|
 |
How many reviews till secure in memory? | ||
Tags: Memory | Vocabulary learning | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| JiriT Triglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4648 days ago 60 posts - 95 votes  Speaks: Czech*, English, German | Message 25 of 32 26 January 2014 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
|
If you want to learn vocabulary in an inflective language, you do not have to memorize
all the word forms. When you learn nouns, you learn inflectional endings for each case (I do not know how many case Polish has, in Czech there are 7 cases). There are several patterns of nouns and all each noun has case endings according to its pattern. In some cases also the word root (or stem) has some changes, but there are some rules. One has to learn grammar rules for inflection and not say 7 cases for each noun. The verb "to be" is special in perhaps all European languages. Even in English, it has different form in the present tense and one has to learn by heart all the forms (I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are, I was, you were ...). The word forms often have no similarity with the dictionary form (be). But most verbs have inflectional endings regularly and the word root (stem) does not change or changes only slighly and according to some phonological rules. But in practice, it is good to combine memorizing grammar patterns, grammar drills and seeing the grammar rules used in the real language. I guess, a beginner has to memorize maybe more grammar rules than words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5956 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 26 of 32 26 January 2014 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you for pointing this out, and I agree; learn the endings rather than individual word forms. In my experience this has all I have needed for most regular nouns. However, with irregular nouns like 'dzień' (day) and 'pies' (dog), I've had to learn many of the declensions as unique words in effect. But yes, there's no need to memorise complete declension tables for everything - that would be unnecessarily tough! Edited by Mooby on 26 January 2014 at 12:04pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4142 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 27 of 32 05 February 2014 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||
|
From one repetition to an infinite number of repetitions.
I have a knack for memorizing slang and funny words, so oftentimes hearing them or reading them once will be enough. However, if the word is boring or complicated, I'm out of luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7056 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 28 of 32 05 February 2014 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
So that's my problem. Son of a ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6554 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 29 of 32 05 February 2014 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||
|
I certainly agree that you don't have to memorize all word forms in languages with inflection, but a native speaker or very advanced learner will nevertheless have stored a lot of individual word forms in his/her memory. The question is how a not-quite-so-advanced learner survives, and my guess it right now that there is a stage where not the individual words and not the complete tables, but individual 'locations' in those tables are stored so that you immediately can attach a certain ending to any word of a relevant class (and cross fingers that you identified the class correctly). So I may know that most Russian words have an -e in the prepositional case in the singular, but I don't run through seven cases and three genders and two numbers to use apply this isolated piece of information.
So should we abolish the tables? Certainly not, because the realization that I need a certain form of a certain word presupposes that I know that there is a system of cases, gender and numbers AND that I should take care not to apply the -e rule in those cases where the appropriate ending is -и. Or to take an example: I can recognize a dog and call it Fido, because my notion of dogs is constructed in such a way that it excludes cows, cats, butterflies and humans. Edited by Iversen on 06 February 2014 at 4:47pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4295 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 30 of 32 08 February 2014 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Knowing the correct word usage takes practice and regular usage. If you don't use a word / phrase you're likely
going to forget it. The other day I was listening to a radio broadcast 2 hosts exchanging dialog in English. 1 is an Englishman and the other a Chinese lady from Beijing. The Chinese spoke with an accent but nonetheless very understandable. However, she would make mistakes in her grammar that English speakers and even students studying English would be able to pick out right away. The first is "many" in front of "information" in the context of "There is too many information on the Internet". Items you cannot physically count you would use "much" instead of "many". The other is the word "teach" in the context of "Someone was teach how to speak Chinese". The verb tense is past participle and therefore the correct way is "was taught". A Chinese radio host who is supposedly fluent in English making mistakes? Edited by shk00design on 08 February 2014 at 5:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6760 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 32 08 February 2014 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
|
While I don't think that fluency has much to do with perfect grammar, I'd still say that the mistakes you pointed out are very basic (and probably shouldn't be part of "radio host English", no matter the country).
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alessio Tetraglot Newbie Saudi Arabia Joined 3714 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical), Arabic (Gulf) Studies: Arabic (Yemeni), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Levantine), Italian, Spanish | Message 32 of 32 01 May 2014 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||
|
One method that I have found useful for Arabic vocabulary is to write the word down on flashcards in several different contexts gleamed from authentic sources. I try to use as many of the forms as possible in order to get a proper sense of the different meanings. For classical Arabic I found using corpus data on the Quran to be extremely helpful. Lane's Lexicon also has some useful example sentences. I like to ask my colleagues for equivalents in Saudi, Syrian, Egyptian, and Yemeni Arabic, where possible and make a separate deck collecting them together. So on one side of the flashcard is the target word (L2 for passive or L1 for active) and on the other side are the various example sentences. I find repeating the deck till it sticks actively (usually after repeating seven or so times) the most helpful method. Every now and then I might revisit the deck and tend to focus on the ones that are most problematic (i.e. those that have multiple meanings and forms).
1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
