Remembering words

General discussion about learning languages
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Iversen
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Iversen » Sat Nov 26, 2016 4:00 pm

I usually do the first repetition round one day later, and if there is a second round it will typically come at least one day later than the first one. My philosopghy is that the repetition round should be done while I still remember most of the memory tags I used for the original wordlist, and I have found that this is the case one day later - but a wordlist that has been lying around for several months has become so 'old and dusty' that I don't feel like going through it once again. I could just as well start a new wordlist, so that's what I do.

As for the time span between culling words from a text (as part of the intensive study of it) and using them in a wordlist I have no fixed rules, but it should be done while the text is still fresh in my memory. In some cases I have done it immediately after I have filled a sheet with my scribblings, for instance because there were a number of words which I just copied from a Google translation or another unreliable source, and then I can fix their translations when I transfer the words to my wordlist. In other cases I have done it later, when I have worked my way through a whole long article.

About Anki: I don't use the system myself, but for me it would be problematic to import a long list of words from somewhere and convert them into cards by pressing a button. The one and only really valuble thing you do at the onset of the learning cycle in Anki is to choose each word or expression - maybe because you have found it somewhere, maybe because you know you'll need it later or maybe just because you like the sound of it. It may not amount to much, but its the only thing you really have got at that stage.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Voytek » Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:53 pm

Iversen wrote:The one and only really valuble thing you do at the onset of the learning cycle in Anki is to choose each word or expression - maybe because you have found it somewhere, maybe because you know you'll need it later or maybe just because the like the sound of it. It may not amount to much, but its the only thing you really have got at that stage.


Actually, that is what I had been doing till I decided to give a try to your method. If I encounter any words that are hard to remember using your method, I`ll simply put them into Anki. I`m very curious how it`s going to be. :)

How many words you usally write down a day? Today I`ve written down about 40 words and I`m going to rewiev them tomorrow.
Last edited by Voytek on Sat Jan 07, 2017 10:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Iversen » Sun Nov 27, 2016 2:13 pm

A session with 40 new words a couple of times each week and one or two repetition rounds would mean that you memorized around 4000 words in one year. Some will be forgotten, but they are easier to relearn if you hit upon them a second time. You also get some word for free through derivation and others from reading or listening because they catch your attention . All things considered 3000-4000 words in a year would be a quite sensible harvest for an investment of a few hours each week.

My own numbers are difficult to specify since I don't have very stable habits - and I also study a fair number of languages at very different levels.

Yesterday I collected all the new words from a number of Indonesian texts about television which I have studied recently, including the one from Wikipedia which I have mentioned in my log. All in all that amounted to around 200 words - but it is some time since I last made a wordlist in Bahasa Indonesia so there is still a long way before I can read any random Indonesian text with zero problems (and even longer before I can understand a discussion between native speakers if I ever get to hear one). WIthin the last week I have also done wordlists in Greek, Russian, Polish and Afrikaans.

Today I haven't entered a single word in a wordlist - instead I have listened to music by Gershwin and Orlando Gibbons, studied the Berne convention and comments to it in English and read a book in Low German extensively without noting anything down. No wordlists so far, but maybe I'll do one later today - I simply haven't decided yet what I'll do after I have stopped writing this, but for instance it's a long time since I have refreshed my Icelandic vocabulary. And the good thing about having a number of fixed formats to choose from is that if I do decide to do a wordlist I don't have to think about how to do it - I already know how to..
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Voytek » Sun Nov 27, 2016 2:41 pm

Today I`ve done the first round using your method and I found that I do remember 36 of 41 words that I studied using your method yesterday which is cool. :) I`m going to review them tomorrow but this time I`m going to chceck this words in my native language to find out if I remember their Spanish counterparts and if I find some of them problematic I`ll put them into Anki.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Jan 01, 2017 8:06 pm

rdearman wrote:You can find a lot of Corpus on the internet, but here is a collection.

Three links for Spanish seem dead. All three appear on this page: http://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/corpora/corpora.html,
and these are the links:

Spanish

1. Corpus of Historical Spanish Texts (1200s-1900s, web-searchable): http://mdavies.for.ilstu.edu/corpus/
2. Parallel Text in English and Spanish Texts from the Pan American Health Organization (Archived at CRL.):
http://crl.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/Tools/CLR/clrcat#H8
3. They are supposed to be archived at CRL: http://crl.nmsu.edu/Resources/clr.htm, but that link is dead, too.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Soclydeza » Mon Jan 02, 2017 8:20 pm

I picture the word/action in my mind and sometimes even act it out if I'm going through my vocab list. When dealing with a language that uses genders, I attach a man or woman to the word (in the case of German, where they also have the neuter gender, I use E.T.).

If you have the time and patience, try attaching physical pictures that you find to your Anki cards (I just saw a post from someone who makes their own pictures geared toward language learning on here, check it out).

If the words are of more of an abstract nature, I will study a sentence that uses the word and try to picture what the sentence itself is describing.

Imagery is one of the best means of memorization (for anything) so, whether it's with physical pictures or using your imagination, I find it to be a (not-so) secret weapon for memorizing words.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Voytek » Wed Jan 04, 2017 9:06 pm

Soclydeza wrote:I picture the word/action in my mind and sometimes even act it out if I'm going through my vocab list. When dealing with a language that uses genders, I attach a man or woman to the word (in the case of German, where they also have the neuter gender, I use E.T.).

If you have the time and patience, try attaching physical pictures that you find to your Anki cards (I just saw a post from someone who makes their own pictures geared toward language learning on here, check it out).

If the words are of more of an abstract nature, I will study a sentence that uses the word and try to picture what the sentence itself is describing.

Imagery is one of the best means of memorization (for anything) so, whether it's with physical pictures or using your imagination, I find it to be a (not-so) secret weapon for memorizing words.


For masculine nouns you can use cold colours (you can change it with some application), for feminine ones hot colours and for neuter ones black and white. I use this technique for my Swedish flashcards because there are neuter and non-neuter nouns in Swedish.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby FyrsteSumarenINoreg » Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:39 pm

Use it or lose it. :)
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Re: Remembering words

Postby yong321 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 1:01 am

I've read the answers everyone posted. All are great. Efficient use of memory according to psychological rules is the key. But I think there's another method not mentioned: analyzing words. This means that you make use of a cognate (or word borrowing) in a language you already know such as English, or if it cannot be found or it is found but it's too dissimilar to the one you're studying, you make up a word or phrase, or imagine a scene which you use a related word to describe in order to help you remember the word. As an example, here's my note for Spanish esconder:

esconder to hide, to abscond (cognate). It's probably not cognate with ensconce ("to put in a safe place"). Alternatively, as a mnemonic, imagine a hiding skunk.

If you know abscond, use that to help. But that English word may be a little obscure. So you can choose the "hiding skunk" phrase to help.

Obviously, different words need different strategies; some words defy reasonable analysis that is helpful. Then repeated rote memory is the only way out. Also obviously, some people like rote memory (not a bad method, please) more than word analysis. Some others go the other way. My opinion is that adult polyglots that study related languages benefit more from word analysis. But in the end, choose your own.
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Re: Remembering words

Postby Study75 » Fri Jan 13, 2017 1:22 am

A simple thing I do is to use the words in my daily routine even if I'm just speaking to myself. Usually before my day gets started I'll select a few words I already know along with a few new ones and make sure to put them to use. I pick words I know I'll encounter the object/activity for.
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