best way to keep a vocabulary book

[coldrainwater]

Due to the long-term nature of my endeavor, I find it more interesting and fun to vary my techniques for recording and maintaining vocabulary. At the end of the day, I still funnel them into a google sheet for portability and my techniques are often partly dictated by the technology that I am using at that moment. It is the shuffling in between and use of different technologies that keeps things interesting for me. When reading on the Kindle, I use their handy underline feature to capture only the word itself after having examined the definition that it brings up. I like how Kindle naturally separates those lists by book on their highlights page online. It could use a couple of additional evolutions but the highlight page is nice for a language learner. With a physical book, I may just underline the unknown word and move on, knowing that when I go for a vocabulary roundup, I'll come back and grab the definitions in short order.

I also have in the back of my mind metrics that relate to distraction and attention that drive specific recording techniques. I am very cognizant that seconds matter when it comes to getting a definition and getting back to whatever it was that I was reading. Kindle is a bit slow on their lookups and when I want something faster to record words, I use the Transover chrome extension (uses Google Translate) and Autothokey (or just C# .NET) to automate the process a bit. I maintain a hotkey to pop open a full translation page for the word as well as image search when I am totally stumped and conversely use clipboard automation to file away the new words I see in the background so that I keep focused attention on the reading and not on needless lookups (I set my Chrome extension to show on hover in a few hundred milliseconds). For years I have used text files and Autohotkey to take instant notes like this and it speeds up nearly every workflow I am have ever been involved with. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is no ''other interface'' to fiddle with. It makes a pretty notable difference when you are stalled by less than a few seconds with a new unknown word. Contrast that to something like 5-10 seconds and in my opinion, you create a major attention gap (with little benefit since the task can be accomplished much faster with a smooth transition back to reading).

Separate from my google sheet, and for purely nostalgic reasons, I have made a hand copy of over 2k unknown words, hoping to eventually get the list to 10K interesting unknown words. I randomized the list before initially copying them into my more permanent notebook. If anything, the whole process is little more than a source of motivation and something I can look back on later in life (it is a time sink and that is why I currently only have 2k). I look with rose colored glasses at a time in the future when I can legitimately focus chunks of time on vocabulary acquisition simply for the fun of it, but since my current goals are reading/listening, vocabulary list building doesn't take top position.

[issemiyaki]

Depending on my needs my “glossaries,” as I call them, change.

I believe the real magic doesn’t happen in the glossary/vocab list, but in the repeated exposure to that word or phrase in other contexts and your ability to recall its meaning on the fly.

During conversations with my tutor, he’s constantly telling me to put my book down. And to a certain extent he’s right. Now, I can read Le Monde without too much of a problem, and I often ask myself how on earth did I learn all these words? It think the trick was: repeated exposure in different context, over time.

In different contexts and over time are the operative phrases here. This is why people only stay with Anki for so long. Anki will give you the Spaced Repitition, but it’s the same exact situation over and over. Language doesn’t work like that. In the real world, you’re bombarded with words from all sides, and each time the word is used a little differently.

So, if Anki, or anybody else, can figure out a Spaced Repetition Software where each time you see the word it’s in a different context that you’ve never seen before, then that could be a step forward.

Unreal that we are in 2017, and the best vocabulary review is still something as basic a book, a novel, a newspaper article.

Vocab lists can be a start, but it’s only that. It most definitely is not the end.

I also wonder how much keeping a vocab list / glossaries are more psychological than anything else.

As advanced learners, we all put in a significant amount of time learning, and to a certain extent, we want something to show for that time invested.

[issemiyaki]

Accidental duplicate, see response above.

[leosmith]

each time the word is used a little differently

Rather than "each time" I would say "often".

I also wonder how much keeping a vocab list / glossaries are more psychological than anything else.

Why not do an experiment on yourself? For example, go a month without vocab list / glossary review, and compare to a month with. For me, based on my own experiences, spending a small portion of my time doing vocab/sentence review is more efficient than not.

[Shery]

I am studying English and trying to get ready for IELTS exam,all my teachers told me not to try to gather a vocabulary notebook, because it's less than 1% you go back to check the words youwrote down before. So I needed something to memorise as well. In my opinion all the suggestions properly work when we are trying to study for some special exams for instans. I really need such tips to improve myself in writnig. In my opinion one of the most important way to achieve good grades in writing is learning words and absolutely have good knowledge about when we need to use them or how we should use them indeed.I personally need text, sentences or even movies which include meaning of that special almost hard word and need to undrestand when/how I can use it.
Recently I have found an application which is really helpful. I can say it' an "all in one application".It contains lots of movies, text, synonyms and etc."WordUp" is an amazing app that you can enjoy your studying with. URL REDACTED

[NoManches]

When I'm using Anki I will refer to that quite a bit. Sometimes I'll want to use a word I just started to learn, but can't remember the word....so I'll search Anki really quick and find it.

I'm not too good at it nowadays but I used to add words and I would add a tag which would remind me of where I learned the word. For example, if the word came from a telenovela, the tag would be the novela. Or if it came from a magazine, maybe I'd just tag it "revistas". I found this helped remind me of where I learned a word and later on would contribute to how likely I was to delete the word if it didn't seem super necessary to know.