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How much time studying vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5223 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 193 of 350 19 May 2015 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think that this is the heart of much of the debate here. The question isn't whether making or using lists is bad or good. It's how to use lists. I think many people, including myself would agree with the statement that it is easier to REVIEW a list of words, phrases or notes made from various sources than going back to the original sources. That, after all, is why we made the list in the first place. Using the list as a mnemonic tool is a great technique that everybody uses. What is contentious here is the idea that to "learn" a large number of words "it is more efficient to memorise a list of words using the production card method than to read a book." This is where I disagree strongly, especially with the use of the word "learn". What exactly is meant by learning words from lists when there is no information about how the words are used and at most a bit of translation? As I have said before, the assumption here is that by "front-loading" a bunch of words, it will make reading or listening easier because we will already have the words available. Instead of having to read a bunch of books to get X number of words, we can use a list of X words and get ahead much faster. The fallacy in this argument is that learning from a list is the same as learning from seeing the words being used in books. This is the problem of trying to learn with frequency lists that one can find easily on the Internet. A list of the most common verbs in French would start with être, avoir, faire, dire, savoir, dire, venir, parler, pouvoir, connaître, etc. Memorizing that list is, in my opinion, entirely useless. Instead, I could use that list to orient my learning of French verbs. Those are the ones I would explore first. But that's not the same as memorizing the list. That's why I would be interested in looking at a list of the most 500 common words in Polish, not to learn them by heart but to develop my learning strategy. That said, I do believe in the learning of vocabulary explicitly. I have in front of me a great little book Vocabulaire de l'espagnol moderne . What is interesting is that words are grouped by subject or logical categories. Each chapter starts with VOCABULAIRE. For example, the first chapter is on words for time with subsections of time of day, days of the week, months of the year, seasons, etc. After this there is a great section called LEXIQUE EN SITUATION where much of same words are presented in actual sentences. Then there is REMARQUES LEXICALES with comments of cultural aspects and usage of the words. Then REMARQUES GRAMMATICALES with comments on the grammatical aspects of using the vocabulary properly. Finally there are some EXERCICES to test one's knowledge. This sort of thing I find very useful because I can expand my vocabulary both in terms of subject and use in context. This is what I would call learning new words. But this is totally different from memorizing a list of words in random order or by frequency. Edited by s_allard on 19 May 2015 at 3:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 194 of 350 19 May 2015 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
OK... We've wheeled out the dodgy French verbs again. Let's try some English words. Do you need context of reading a Stephen King tome in order to figure these out, or would a list be more efficient? HIS PHONE CAR PICKLE BOOK FRENCHMAN IN OR OVER UNDER RANDOM RADIO DOG CAT HORSE CHICKEN PILLOW BOAT OAR GRASS TREE LEAF
Do you need more than a bit translation when using these words? NO! You don't. You could learn these types of concrete words, and then spend the rest of the day cuddled up to your grammar book and irregular verb charts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 195 of 350 19 May 2015 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You certainly might need context to understand several of these:
pickle (noun or verb?, "in a pickle"?), over ("over there"? "overcoat"? "over the moon"? "over the top"?), chicken (noun or adjective) leaf ("turn over a new leaf"?) And these are just common words which appear to have a 1:1 relationship between languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4142 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 196 of 350 19 May 2015 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I remember reading a paper showing how semantic similarity hinders learning of vocabulary.
I.e., learning words by thematic category, as well as learning opposites together, makes it more difficult to remember, and easier to confuse them. As for the examples in the post above, you can make cards with more than a single word translation. And I don't think idioms are really the best argument against memorizing translations. Lastly, as I mentioned in an earlier post, just treat this as a step, not a stand-alone method. Edited by Ezy Ryder on 19 May 2015 at 3:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 197 of 350 19 May 2015 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Let me tell you a story of how I was taught English in school way back when I was a boy. Back when I was in school my teacher taught me vocabulary with lists. We would be given a list of words on the blackboard on Friday afternoon and we had to write them down along with the definition. The definition was the one marked with a 1. in the dictionary, we didn't get definition 2,3,4,5,6 or any references to idioms. We got a single word and one definition. The next Friday when we came in the morning the teacher gave us a quiz on the words from last Friday. We had to do production of the list, e.g. she gave us a paper with the definition and we had to spell the word correctly. So we would get this: OVER - in an upward and forward direction across something PICKLE - a cucumber that has been preserved in brine or vinegar. CHICKEN - a domestic fowl She wouldn't confuse us with multiple meanings, because she knew as we became more advanced we would encounter these words in all it's various forms, and we would know how to look up the definition of the word if we were confused. Some times she would take these words from our assigned reading, or sometimes it would be seemingly at random. She was a very canny teacher, and she also taught us grammar and punctuation, but she left vocabulary for us to learn at home and quizzed us every Friday. Sometimes we'd have a "spelling bee", where we'd all stand in front of the class and be given words from our weekly vocabulary lists and we'd have to spell them out loud. If we made a mistake we had to sit down in shame. Now I realise you've all had warm-fuzzy touchy-feely teachers who taught you peace, love and "new math". You've not been cruelly subjected to weekly vocabulary lists and weekly quizzes, you haven't had to memorise the times-tables, or vocabulary lists, or the quadratic equation. You have all just sat around in your classes reading classic literature in order to nurture your youthful minds. Well I say bollocks! You'd be hard pressed to find any word in a dictionary which doesn't have multiple meanings in any language. So learn the first definition and if it doesn't jive with what you are reading look it up, and remember the second definition, or the third if the second doesn't jive. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong by learning the first definition first, it just means you've started to learn the first of many definitions. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 198 of 350 19 May 2015 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 199 of 350 19 May 2015 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I mentioned your theory to my neighbour who is French. She said she was required to memorise all irregular verb forms when she was growing up, and her son was taught the same way. Rote memorisation of French verbs and verb forms. So if it is good enough for the French, why isn't rote memorisation good enough for people who are learning French as a second language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5223 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 200 of 350 19 May 2015 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
"Dodgy French verbs." My, my, from someone who claims to study French. They are dodgy only if one doesn't know them, which is the whole point. On the other hand,I'm not sure what is the purpose of presenting a list of English words that most of us know. Is English the target language here? Are these words to be learned or to be reviewed? This is a good example of confused thinking. It would be much more relevant in this debate to take a bunch of unknown words from a target language. Let's take the example of Polish that I'm trying to learn. Here is a list starting with seven of the most important Polish verbs. Maybe they are dodgy to some people, but they seem important to Polish speakers. (Sorry if I've made any spelling mistakes.) być 'to be' mieć 'to have' robić 'to make/do' umieć 'to know how to' wiedzieć 'to know how' znać 'to be acquainted with' rozumieć 'to understand' wierny 'faithful' poważnie 'seriously' ciało 'body' piersi 'breasts (women)' nieważne 'nevermind' jutro 'tomorrow' wczoraj 'yesterday' śniadanie 'breakfast' pieniądze 'money' I've never seen any of these words before. How should I use this list? How will memorizing this list help? Will this give my Polish a boost? Should I learn a list like this every day? The little that I've seen so far leads me to think that learning a bunch of unknown words like this will lead to lexical mush after a month. On the other hand, this list tells me that I should have a close look at those seven key verbs as a top priority. As for the others, I'll learn them when I come across them. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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