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Best way to master correct conjugation? | ||
Tags: Morphology | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5575 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 33 of 41 20 November 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Source of the 'cue' method, Schliemann Experiment Of course it would be feasible to use last letters etc, provided they aren't less unique than first letters. I'm actually currently experimenting with using tone marks for Mandarin. And, I do not review a text more than once; I rather allow availability heuristics to take over using extensive exposure as soon as I can.
I'm finishing secondary school in adult education, and my classmates' language abilities are, uhm, quite varied. The reason why I'm concerned is not my English, but having made the experience that every good language teacher I had so far (six different languages, several teachers in some) used material they picked from different books, because there was no single book or method without mistakes available. Knowing that, I simply do not put too much trust into teaching material. And I personally find it awfully difficult to change procedural knowledge once I got used to doing it a certain way. Just recently I made the experience again when my French teacher told us 'So, now you are allowed to learn and use the subjunctive!' after two years of avoiding sentences that call for the subjunctive. The method we're using is written for native German speakers who have English as their first and French as their second foreign language. I can get along in Spanish, and so I had to actively suppress my intuited attempts at using the French subjunctive. Most methods I've seen written for English speakers assume there's little foreign language proficiency and they tend to simplify their rules and explanations quite a bit with the prospect of refining the grammar point later on, something that doesn't bode well with me.
I don't have a name for my learning style. (Other than 'messed up', but that's a different tale.) But yes, you were right on the money with Schliemann. I'd forgotten the name. In my case my particular likes and dislikes are probably linked to procedural memory as well as the memory bias I mentioned before; I tend to remember concepts rather than forms, and it takes me a long time to transfer factual knowledge to procedural knowledge. The quickest workaround I found was to not learn the factual knowledge first, but the procedural one. Shadowing, scriptorum, memorization of the form rather than the content, and then using availability heuristics rather than reviewing the same content time and again. I actually improve faster this way. Edited by Bao on 20 November 2012 at 9:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4480 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 34 of 41 24 November 2012 at 4:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hi Rout, big fan here. What's the difference between a grammar-translation book and a text book/grammar? What do you think of Lucas's translation method? It sounds like you don't memorize the vocabulary lists in your grammar-translation books. Do you ever learn vocabulary out of context? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5521 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 35 of 41 27 November 2012 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, a grammar-translation book will rely almost exclusively on translation drills (and maybe some reading exercises), whereas a textbook/grammar will (usually) use several different types of drills: crossword puzzles, fill-in-the-blank, translation drills, multiple-choice exercises, etc. In my opinion, the most (only) effective drills are the translation drills and reading drills. By Lucas do you mean Luca Lampariello (I couldn't think of anyone named Lucas)? If so, I think his method is great. I'm not really able to fully use vocabulary and sentence structures from dialogue books unless I translate the dialogues to and from English. You could circumvent this step by using the scriptorium technique (this way you can somewhat avoid thinking in your native language), but I like doing both if I have time and never at the expense of translation. I guess the act of translating words from my short-term memory (that is from the glanced over vocab list to then straight to the drills) is how I memorize vocabulary. The act of writing them down and pronouncing them while I do it probably has a lot to do with it. Since I like using other methods (like Assimil), reading graded readers, watching tv shows, etc. after working through one or two of these, the most basic 2000-3000 words are usually repeated over and over in various contexts. After that, watching and reading (harder materials), and writing essays and having them corrected helps me to expand my vocabulary. The only language that I've had to make an effort at memorizing vocabulary was Chinese. This probably isn't necessary either, but I'm only passively learning Chinese for my Chinese class; I use something similar to Iversen's method but for characters. I'm around the top of my class, so it does work, but you really have to go at it intensively then start using the vocabulary right away (through reading and listening) otherwise it will fall away pretty quickly (like after the test is over, haha). Thankfully, my Chinese teacher is pretty rigorous; almost all the exams are comprehensive so I have to stay up on things. Once I'm done with my intensive study of Spanish, I plan to take Chinese a little more seriously and hopefully I'll have a pretty good passive base to work off of. [EDIT] I've talked about this video and Dr. Argüelles before, who is extremely well-known on this site anyway, but I thought I'd add it since the methods I use for expanding my vocabulary were independently pruned, culled, and shaped, by means of trail-and-error trail and error, and are astonishingly similar to Dr. Argüelles's (who has about 10 times the experience and success as I). At 18:05 he talks about vocabulary specific work and I'm in total agreement with him; there's nothing wrong with it, but it's not necessary. I make no real effort to memorize vocabulary, unless you count (as an example) thinking in the shower about the new words I just learned. This is a reflex though, not an exercise. If a word's important, it will pop back up. Edited by Rout on 30 November 2012 at 3:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4656 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 36 of 41 03 July 2014 at 6:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This will never stop being funny. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 37 of 41 03 July 2014 at 9:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I use several things for conjugations/declinations:
1. I go through the grammar tables and explications. I need to get a wider overview of how is the thing done, I observe the rules. I memorize the basics, such as the few regular exemples. But the most important is to observe the logic behind it, the similarities and differences from other tenses and so on. This makes all the work much easier. Pay attention to given exemples, sometimes it is easier, as was already said, to remember a word declined if you rememb it in a short sentence. It has worked for me at times. 2. I do exercises. Fill in the gaps and multiple choice ar stupid but they work at this stage. When you just need to focus at the corct forms first, there is no need to write your own things and focus on a thousand things at once. It is important to do exercises with key. I really like translation exercises ( they usually bring me out of my comfort zone and it is fast to check the key than to wait for a correction on italki) but I think both the ones I mentioned above and the translation exercises are of similar value for learning conjugations/declinations. 3. Lots of input. Really. That will teach you how are the things used AND you'll have the proper forms drilled in your brain. At least, you'll get the feel for what is correct and what is probably not, at the best you won't need furthe memorisation. 4.srs to speed up the whole processs and get over those pieces that just won't stick. If you use a verb or noun incorectly conjugated/declined several times, yu are just further memorizing your mistake. So you can just get over it with the less fun but highly efficient method. How to srs these? Front: aller (pres) back: je vais,tu vas,.... That works for me but there are other options as well. 5.use. Make your own sentences and,at least at the beginnng, check your choices often in order not to make, repeat and internalize a mistake. Sorry about lower quality of my spelling, i am on a tablet and it is less easy to type precisely and go back to correct everything 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6512 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 38 of 41 03 July 2014 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good old thread.
I work with grammars, preferably a small one to give an overview and a larger one to get the details right. And then I try to separate simple rules and regular tables from all the surrounding mess. If possible I try to put those things in a condensed form which can be written on a green sheet for later reference. The exceptions and the irregularities must be learnt separately. In some cases they too can be put on green sheets (like for instance the tables for the most common verbs, which typically also are the most irregular), but at some point you have to switch to learning individual word forms - and short, simplified examples (not long quotes) are the best way to do this. It is simply impossible for me to remember 37 words that follow a certain rule or group in an inflection table, but I may be able to learn 37 'characteristic' forms of those words through examples or by using association techniques. The important thing is that you should learn forms that clearly show the 'weirdness' or symptomatic side of each word, and often this means another form than the dictionary form. But most grammars tell you the rule or point out the morphological subgroup, and then 37 words are rattled off in their dictionary form (for instance the infinitive of verbs). Btw. one of the smart ideas of oldfashioned Latin grammars was to make tables with four 'main forms' for each verb, because only a few verbs are so irregular that those four main forms don't tell you everything you need to know. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6406 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 39 of 41 03 July 2014 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
For irregular verbs, I prefer to find example sentences and make cloze deletion cards. It's important for me to have separate cards for each form, in order to recall them without the connection to the full paradigm. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 40 of 41 03 July 2014 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't have a problem with that. I think it's covered by the tons of input i'm having.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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