Re: Brun Ugle makes plans and then ignores them – diary of an easily distracted tortoise 2017 (ES, DE, FI, EO, JA, NO)
Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 5:50 pm
I’ve probably written this log entry a dozen times in my head, but I never seem to get around to actually typing it. I’ve told myself though, that I’m not allowed to watch another episode of Estoy vivo until I do. That show is fantastic. If your Spanish is up to it, you should watch it. It’s great. I’ve been savoring it, so I’ve only watched up to episode 5. After watching each episode, I read the transcript through and goldlist the unknown words. At this point, a lot of the unknown words seem to be regionalisms, slang, or creative terms for various portions of the anatomy. Those Spaniards are real potty-mouths, at least on TV.
The Goldlist Challenge is going well. I passed 6500 “lines” a few days ago, and have over 3500 entries in my headlist. Counting the words I’ve crossed off as “learned,” I’ve learned well over 1000 words and expressions so far. I feel like it’s really made a difference, but I’ve been doing it so intensely that I’ve hardly had the energy to do anything else. The experiment has converted me from skeptic to believer though. I’m still not sure that the Goldlist method is more efficient than SRS or that it takes less time. Of course, you cross off words, but you have to rewrite the others, so does it really take up less time than Anki where you don’t get rid of words you know, but the intervals get so long that you hardly ever see them and reviewing is as easy as clicking a button?
Anyway, the Goldlist method seems to work well for me. I had some troubles in the beginning, but that might have been due to the method being new and also I had a cold for two weeks and my brain wasn’t working for a while. Now I don’t usually have much trouble with it, and I’ve definitely learned a lot of new words. So, I think I will continue with it, or a slightly modified version, even after the challenge is over at the end of December. However, I will slow down a bit so I can work more on other things and just add words that I come across on TV, books, GLOSS, newspapers, etc. I’ve had to struggle to get enough words to add to make a strong showing in the challenge. I started out taking the hard words from LWT, but I ran out. I also took words from GLOSS exercises and from TV, but I don’t get through enough TV episodes or GLOSS exercises to fill up many headlists. So I’ve had to use various lists that I found and sometimes have even taken words randomly from the dictionary. This has led me to learning the names of several kinds of chisels and knowing three different words for earwigs. But if I ever find myself engaged in a conversation on earwig sculpture, I’ll be ready….. (to run).
So, I’m now convinced Goldlist works, but I don’t know that it’s better than other methods. For me, writing words down really helps me remember them, especially if I say them out loud as I write them and also visualize them or see myself in a situation where I could use the word. However, Goldlist has its weaknesses too. I’m not convinced that it takes less time than Anki because writing things out takes a lot of time. Like Anki, reviews build up. According to the creator of Goldlist, your brain naturally remembers 30% without effort, and the Goldlist method uses that by reducing each list by 30% with each rewrite or distillation, as it’s called. However, I find that there are some lists that my brain refuses to remember and I might barely recall 20%, which means I find it very difficult to get rid of enough words. Then there are other lists, most of them actually, where by the second distillation, I remember maybe 80% and I feel like it is a waste of time to rewrite all those words. So I am considering modifying the method after the challenge is over and making it more flexible. I will still write lists of words, but I won’t confine myself to the official format, and will instead rewrite the lists crossing off as many or as few words as I find I remember easily. One other problem with Goldlist is that errors can creep in. With Anki, or flashcards, if you make the original card correctly, then it stays correct. But with Goldlist, you might miscopy a word at any time. So even if you write it correctly the first time, you might later forget to cross a “t” that then turns into an “l” in future lists, or accidentally copy the definition from the wrong line, or make all kinds of tiny errors. And of course, Goldlist is a long-term method. You have to wait at least two weeks between each rewrite, so if you need to learn vocabulary for each week in class, it isn’t the best choice.
I think my real discovery of these few weeks of intense Goldlisting, is that I really need to do a bit of vocabulary study now and then. I tend to drill grammar until I know it forwards, backwards and inside-out, and then move on to native materials. But this has shown me that I would get huge benefit from doing some intense vocabulary work as well. I haven’t been reading much in Spanish lately because I’ve been exhausting myself with Goldlists instead, but I just tried reading several random passages from several different books and I feel like the difference from just a couple of months ago is huge. Suddenly my reading feels so much faster and smoother. I haven’t timed myself before or after, nor have I tried counting the number of unknown words, but subjectively, I feel the difference is amazing. And I noticed a number of words that I’ve learned recently and now understand with ease. (I even noticed a mention of earwigs in Harry Potter!)
Another thing I’ve learned from studying Spanish vocabulary is that pretty much every word in the language, no matter how innocent and everyday a word it is in one country, it probably means something dirty in some other country. Even the earwigs!
I also finally got around to reading one of the books set on Gotland that Jeff suggested. I read Mari Jungstedt’s first book and I’m already hooked. Unfortunately, the library doesn’t seem to have the second book, so I’m going to have to order it from another library. I have to read them in order, of course. Gotland sounds like a lovely place, apart from all the murders and serial killers, of course. It’s a good thing Jeff knows kung fu.
Other than that, I haven’t done a great deal. I haven’t even done German every day, and when I do do something with it, I just do Glossika or watching Kommissar Rex. And I’ve put Japanese aside again for a while.
Oh, I also had one Skype session with my Spanish tutor a couple of weeks ago, but it was so frustrating. I’m thinking of giving him one more chance and then finding a new tutor if he doesn’t improve. He was one of the best tutors I had in the beginning when he was willing to just chat, but then he started getting it into his head that he had to teach me stuff. So he keeps making me do exercises that are far too easy for me “for review.” I’ve told him that they are too easy and the lesson before last, I even gave him a couple of points that I thought I could do to work on so that he could work on those with me since he is so keen on exercises. He agreed and I assumed he would dig out some exercises on those topics for me, but then when the lesson came, he wanted to continue with the same easy exercises we’d been doing. On top of that, Skype kept cutting the call every few minutes. The lesson was on a Friday night and I was so exhausted afterwards, that I could hardly even move all weekend. I was so tired, I thought I must have the flu, but it was just my usual post-talking-to-someone exhaustion magnified a few dozen times by my frustration. It seems like every time I find a tutor I like, they eventually try to turn into a “real” teacher and then they’re no good anymore.
The Goldlist Challenge is going well. I passed 6500 “lines” a few days ago, and have over 3500 entries in my headlist. Counting the words I’ve crossed off as “learned,” I’ve learned well over 1000 words and expressions so far. I feel like it’s really made a difference, but I’ve been doing it so intensely that I’ve hardly had the energy to do anything else. The experiment has converted me from skeptic to believer though. I’m still not sure that the Goldlist method is more efficient than SRS or that it takes less time. Of course, you cross off words, but you have to rewrite the others, so does it really take up less time than Anki where you don’t get rid of words you know, but the intervals get so long that you hardly ever see them and reviewing is as easy as clicking a button?
Anyway, the Goldlist method seems to work well for me. I had some troubles in the beginning, but that might have been due to the method being new and also I had a cold for two weeks and my brain wasn’t working for a while. Now I don’t usually have much trouble with it, and I’ve definitely learned a lot of new words. So, I think I will continue with it, or a slightly modified version, even after the challenge is over at the end of December. However, I will slow down a bit so I can work more on other things and just add words that I come across on TV, books, GLOSS, newspapers, etc. I’ve had to struggle to get enough words to add to make a strong showing in the challenge. I started out taking the hard words from LWT, but I ran out. I also took words from GLOSS exercises and from TV, but I don’t get through enough TV episodes or GLOSS exercises to fill up many headlists. So I’ve had to use various lists that I found and sometimes have even taken words randomly from the dictionary. This has led me to learning the names of several kinds of chisels and knowing three different words for earwigs. But if I ever find myself engaged in a conversation on earwig sculpture, I’ll be ready….. (to run).
So, I’m now convinced Goldlist works, but I don’t know that it’s better than other methods. For me, writing words down really helps me remember them, especially if I say them out loud as I write them and also visualize them or see myself in a situation where I could use the word. However, Goldlist has its weaknesses too. I’m not convinced that it takes less time than Anki because writing things out takes a lot of time. Like Anki, reviews build up. According to the creator of Goldlist, your brain naturally remembers 30% without effort, and the Goldlist method uses that by reducing each list by 30% with each rewrite or distillation, as it’s called. However, I find that there are some lists that my brain refuses to remember and I might barely recall 20%, which means I find it very difficult to get rid of enough words. Then there are other lists, most of them actually, where by the second distillation, I remember maybe 80% and I feel like it is a waste of time to rewrite all those words. So I am considering modifying the method after the challenge is over and making it more flexible. I will still write lists of words, but I won’t confine myself to the official format, and will instead rewrite the lists crossing off as many or as few words as I find I remember easily. One other problem with Goldlist is that errors can creep in. With Anki, or flashcards, if you make the original card correctly, then it stays correct. But with Goldlist, you might miscopy a word at any time. So even if you write it correctly the first time, you might later forget to cross a “t” that then turns into an “l” in future lists, or accidentally copy the definition from the wrong line, or make all kinds of tiny errors. And of course, Goldlist is a long-term method. You have to wait at least two weeks between each rewrite, so if you need to learn vocabulary for each week in class, it isn’t the best choice.
I think my real discovery of these few weeks of intense Goldlisting, is that I really need to do a bit of vocabulary study now and then. I tend to drill grammar until I know it forwards, backwards and inside-out, and then move on to native materials. But this has shown me that I would get huge benefit from doing some intense vocabulary work as well. I haven’t been reading much in Spanish lately because I’ve been exhausting myself with Goldlists instead, but I just tried reading several random passages from several different books and I feel like the difference from just a couple of months ago is huge. Suddenly my reading feels so much faster and smoother. I haven’t timed myself before or after, nor have I tried counting the number of unknown words, but subjectively, I feel the difference is amazing. And I noticed a number of words that I’ve learned recently and now understand with ease. (I even noticed a mention of earwigs in Harry Potter!)
Another thing I’ve learned from studying Spanish vocabulary is that pretty much every word in the language, no matter how innocent and everyday a word it is in one country, it probably means something dirty in some other country. Even the earwigs!
I also finally got around to reading one of the books set on Gotland that Jeff suggested. I read Mari Jungstedt’s first book and I’m already hooked. Unfortunately, the library doesn’t seem to have the second book, so I’m going to have to order it from another library. I have to read them in order, of course. Gotland sounds like a lovely place, apart from all the murders and serial killers, of course. It’s a good thing Jeff knows kung fu.
Other than that, I haven’t done a great deal. I haven’t even done German every day, and when I do do something with it, I just do Glossika or watching Kommissar Rex. And I’ve put Japanese aside again for a while.
Oh, I also had one Skype session with my Spanish tutor a couple of weeks ago, but it was so frustrating. I’m thinking of giving him one more chance and then finding a new tutor if he doesn’t improve. He was one of the best tutors I had in the beginning when he was willing to just chat, but then he started getting it into his head that he had to teach me stuff. So he keeps making me do exercises that are far too easy for me “for review.” I’ve told him that they are too easy and the lesson before last, I even gave him a couple of points that I thought I could do to work on so that he could work on those with me since he is so keen on exercises. He agreed and I assumed he would dig out some exercises on those topics for me, but then when the lesson came, he wanted to continue with the same easy exercises we’d been doing. On top of that, Skype kept cutting the call every few minutes. The lesson was on a Friday night and I was so exhausted afterwards, that I could hardly even move all weekend. I was so tired, I thought I must have the flu, but it was just my usual post-talking-to-someone exhaustion magnified a few dozen times by my frustration. It seems like every time I find a tutor I like, they eventually try to turn into a “real” teacher and then they’re no good anymore.