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Alternative Vocab Techniques | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Wishful Learner Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4528 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 5 11 April 2012 at 9:37pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everybody!
In the languages I am studying, I feel as though although I have a significant part of the basic and intermediate grammar nailed down, I've done the wrong thing and 'learnt the language backwards' - my vocabulary is shockingly bad. I've been trying the flash card method for a long while now, and although it is working in the short-term, long-term it's very rarely working, despite reviewing the vocabulary regularly. I was wondering if there were any other techniques that work for some people, or any alternative methods of using flashcards? Thank you very much for your help! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 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 2 of 5 11 April 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
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I have written tons about wordlists and other methods here so I won't repeat the whole thing here.
You aren't very specific about your stage in your target languages, but when you stress your grammar studies plus the fact that you have used flash cards I get a feeling that maybe you haven't really tried to use your languages actively, and it is also not clear whether you can read those languages at this stage. Both French and German have a good deal of vocabulary in common with English (sometimes with spelling differences, sometimes not) which means that it shouldn't be to difficult for you to learn to read genuine texts - and maybe listening is also within reach if you aren't already there. This is important because a lot of extensive reading and listening is indispensable if you want to preserve the words you memorize - the more the better. However doing only extensive activities means that you unwittingly learn to skip difficulties and new stuff so you should also work intensively with short texts which are within your reach, but not so easy that you can understand them without further ado. Try to keep extensive and intensive activities separate - they have different purposes. Making your languages active is of course the crowning of the process, but you will not use all your passive vocabulary in conversations - you will just strengthen a minor part of it. In other words reading and listening a lot will be the ingredient in your studies which force you out into the corners of your vocabulary - not speaking or writing. With time the percentage of your passive vocabulary which also is active will automatically rise, but it will take time to achieve this. Edited by Iversen on 11 April 2012 at 10:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4500 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 3 of 5 11 April 2012 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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This may or may not work for you, but you mentioned flashcards. What I do with my flashcards is very time consuming, but really tends to stick better in my head. When I work my flashcards, I take one at a time and create sentences with that one word. Sometimes I do 2 or 3 sentences and move on, sometime I do 10+ (depending on how well I know the word or how difficult it is for me to remember). I also try to use multiple flashcard words in a sentence as well. Sometimes I can find ways to use 3 or 4 words that I'm learning in a sentence. One key for me is to say the sentence out loud maybe even multiple times to get a feel for actually using it to express an idea. I find that when I am able to speak a word in a usable context that it sticks with me.
That may not be what you are looking for, but hopefully it helps. Good luck! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 5 12 April 2012 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
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That's your first post so - have you heard of SRS yet? You can find examples here: http://www.antimoon.com/how/usingsm-makeitems.htm
I prefer doing sentences, much more fun than individual words for me. I also recommend trying the super challenge :DDD 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6083 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 5 of 5 22 April 2012 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
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I use various techniques, small flashcards, word lists, vocabulary booklets etc. Quite recently, I have started writing words and phrases down that I have problems with, staring at them on repeated occasions to try and force them into my longer-term memory.
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