How to learn vocabulary?

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Cavesa
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby Cavesa » Sat Oct 07, 2017 7:36 pm

rdearman wrote:I recommend both anki and reading, but the OP specifically set out the criteria. So no electronic devices and no lists is basically just reading. :lol:


You're right. But that still leaves paper flashcards :-D
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby tarvos » Mon Oct 09, 2017 5:15 pm

I personally don't really use flashcards or lists or anything of the sort. So maybe I am just weird?
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby spanglish » Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:20 pm

AmitS wrote:I see many language experts and polyglots emphasize the need of learning vocabulary words in context and not by isolation (like here, here and here).
Honestly, I don't understand at all how is it being done. I mean, do I need to write down the whole sentence I encountered with the new word and its translation? Do I also need to memorize the sentence in addition to the new word? Isn't it cumbersome? What if I'm using a word frequency list, in which there usually isn't any context?
Also, some words have more than one meaning, so what about a case like this? Should there be more than one context sentence overall (one context sentence to each meaning)?

Please help, I'm very confused as you probably can see :?

Basically, I want to learn new words in a way that I can view them (like in a shopping list), by writing them down into a notebook. I don't like the common methods such as flashcards and SRS (because they do not enable to view the words together), so don't bother to recommend these to me, unless I'm missing something.


I think of mixing a list of frequently used words with this great tool that helps to see the context of a word. :D

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=6632
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:15 am

tarvos wrote:I personally don't really use flashcards or lists or anything of the sort. So maybe I am just weird?


or everyone else is? :?
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby tarvos » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:26 pm

More likely I am :p
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:14 pm

tarvos wrote:More likely I am :p


Actually, I honestly disagree. In my experience, the vast majority of humanity has been trained to be insanely ridiculously robotic and to follow the rest of the madness. Hence why we are so at odds with nature. Those people who are truly ‘normal’ (ie ‘not normal’) are in the very small minority and made to appear completely weird because they don’t follow the madness. I’m no different. You could be.
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:18 pm

tarvos wrote:I personally don't really use flashcards or lists or anything of the sort. So maybe I am just weird?

Tarvos, I do not know whether you are weird. From what very little I know about you, I think not. I would instead use the word "amazing."
More to the point, weird or not, you by yourself disprove the null hypothesis that "no one can learn an L2 without using lists or flashcards or 'anything' of the sort."
The languages you know include Russian and Mandarin, difficult by anyone's standards of difficult L2s for a native speaker of a Western European language.
Paul Nation, whom I respect a great deal and whom Reineke quotes below, is not the only expert who cites the need of some sort of card system for learning vocabulary
It is always disturbing when genuine experts miss a large object in the foreground. You have said, I believe, that you use strictly extensive reading and listening to pick up words. I am wondering whether you pay some kind of extra attention when you read or listen, or do you have a special way of focusing. I know that when I watch some--but not all--athletes perform, I can almost physically see them go into focus, often by a special kind of sober look on their faces. Probably you don't do that, but your mind must be focused. I would like to know if you do that how you do that.
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby tarvos » Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:25 pm

Russian is actually a strange exception, because initially I did use flashcards there. But that was only at the very beginning.

I used wordlists for Swedish.

As for focusing... I'm not sure I use a special technique there. :p
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby AmitS » Sun Oct 29, 2017 5:32 pm

Cavesa wrote:
rdearman wrote:If you want to learn new words. You want to learn them in context. You don't want to use SRS or lists. Then you just need to read, a lot. Read, read, read, read. You'll learn the word in context, you'll not have to bother with electronic stuff, and you can visually see it on the page. It is what people did before computers, so we know it will work.


I still cannot understand why people take it as two exclusive options. I find a mix of SRS and tons of context to be the best. Of course it is possible to learn without SRS! But SRS, unless you hate it, can make the process faster.

Reviewing in Anki doesn't mean you are not learning in context. As long as it is a word encountered somewhere, as long as the learner has a lot of input.

It is possible to learn without SRSing, I have great experience with extensive reading. A mix is great. But SRS only is a problem. I have no clue why there are people who just SRS wordlists as their main learning activity. There are people on the internet, who keep recommending each other to learn with Duolingo+Memrise and "then just speak and speak". This is a sure way to fail and get disappointed.

rdearman wrote:I recommend both anki and reading, but the OP specifically set out the criteria. So no electronic devices and no lists is basically just reading. :lol:

By saying a combination of both reading and SRS is the most effective trick, how does SRS get into the picture?
I mean, how do you actually use it? Do you add every difficult word/expression you encounter during your readings into Anki? Do you review the words out of context or including context? And what are you doing in a case in which a word has different definition(s) as well, but you encountered only one of them? You add the rest of the definitions as well, without getting familiar with them, or only the one being encountered?
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Re: How to learn vocabulary?

Postby Dylan95 » Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:31 am

I agree that learning vocabulary in context is crucial to learning languages, but I also find that flashcards are very helpful simply for purposes of review rather than learning. It's not as effective as reproducing sentences or seeing them in context, but its a quicker process, and usually requires less effort.
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