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List-ology: the best ’learning lists’? | ||
Tags: Hit List | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 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 9 of 24 09 May 2011 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have made tons of wordlists (three-column layout with groups of 5-7 words and a repetition round and all that, as described in my Guide to learning languages, part 4 and in a Youtube video), and I do humbly think they have been useful at least for me.
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| Haukilahti Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4955 days ago 94 posts - 126 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Polish | Message 10 of 24 09 May 2011 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't despise wordlists nor flashcards, I just can't get myself to use them much. But then I do use traditional textbooks and courses, especially dialogue-based (see Assimil). I prefer to find words in context, as in dialogues. If there are words that I "have" to study, I prefer to do that without the help of lists, just recalling the dialogue and/or words in my mind. But wordlists for me are just good for... becoming good at wordlists, I am not very good at transferring wordlists into real language speaking/understanding. But I do appreciate people who manage with wordlists: for example, if I recall correctly, Iversen's method sounded very interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5758 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 11 of 24 09 May 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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The very essence of your list, Iversen, seems to be the way to use them, whereas I generally think the contents and order of the words is important. Isn't it? Which do I learn first? Etc. I have been thinking of 'concentric existential language learning' (CELL) lists, starting from the very basic things of communication (inside circle) and then broadening thematically/...
I see your point, Haukilahti, and that is interesting as well: learning the words in contexts, as chunks, I'd say. I think that is an important aspect as well, that we do not isolate the words too much but keep them part of a larger sentence/dialogue. I could see a link between CELL and these chunks... Thanks ! Edited by JanKG on 09 May 2011 at 6:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5106 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 12 of 24 09 May 2011 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I use lists a lot. What I've been doing lately is going through the courses on lernu.net, and whenever I come across a word I don't know, I write it down with its translation. Then later I can go over the list, and at some point put them all in Anki.
I also sometimes use something like Iversen's method. I do that when I find a list of words in a certain category, like the learn words by topic section on lernu. I find that helpful when the words are related, like all computer words or something. Sometimes I also take Sporg's approach (I think I got that username right..), and I just follow my curiosity, and I sort of end up making lists then too. For example, recently I wanted to know how to talk about my ballroom dancing in Esperanto, so I started looking up the relevent words and writing them in a list, which at some point will also end up in Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5758 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 13 of 24 09 May 2011 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're touching upon my keypoint: how to bring together the words? When are they related? It seems to me it should somehow be possible to make kind-of universal lists.
But the Sporg approach: I might have read about that, but would it not be good to have a section of the forum for specific methods so that one can have a quick look at all of them quickly ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 14 of 24 09 May 2011 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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For advanced purposes, I might get a kind of etymology-based list going where I'm not simply learning
words in the order I encounter them. These things are good for when you want to really get to know a language, I think, but you need to be quite familiar with the language already and you should be aiming for a high level, because it'll take time. I've started to do this in Chinese now, where I might look up and learn the building blocks of characters and memorize them, even though they might not be so common by themselves. Then I look up which other characters use these building blocks. So I might learn 禺 and then move on to 萬，愚，邁，遇，偶，勱，厲，勵，藕 (relatively common characters), and even memorize characters like 寓，嵎，齵，癘，礪，耦，糲，顒… (there are so many!) which are less common. Many of these are very rare, however, and if I'm going for "functional" it'll probably be a waste of time, but if I'm going for "near-native", these methods may be fruitful in the long run. But it'll take a lot of exposure before I come to find a character like 喁, a formal character meaning a fish sticking its mouth up through the surface of the water, very useful. Chinese lends itself very well to this sort of method, of course, but I'm sure it could be used in non-Chinese languages as well, though it might be hard to find a way to compile the lists. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 15 of 24 09 May 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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JanKG, you're a teacher trying to find the best way to present vocabulary to your students or are you looking for a way for yourelf?
I don't make lists because it takes a lot of time, which I prefer to spend learning differently, but I have been using lists and books based on such lists and the thematic ones were the most useful. Why should I use an alphabetical list when I already have a traditional dictionary? And learning words with the same root together is fine as well but I don't need to learn those as vocabulary as soon as I know how to create them gramatically. I am trying a dictionary of synonymes now, seems as a good thing so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5758 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 16 of 24 09 May 2011 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, indeed, Ari, etymology can prove useful, but generally at an advanced level. I guess Swedish would do well for that as well as Germanic languages have a lot of words with the same root/ stem.
As for you, Cavesa, I make lists for my students and for native speakers, I'd say, like myself. I have fun exploring which words are linked etymologically, and semantically, and maybe philosophically/ conceptually. And somehow, for a year now, I have exploring that existential learning track, trying to find life basics as a starting point, and presenting them in circles, fundamentals first, develioping the rest next. So I hope it is useful for everyone. But what lists do you find best then ? I have a feeling the lists I see are way too practical (based on 'ordinary' contexts). Edited by JanKG on 09 May 2011 at 9:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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