How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby leosmith » Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:18 pm

Le Baron wrote:No-one learns 50 words a day properly, in any setting.
That's quite an exaggeration. Iversen and Stuart Jay Raj do, for example.
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby Le Baron » Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:20 pm

leosmith wrote:
Le Baron wrote:No-one learns 50 words a day properly, in any setting.
That's quite an exaggeration. Iversen and Stuart Jay Raj do, for example.

Well that's two at least. Hardly an exaggeration.
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby jeffers » Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:58 pm

Everyone is different, of course. I once set myself the goal to learn 300 new words in a month, so basically 10 a day, using Anki. I have to say that it was hard work for me, and I definitely couldn't keep up that pace beyond the month. These were just "single word, single (mostly) definition" cards, and I don't think I would have retained them very long, or been able to use them, if it hadn't happened that I did this in the month leading up to a Super Challenge, so the vast majority of the new words received a decent amount of review by reading over the next year or so.

It's interesting that the OP does not include a time-frame. If I had to, I suspect I could probably learn 50 new words a day for 5-10 days. Others might be able to do it for longer, but the steepness of the curve accellerates quite rapidly.

The other thing the OP doesn't mention is "how well". Good enough to recognize when reading? Good enough to use in writing? Good enough to recognize subtle differences in style and register? Or, like I did with 300 in a month, just to know the basic "standard" translation?
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby einzelne » Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:59 pm

leosmith wrote:
Le Baron wrote:No-one learns 50 words a day properly, in any setting.
That's quite an exaggeration. Iversen and Stuart Jay Raj do, for example.


Will all due respect to Iversen, I doubt the retention rate is great if you decide to do 50 words per day without subsequent reviewing after a 2-day session of doing wordlists.
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:17 pm

I'm sure that one can learn 50 words in a day. Maybe even another 50 next day, and another 50 next day... and so on. I'm sure it's a lot easier for those with, well, good memory. I'm also sure that it's a lot easier if the 50 words sort of "make sense". (As I've said before to Anki users it also makes more sense if they have already seen those words in texts.)

The million-dollar question is for how long one can keep doing this. Or, for that matter, what would be the optimum number of words you could learn every day for a year, two years, five years, the rest of your life....
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby iguanamon » Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:51 pm

I can't tell you how to learn 50 words per day. I can tell you how to forget 50 words per day!
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby Beli Tsar » Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:20 pm

I've certainly done close to this with Anki (while working a busy job and having small kids) but you said you didn't want Anki suggested... Certainly not for many weeks, though. And it means lots of short Anki sessions each day, as you need to review each word a good number of times on the first day in particular, and to do the same with lapses. 50 a day for a month or so would be doable with good settings, if you had plenty time and were willing to be miserable.

And it depends so much on language, the stage you are at in that language, other input, and so on and on... If you are thinking of doing it in Korean that sounds very hard indeed.

And frankly more than about 200 words a week gets very hard after a while; 100 per week is much more sustainable long term
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby språker » Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:52 pm

iguanamon wrote:I can't tell you how to learn 50 words per day. I can tell you how to forget 50 words per day!

That sounds even harder, at least to forget something at will? Aren't there the people who claim that they never forget anything, and that is actually a bit burdensome. But some words just seem to stick immediately in the long-term memory.
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby rdearman » Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:20 pm

Beli Tsar wrote:I've certainly done close to this with Anki (while working a busy job and having small kids) but you said you didn't want Anki suggested... Certainly not for many weeks, though. And it means lots of short Anki sessions each day, as you need to review each word a good number of times on the first day in particular, and to do the same with lapses. 50 a day for a month or so would be doable with good settings, if you had plenty time and were willing to be miserable.

And it depends so much on language, the stage you are at in that language, other input, and so on and on... If you are thinking of doing it in Korean that sounds very hard indeed.

And frankly more than about 200 words a week gets very hard after a while; 100 per week is much more sustainable long term

I should probably clarify what I said about Anki. The vast majority of people stick words in to Anki, and then learn them during the reviews. What I was saying was learning the words before the SRS. Interestingly, it is recommended (outside of language learners) that before you put something into SRS, you should already know the information. The SRS is simply to keep you from forgetting, not to teach you. If you were using SRS as a medical student, the recommendation is to learn the information, understand it, make your own cards, and then review the information.

Also, Anki isn't very well suited to learn 50 words per day, since its algorithm is designed for reviews, not learning or cramming. I believe someone else pointed this out earlier.

I have nothing against Anki, I use it all the time. But I personally think it is rubbish for learning vocabulary. So I'm looking for alternatives, and hence this question. :)

Also, others in this thread are thinking about reviews, I'm not worried about reviews, that is a separate problem. So I could learn the words, and then when I am confident that I have learned the words, I could put them into Anki for review and make that a sane review schedule, not a "drink from the fire hose" 50 words per day.
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Re: How can I learn 50 new vocabulary words a day?

Postby luke » Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:12 pm

inu wrote:Here’s my idea:
I don’t know if ChatGPT is able to do what I’ve got in mind but maybe you could ask for a story (in or below your current level to make sure the words are “known”) of the length of 2500 words including your 50 unknown words of choice or reduce the number of words to 10 (whatever number of words works for ChatGPT) and have 5 Stories in the length of 500 words each (you get the idea).

This is a very good idea. If your prompt includes that the unknown words should be used in a way that makes their meaning apparent, that may also help. Finally, if the AI can keep track of the words you know so that it gradually introduces and reviews the words over the course of a few days, that would seem like a winning combination. I.E., the new words are used once or twice or three times on the first day, depending on how few times they need to be used to make the meaning clear. As the words get cycled back in in future short stories AND are used in a way that continues to make their meaning apparent from the context, you may soon find that you are becoming a vocabulary genius.

As the story count goes up and the "unknown" words have been seen more times, the contextual help could be gradually dropped so the student is understanding the words in new contexts.

From Paul Nation's https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/paul-nations-resources/paul-nations-publications/publications/documents/foreign-language_1125.pdf - What do you need to know to learn a foreign language?, he uses 5 days per week for 40 weeks as the study duration:
reading_nation.png

It would be interesting if ChatGPT or another AI could bring the number of hours down. As it is, the chart seems to be suggesting that one can learn 9000 words in 40 weeks reading and hour and 40 minutes each day. This is for English, which may be a cognate language for a lot of students/languages. I think that's an important factor. When rdearman first posted his question, I thought, "learn cognates". Perhaps using an AI, one can move beyond "cognates" with the AI delivering strong contextual help.

My math on Mr. Nation's 9000 words = 40 weeks * 1.66 hours per day * 5 days per week = 45 words per day.

To get to 50 words per day, one would ask for the top 10,000 words.

The AI might even generate what it considers the proper "frequency list", perhaps based upon the student's interests.
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