tempted by LWT (which in a way is just another approach to L-R) but at the
moment, I don't think the machine I use could cope with the additional software needed.

1 person has voted this message useful

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