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Using list methods effectively? | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 1 of 11 10 August 2010 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
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I really enjoyed using some list methods for learning vocabulary, such as the Iversen method and simply putting lists of 5 or so words into an SRS instead of one at a time. However, one problem I kept running in to was that I'd memorize words by their position in the list, not from the meaning or anything. IE, "Oh, this word means computer, I already know the next word means window," or "oh, the first word of this list means foot."
Does this happen to anyone else using lists, either in an SRS or the Iversen method, for vocabulary? Maybe some combination of lists with full sentences would help? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 11 10 August 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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ALS,
As you have noticed, if you learn things in lists, you remember the list, not the individual contents. As you're already using SRS, surely the solution is to... not use lists? One card, one item, problem solved. You enjoy learning that way, and may people here encourage others to do what they enjoy. In this case, that would be bad advice. Why? Because your brain enjoyed learning lists as lists. One way or the other, you are fundamentally changing the task. If you succeed in making a list that your brain doesn't learn as a list (an impossible task IMO) then you will no longer be going through the process you enjoy. I don't know if you're looking for excuses or loopholes -- there are no loopholes, so you'll only find excuses. So why not just make life simple and ditch the lists in favour of individual flashcards? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Akalabeth Groupie Canada Joined 5524 days ago 83 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 3 of 11 11 August 2010 at 3:34am | IP Logged |
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I'd second what Cainntear said. My experience is your brain will always find the
path of least resistance, and if you don't make that path of least resistance memorizing the words then you won't memorize the words. I originally started trying to learn vocab from sentences, but a lot of the time a single word, or even just seeing the length of the sentence, was enough to recall the entire sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5277 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 4 of 11 11 August 2010 at 5:45am | IP Logged |
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I personally learn by reviewing lists for memorization and then also reading the words in sentences and have never ran across this problem. I think the problem you may be having is boredom. Anyone who is tirelessly reviewing lists without enthusiasm would surely run into this problem. I should also note that people think and learn differently and what works for you doesn't necessarily work for everyone. Good luck in your endeavours in language learning.
Edited by CaucusWolf on 11 August 2010 at 6:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 11 11 August 2010 at 8:40am | IP Logged |
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One solution might be to answer the cards like this: One from the top down, one from the bottom up, one starting at the middle running up and then bottom up, one from the middle down and then top down. Rinse and repeat. With an SRS it should be not too likely to review the same card in the same order again and again.
I've been thinking about doing SRS with lists myself and I'd repeat each word on two or three cards. But it seems too much of a bother. Edited by Bao on 11 August 2010 at 8:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 6 of 11 11 August 2010 at 9:06am | IP Logged |
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I agree it'd be bad advice to learn with lists, even if I enjoyed them, because of the shortcuts automatically taken by the brain. I stopped using them right as I noticed this happening. I was hoping though that someone had developed some kind of workaround. I also noticed this problem with simply using sentences, which I find to be a massive flaw in the AJATT method.
@Cainntear: Really, I don't enjoy using an SRS. I use it because it's the best way I've found for vocab, but I find it incredibly tedious. I learn well from it despite the boredom, but I'm always looking for another way of learning vocabulary. I enjoy the Iversen method but unfortunately I have some conditions that make writing by hand much very difficult. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 11 11 August 2010 at 10:13am | IP Logged |
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OK, so can I ask you what your goal is in learning vocabulary? How do you select the words to learn?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 8 of 11 11 August 2010 at 10:26am | IP Logged |
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I pick words from reading material (games, another forum I frequent with some sections in
other languages, some news websites), or do the hold-a-conversation-with-yourself-and- find-the-words-you'd-need thing to find words I'd probably use frequently about myself or my hobbies. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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