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How many words do you learn per day? | ||
Tags: Word Frequency | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6489 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 17 of 213 18 June 2009 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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As I wrote on page 1 of this thread it would take one whole evening plus time for repetition to get through 250 words.
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| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5530 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 18 of 213 19 June 2009 at 1:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Iversen, I am in awe of your language abilities, you managed to learn and mantain a lot of languages which put you ahead for most of us (newbies) and you are considered as a languages guru or something :)
I have tried your marvelous word lists method but sadly, I am a flash-cards fan, but I found a way to tweak the flash-cards to contain 10-20 words per card,which adds up a huge amount of vocabulary and be a little frugal with the cards ;) ---------------- I learn about 20 words a day (in a single language) and I am optimistic for I am the "rationalize" type but I am working on my perseverence ;) ----------------- @ IVERSEN, again... I tried to learn words from the dictionary but I found it very tricky with similar looking words organized alphabetically, do you scan the dictio alphabetically or you just pick up various words untile there are none left? Thank you 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5769 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 19 of 213 19 June 2009 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I know this thread is about words, but at the moment I am learning Japanese kanji (using
the Heisig book), and for the last two weeks I have been learning 100 characters per day. Last year I was learning Japanese vocabulary, and that was also at a rate of 100 per day. I generally hate memorising, and don't do it very often, but if I need to learn a few thousand words or characters it is sometimes easier to just spend a few weeks on it and be done with it. At the moment it can take up to three hours to memorise 100 kanji using memory tricks, but I will also spend some time reviewing earlier characters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| McMackin Newbie Canada Joined 5493 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 20 of 213 19 June 2009 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Iversen, do you happen to have a Spanish word list that I could use? I ask because I have read many of your posts and you are clearly an exceptional language learner. The previous response by toufik18 mentioned these "word lists" and I would love to try your method of study with your word list.
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| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5530 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 21 of 213 19 June 2009 at 2:45am | IP Logged | ||
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@ McMackin
Iversen has already described his method several times here, but here is a quote for you "To do this I have invented a more efficient way of using wordlists. Earlier when I had to learn a list of words I did the usual mistake of looking at each word pair (target - translation) in isolation, repeating it in my head X times until I thought I knew it - but that's wrong. Now I look at 5-7 word pairs at a time. I first write the target words in a column and run mentally through them to learn the translations. Only when I'm sure I know the translations for all the words I add a second column for the translations. Then I study this short list until I'm sure that I could write the original words from the translations, - and then I test this by covering the first column. Only when I actually do remember all the original words I proceed to writing the third column with the original words once again. With this method I can get through (and learn) around 100 new words in an hour. Then a couple of days later I read (and sometimes even write) the list through once more to fixate the words in my long-term memory. I spend 2-3 hours every day on word lists of the two kinds I have described, so I get through (and learn) at least 200-300 words daily (in 2-3 languages). But the real number is far higher, partly because of derivations, but more importantly because of positive effect the memory training has on my intake of new words from reading and listening. I may sound like a preacher man when speaking about word lists, but I know that I wasted years on inefficient rote learning methods earlier in my life because nobody taught me to use word lists efficiently. " ---------------------- or a summary if you like : by MeshGearFox: "Hm. If you don't mind me doing so, I'm going to try to rewrite Iversen's method in a bulleted list: 1. Write a short list of 5-7 words in your target language. 2. Read through them until you are confident you know the translation. 3. Write a second list consisting of the translation for these words. 4. Read through it till you're confident that you know the original words. 5. Reread the original words. 6. To solidify the knowledge, rewrite the original words in a third column. After this, you pick a new 5-7 words, I'm guessing? " ------------------ Or, you can check this long-detailed article about the same method http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Word_lists I hope I helped Edited by Toufik18 on 19 June 2009 at 2:46am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6489 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 22 of 213 19 June 2009 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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McMackin, I think you have misunderstood my talk about wordlists. It isn't about some specific list of words, but rather about my personal method to put a bit of system into the process of memorizing words, - i.e. any words in any language (see for instance the description in this this thread). Others may prefer flash cards or similar systems for spaced repetition (Anki, Supermemo), but I don't like to be confronted with random words, - it appeals more to me to compile a list and then learn it from one end to the other. And to Toufik18: alphabetically ordered series have the advantage that you can use the orderering itself as one more element that can aid your memorizing ("XY is the word after XX in my list"). For some reason I find alphabetically ordered lists easier to learn than semantically organized lists, which I only use for 'mopping-up' operations.
The idea behind learning 5-7 words in one go is that this forces you to recall the words, not just repeat each word pair ad nauseam in your head - in my opinion it is recalling that makes the words stick in your mid- or longterm memory, not mere repetition. And the repetition phase one day later is immensely important, because it serves to fixate the words in your longterm memory. If necessary make one more repetition round, but by then it should be enough to read through the list or maybe write down the foreign words once again. .. well, this developed once again in an fairly long post. We all have our bad habits, and one of mine is writing very detailed posts here. I tell about my techniques again and again because they have worked so very well for me personally, and maybe they can also be of use to others. Besides you probably won't hear about this use of wordlists anywhere else (I haven't). But wordlists won't help people who only learn from personal interaction or who get bored by dictionaries and grammars. And no, I emphatically do not see myself as a guru, more as a mad collector who has chosen languages as his object. Edited by Iversen on 19 June 2009 at 3:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6158 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 23 of 213 19 June 2009 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||
It's possible if you have time, will, and memory power. But I was just saying that the range of words someone can learn on average each day is vast. It's not the norm for me. I love going through 25-30 words at a time over about 30 to 45 minutes. Edited by zerothinking on 19 June 2009 at 7:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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