Is it a waste of time to only learn 20 words a day?

[langlearnkorean]

Where would your 20 words come from?

I also learn 20 sentences, with each having one new word, every day, but for Chinese. I get my words from the books I read.

80% from anki decks, 10% from words I have encountered and saved in the last years, 10% from internetpolyglot. Something like that..

It will not take them long to notice and learn the word "you" even though they didn't intentionally set out to learn it. Another advantage of this is you'll pickup some grammar. Now Mandarin is mostly similar to English in word order, but some languages might put the verb go up the front, or in a different place than you're used to. But with enough example sentences you'll start to see and experience some of this which will help you to internalise the grammar.

I've had a similar frustration with the speed of using LWT. This isn't the download speed for me because mine is very fast, but rather the fact it is "intensive" reading and I can't do it for more than a few minutes per day. You've said you like to watch Korean films/tv/etc. if that is the case why not try to find one where you can get ahold of sub-titles and use it to create some anki cards. If you find that of interest have a look at emk's Substudy tool.

Another thing to think about is the 20 words a day you're planning to learn. There is a lot of arguments here on this forum about the effectiveness of learning from a "common word list", but personally I think it is helpful, certainly for the first 1000 or so most common words. So perhaps you can be more selective in which 7000+ words you're going to learn.

In addition I recommend that you sign up for the Super Challenge this year. It is 20 months of reading and watching films. You'll have to read 100 books and watch 100 films. Now it sounds like you're not going to have a problem with the films, but reading 100 books will certainly push your vocabulary into the upper reaches. Reading extensively will also mean you'll encounter the words you're learning "in the wild" and you'll reinforce and cement the words you're learning in your head.

So I'd say you're doing ok, consistency probably counts for more than you think.

I found emk's selfstudy tool before and thought it looked like something I would use but I could not get it working, probably because I use windows when the thread title says mac/linux.

Most of the words are from anki decks one of them being from Evita who uses this forum. One thousand are from the novel I read intensively. The naver dictionary has a star system that rates how frequently used words are so I only added words with stars into my deck. Then I also added all the words from internetpolyglot.com, right now the list is 10769 words long.

I want to reach a point where I can read extensively but I do not think I am close to the point to even think of reading 1 book in a month.

You might be more motivated if you can just plow through the book, occasionally reading sections in English if you can't figure it out -- rather than having to look up so many words in a dictionary.

But if you want to learn how to read, you gotta read.

In the past I have thought about reading bilingual texts but I could not find any books I would be interested enough to make it worth actually buying. So I figured interleaving Korean and English subtitles might be more enjoyable so I decided to do that. As I was trying to get them interlaced I found emk's substudy tool which would've done it for me while also giving me audio. When I could not get it working I felt like not having audio would be terrible after that so gave up on my idea.

I feel like I am making a lot of excuses but I am also trying to learn web development and game development so I kind of want my language learning to a bit easy this year. Which is why I hope to create a language learning learning web app that gamifies the learning process which will allow me to mix all of that into one.

[rdearman]

Download virtual box and run a virtual machine with linux on it, you can run substudy for free.

[DangerDave2010]

I have spent a long time doing vocabulary learning only, but I would not do that again ever, spending a long time memorizing single words really leaves a bad feeling in my mind, and memorizing many words does not really translate well into reading or listening ability, cause real learning occurs by meeting a word in context multiple times. I would suggest that you try to spend at least an equal amount of time reading than what you spend doing your flashcards.

You can read subtitles without any application, just load de *.srt file in notepad, and work through it with a dictionary. The language used in subtitles is quite siimple, and it is a type of reading that translates very well into listening comprehension.

[Tomás]

The Subtitle Edit program will generate a Google translation of any srt file. You can then read the parallel text within the Subtitle Edit program.

[iguanamon]

I have spent a long time doing vocabulary learning only, but I would not do that again ever, spending a long time memorizing single words really leaves a bad feeling in my mind, and memorizing many words does not really translate well into reading or listening ability, cause real learning occurs by meeting a word in context multiple times. I would suggest that you try to spend at least an equal amount of time reading than what you spend doing your flashcards.

Usually when I see a thread like this, I stay away from it, since I don't use srs. There are a few people who use srs to learn a languiage using the most common word strategy, but generally, in my observation in my time on the forum, most monolingual beginners fail with this strategy. I think that may be because they concentrate so much on srs that actually using the language and making their own connections becomes secondary to the "gamification" aspect of srs- something like this: Post: "I now know 1257 words!". When I see this I always think to myself, "that's nice, what can you do with them?".

You can read subtitles without any application, just load de *.srt file in notepad, and work through it with a dictionary. The language used in subtitles is quite siimple, and it is a type of reading that translates very well into listening comprehension.

I agree. Subtitle srt files are free. They are a goldmine of language that is vastly underutilized.

The Subtitle Edit program will generate a Google translation of any srt file. You can then read the parallel text within the Subtitle Edit program.

If a dubbed US series is chosen, then there's no need for google translate. The original is available, the L2 has been human translated and both can be made into a parallel text easily and quickly.

To answer the OP's original question: "Is it a waste of time to only learn 20 words a day?"- Only if that's all that you do.

[langlearnkorean]

I tried Tomás google translate suggestion then used this site which merges SRT files. I pasted the text into notepad++ and used Replace ^[0-9].* with nothing which removes all the distracting numbered lines. Then went Edit -> Line Operations -> Remove Empty Lines. Korean is not very good with google translate though, this is one of the worst parts I seen, overall I think it could still be useful in most of the lines.

Code: Select all

My name is Dexter, Dexter Morgan
내 이름은 덱스터,
덱스터 모건
I do not know what's what made me
나는 무엇이 나를 이렇게
만든 건지 알지 못한다
But left a blank space on my internal
between that whatever
하지만 그게 무엇이든 간에
나의 내부에 텅 빈 공간을 남겼다

Then.. I remembered subs2srs somehow removes most subtitles that have no matches. So I used it to create its .tsv file, pasted the text from the .tsv into a spreadsheet, removed the useless columns, pasted the text from the english/korean columns into notepad++, searched and replace tabs with a \n new line.

Code: Select all

My name is dexter, Dexter morgan.
내 이름은 덱스터, 덱스터 모건
I don't know what made me The way i am,
나는 무엇이 나를 이렇게 만든 건지 알지 못한다
But whatever it was left A hollow place inside.
하지만 그게 무엇이든 간에 나의 내부에 텅 빈 공간을 남겼다

My new plan is to keep learning 20 words a day but to also read through Dexter episodes slowly. I am not sure how much I will read but will try to aim for 1 episode a week. This word counter website says episode one has 3108 words. Honestly that is not too much for how easily I will be able to read this but I will aim to gradually increase the amount I read, I just do not want to get burned out.

[Tomás]

I tried Tomás google translate suggestion then used this site which merges SRT files. I pasted the text into notepad++ and used Replace ^[0-9].* with nothing which removes all the distracting numbered lines. Then went Edit -> Line Operations -> Remove Empty Lines. Korean is not very good with google translate though, this is one of the worst parts I seen, overall I think it could still be useful in most of the lines.

Great link and excellent workflow -- thanks mucho! That's got to be the easiest way to make parallel texts from human translated srts.

[OwlPanda]

I believe that doing a bit more vocabulary work is necessary for a language that isn't related to your native language.

It's a lot easier to start with native materials when you're learning Spanish or German or Italian or something. I'd guess that Harry Potter would be accessible within a couple of months. For something like Korean, understanding even children's books is a lot harder.

I think of it this way. For a European language, any word I don't know is something I'm about 50% likely to be able to pick up from context, even if I don't know the words around it. Korean words I don't know are completely opaque, so extensive reading becomes incredibly difficult without a ton of extra study.

For instance, I'm looking right now at the first chapter of Harry Potter Và Hòn Đá Phù Thủy and Harry Potter à L'École des Sorciers.

Mr et Mrs Dursley, qui habitaient au 4, Privet Drive, avaient toujours affirmé avec la plus
grande fierté qu'ils étaient parfaitement normaux, merci pour eux. Jamais quiconque n'aurait
imaginé qu'ils puissent se trouver impliqués dans quoi que ce soit d'étrange ou de mystérieux.
Ils n'avaient pas de temps à perdre avec des sornettes.

Ông bà Dursley, nhà số 4 đường Privet Drive, tự hào mà nói họ hoàn toàn bình thường,
cám ơn bà con quan tâm. Bà con đừng trông mong gì họ tin vào những chuyện kỳ lạ hay
bí ẩn, đơn giản là vì họ chẳng hơi đâu bận tâm đến mấy trò vớ vẩn đó.

I don't find the French version much harder to read, even though I'm not even studying French. I suspect that if I were studying French instead of Vietnamese, I would have been able to start these kinds of books much faster. (Now, I don't really like the first paragraph as an example, as I find it to be one of the more difficult paragraphs of the book! It gets easier!)

If someone posted the first paragraph of the Korean version (which I can't seem to find right away), it would probably be completely impossible for me to read.


My opinion is that the more opaque languages require a lot of vocabulary study until you're comfortable enough to wade around without help. It's not good to do just that, but I think it helps more than anything else at that stage. The goal is to get comfortable and move on, though, not to stay at the vocabulary-only stage forever.

Though, I can't imagine that it will ever become completely irrelevant, because without at least ten words each day, it will take forever to get the kind of vocabulary every adult is expected to have.

[langlearnkorean]

The first paragraph of Harry Potter in Korean and my attempt at translating it. My actual understanding of the paragraph is a bit better than my translation since I have previously learned all of the words except 기이하거나, 신비스런, and 무관해. Which kind of makes me feel like I should study grammar some time since I think that was pretty big factor in my lack of understanding. I just hate textbooks so have planned to improve my grammar by mass reading, although reading a language so different than English is hard like OwlPanda said. Which is why my plan was 20 words a day this year then reading anything I can. Although my new plan is learning 20 words a day and reading around 500 words a day.

프리벳가 4번지에 살고 있는 더즐리 부부는 자신들이 정상적이라는 것을 아주 자랑스럽게 여기는 사람들이었다. 그들은 기이하거나 신비스런 일과는 전혀 무관해 보였다. 아니, 그런 터무니없는 것은 도저히 참아내지 못했다.

Deojeulli Couple lived at Peuribeht 4 ????, themselves ???? often naturally here people. They ???? ???? work and completely ???? saw. No, such unnecessary for anything ???? did not.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say
that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last
people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious,
because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

[smallwhite]

Is it a waste of time to learn 20 individual words a day?

When I first learned German, (apart from the several chapters I learned when I was 17), I studied and drilled grammar and learned 8000 words with SRS, within the first 120 days. That allowed me to read quite comfortably, for example I knew 94% of the words in one light news article that I counted. I'm now much more advanced, and I've always felt glad that I did what I did back then.

You have more under your belt - all that drama-watching and LWT - so you are better equipped to embark on a vocab-learning journey. To me, language-learning is mainly vocabulary-learning, so one way or another, one means or another, you're mainly just learning vocabulary anyway.

However, since you can't control how much time you will need each day to learn your 20 words, making things unpredictable and probably annoying, I suggest aiming instead for a fixed time, for example, to spend 60 minutes each day on vocabulary, however many words that may be. So on some days you may be just reviewing and not learning new words.

Also, a little tip though you might know this already. Each day or each session, pick a batch of 5 to 10 words to learn and learn them as a batch going back and forth instead of picking 1 word at a time and learning 1 word at a time. And pick the easiest 5 to 10 words from your list. I didn't set out to cram 8000 words in 100 days, but since I was always just picking the easiest words to learn, the whole process was really easy, and before I knew it I knew 8000 words Eng->German.

I did something similar with Korean and it felt easy as well. And convenient since TOPIK word lists are everywhere.