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How Do You Memorize Vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Memory | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4763 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 49 of 55 13 September 2011 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I think Iversen's apparently simple Wordlist method is very powerful.
One slight modification for German learners, instead of using the Mars and Venus symbols for the genders of nouns, I use a simple shorthand copied from a couple of teachers of mine in the past, which is to use the last letter of the definite article, e.g r Mann e Frau s Buch 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| learnvietnamese Diglot Groupie Singapore yourvietnamese.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4884 days ago 98 posts - 132 votes Speaks: Vietnamese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 50 of 55 13 September 2011 at 6:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Read, read more....Write, write more. I think this active approach is most effective.
Daily reviews of vocab: manual or better still, using flashcards. This is passive. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anupam Newbie India Joined 4769 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 51 of 55 13 September 2011 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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when ever i come across new good word, I add it to flashard/wordlists to revise them
later. Creating word list is crucial for building vocabulary. I create different wordlist for each novel and once i novel is complete i go through wordlist again. this is very helpful. I use http://stuc.co.in/ for wordlists, flashcards, synonyms, antonyms etc..They have online dictionary with flashcards Edited by anupam on 13 September 2011 at 5:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 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 52 of 55 13 September 2011 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Or in other words: learn word families. I actually do that in several languages. For instance many words in Bahasa Indonesia are built on a root plus some pre- or postfixes. And luckily I have a dictionary which indicates those root words, even when they aren't obvious. The simple rule is: don't learn compound words without learning the components too. The opposite rule isn't valid: I see the same problem in learning complete wordfamilies as I see in learning thematical lists of words, namely boredom. In other words you shouldn't try to learn all the derivations of a certain word at the same time, - learn two or three max. at any one time and you get by quite easily the next time you meet any other derivations. When it comes to expressions the same rules apply: even though an idiom may have a special meaning you should learn all the words in it - normally it then becomes obvious why the idiomatical extra meaning came to be (even though you couldn't have predicated it). But don't learn seven or twenty three expressions in a row just because they contain a certain word. Edited by Iversen on 13 September 2011 at 6:59pm 2 persons have 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 53 of 55 14 September 2011 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Iversen,
Apologies if you have already covered this in one of your major threads about WLs, but have you identified methods of moving your learned vocabulary from simply passive, to being more active? Or do you not think this is particularly important? I have noticed that if I follow your method properly, although I am normally assembling the contents of the list initially in the target language, I can equally easily translate the word in either direction, which was not always the case in my previous (not very systematic) own attempts with wordlists. Perhaps this is at least a first step to more active usage of those words. Edited by montmorency on 14 September 2011 at 10:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6638 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 54 of 55 14 September 2011 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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The wordlist method does not in itself make words active, but there are specific methods for that (including speaking and writing and translating as much as possible, of course).
I haven't written as much about this as I have about vocabulary learning because I don't have one clearcut and simple method to propose. However I have written about thinking in foreign languages, beginning with simple word combinations for things in your surroundings and proceeding to more and more complex constructions. I have also advocated bad translations, ie. trying to translate something you listen to on the fly even though the result is miserable - the main thing is to get your language producing machine started. And once in a while even an oldfashioned translation from your base language to your target language may be a good idea to force you out of your comfort zone. I don't think that the use of written materials alone is a good idea, although I prefer living with that situation until I can understand clear speech (such as news broadcasts) - ultra-simple language spoken slowly is simply intolerably boring! The reason that you do need to listen to the foreign language even if you just intend to write things is that your head ideally should be buzzing with foreign speech - this creates the ideal situation for producing utterances yourself as some kind of overflow. Reading can to some extent have the same effect, and even better is a combination. But reading or listening to things you don't understand won't have any effect, so the role of vocabulary training is to prepare you for the meeting with genuine speech and writing. Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2011 at 10:54pm 2 persons have 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 55 of 55 15 September 2011 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Iversen. Yes, reading and listening. I used to do a lot of that, but all too often, without sufficiently understanding, and then it really did become a rather passive exercise. I used to think it was "cheating" to have read a translation first (I never thought of reading one at the same time), or even reading a transcript at the same time.
So the whole L-R concept (at least done in some shape or form) has come as quite a revelation to me. I think that L-R plus regular vocabulary building with Wordlists could be a winning combination (and L-R can provide plenty of material for the Wordlists). Anyway, that's exactly what I'm working on at the moment. Regards, M. Edited by montmorency on 15 September 2011 at 12:28am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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