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How fast can you learn 2500 words? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5408 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 49 of 66 11 September 2012 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll attempt to give this an answer ...
With Japanese, studying vocabulary roughly 30 mins/day with Anki I think it would take me roughly 1 year. This would be ignoring obvious English words translated into Katakana, which are much easier to learn. "Learning" the word would basically mean being able to see the word in Japanese (with appropriate kanji) and then giving an exact, or near exact, English definition of the "word" as provided on the other side of the Anki card. At the end of the year I wouldn't expect it to be 100%, but likely around 95+% if I forced all reviews. At that point I wouldn't say I "know" those words, as if they were spoken there would be very little chance I would actually recognize them, but if I saw them written I would likely be able to supply a rote English translation for almost all of them. I would also likely not be able to use many of them comfortably in Japanese sentences (or pronounce them confidently) without other learning, or even understand their use in many sentences. Therefore the definition of "learning a word" I have knowingly stretched quite a bit here, but hopefully defined enough to understand what I mean. Actually "learning" 2500 Japanese words when it comes to practical listening and use I think would take roughly 3 years (of 30 min to 60 min/day studying). That may still be conservative. In Spanish the numbers might be adjusted to 4 months for getting them all reasonably in the head, and 8-12 months for use/recognition, but I really don't know. I haven't had to, or bothered to, cram Spanish vocabulary in this way. Edited by Sandman on 11 September 2012 at 12:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4873 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 50 of 66 11 September 2012 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've learn roughly 1000 Japanese words in two months. My goal is to reach 2500 by
31/12. I must have Japanese subtitles to recognise them in spoken Japanese. Edit: ^be careful about the obvious loan-words. Some of them have a different meaning than their original word. Edited by stifa on 11 September 2012 at 1:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5408 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 51 of 66 11 September 2012 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you can keep up a pace of 1000 Japanese words per two months, then you've got something I definitely do not have (time or memory), so good luck :)
Any more information on your study habits? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4873 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 52 of 66 11 September 2012 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't think I can keep up this pace anymore though; uni starts in less than two weeks. I added 800-900 vocab cards from Genki I/II sentences and a 100 or so grammar cards. I switched to J-J cards a few weeks ago, and that means I have to learn 10-20 new words (with J-J definitions) until I can understand all the definitions and at last, the word I intended to learn. :p I always use example sentences. Example of a card: Front: 果たす 望みを果たす Back: 果たす: 物事を成し遂げる。 望[のぞ]みを 果[は]たす I have noticed that I tend to forget more than half of their readings during the first review the day after adding them, because I copy many of them directly from the dictionary rather than writing them myself. Having done Remembering the Kanji also helps a lot. I have no idea what 果たす means in English. I think it has something to do with fulfilling something, or accomplishing something.. Edited by stifa on 11 September 2012 at 3:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 53 of 66 11 September 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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What do we mean by 'learning' 2500 words?
Simply finding new words and recording them on a list (or SRS) is one thing, but it takes a lot longer to: 1. Study the word in context, and find / create even just a few basic examples. 2. Explore the main (and different) meanings a single word may have. 3. See how the word conjugates or declines. 4. Cross-reference dictionaries or use search engines to discover the broader meaning (especially verbs). There may be the initial word acquistion, but there's months (even years) of familiaristion for the more subtle meanings to bed down. . I'm not saying that we shouldn't start using words until our understanding is somehow 'perfect', or that there's only one approach. Personally, I'm like the proverbial tortoise, and would rather learn words as thoroughly as possible from the start; even if it takes me a bit longer to build my vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JiriT Triglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4797 days ago 60 posts - 95 votes Speaks: Czech*, English, German | Message 54 of 66 11 September 2012 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with Iversen, the question is impossible to answer, because it is too ambiguous. It depends on even more circumstances than Iversen mentioned. The question did not specify whether one should learn the word primarily in one direction, from the foreign into the mother language or in both directions. And it was not also mentioned the complementary activities. For instance, when I read a foreign text, look up the unknown words, translate the text into my mother tongue and then I memorize these words. Or just to memorise new vocabulary from a textbook, without any context. What is it to learn a new word? Especially frequent words have often many meanings. Does it mean to learn all the list of meanings? The question seems legitimate to me. I can boost one’s motivation. Here are two possible contexts where such a situation could occur. First, I am a beginner in a foreign language and perhaps I have learnt a few lessons from a textbook. Now I do not have major problems with pronunciation and spelling. It is not problem to learn 10-15 new words a day, at the same time I can learn something new from the grammar. The grammar learning at such a stage can also be a memory drill, I mean learning irregular verbs etc. Of course, learning grammar includes also an exercise drill but still there is an amount of pure memorizing. At such a pace – one could learn 300-500 word a month. For a beginner, however, vocabulary learning is not the only task. The pace could be even a bit higher but the aim should not be only memorizing vocabulary. I supposed here I have a foreign word and learn 1-3 meaning in my mother tongue. I do not learn a list of synonym or other meanings. I learn vocabulary as it is presented in textbooks, not as it is in a big dictionary. The second situation is you are mainly concentrated on vocabulary. You know the grammar and you just want to expand your vocabulary. When I learn word only passively, from the language into Czech, I can learn 30 words a day. Due to repetitions, after a month or after learning 1000 words I can lower the daily batch of word. But now – I have learned 1000 word and nearly half of my task has been finished. I do not claim I know these words for good or can use them actively. Again, I learn only one meaning which means 1,2 3 equivalents in Czech. A few years ago I learned word from a textbook of conversation. (the book rather contained thematic vocabulary lists). When I heard some of these word in the speech, I could recognise them. The problem was these words without a context were soon forgotten. And also, the textbook vocabulary did not correspond to the real language which is spoken and written by native speakers. But let us go back to the question. I could learn 20 new word a day without any problem. In four month it is 4 x 600 = 2400 words. Conclusion: Language learning is more than memorizing the vocabulary. At the beginning the real pace could be some 2500-3000 words a year with the basic grammar etc. There would be only a little point in just memorizing the vocabulary. One has to learn some grammar, has to be able to read real texts, should be able to make their own sentences, one should do a lot of listening etc. An advanced learner can learn vocabulary at a higher pace, especially word which one learns only passively. For speaking one needs some 5000 words but for reading it is not enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4462 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 55 of 66 11 September 2012 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do you mean, know the "dictionary" definition of a word or the exact "connotations" of the word? It takes a LONG time to learn when and what words to use and in what contexts.
However, just memorizing definitions....I say you could do 40 words/day if you spend an hour a day with a language.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 56 of 66 11 September 2012 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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At school, I learned approx. 1,800 German words in perhaps four months. I numbered the words in a hardback notebook, which is why I have a rough idea how many I learned. To define what I mean by "learned", I mean likely to recognise them and actively use them in the upcoming school exams.
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