Re: How to learn vocabulary?
Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:37 am
Bilingual reading is a huge booster.
We talk languages
http://forum.language-learners.org/
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6771
Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:A question to those of you who never use any srsprogram, what do you do to remember or recognise words? Do you look them up in the dictionary every time, write them down, memorise or what?
Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:A question to those of you who never use any srsprogram, what do you do to remember or recognise words? Do you look them up in the dictionary every time, write them down, memorise or what?
AmitS wrote: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.
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?
Iversen wrote:I looked at a number of research reports about vocabulary learning up to the Novi Sad conference, including some that specifically tested for the effects of extensive reading and/or listening without any other support techniques. Most of these reports used multiple answer questionnaires to gauge the effects, but those few reports that used both multiple choice and 'open' questions consistently showed that multiple choice exaggerates the effects ... so taking that into account, it seems that just reading and/or listening without any specific attempt to learn new words isn't very efficient. Tests using multiple choice only test passive knowledge - and even passive knowledge with an outside help source. 'Open' questions are much closer to testing active knowledge, even though some variants (like cloze questions) do provide you with a context.
On the other hand we know from other sources that heavy readers have larger vocabularies than those that never read a book or something more demanding than SMS messages or street signs. How come? Well, the point could be that if you do read with your mind set to sucking up new words and constructions then you may also get something from extensive reading or listening. If you just read/listen to get the gist and let the concrete words fly through your head without any attempt to retain anything, then you probably won't learn anything new about the language in question - which doesn't preclude the possibility that you may remember some information about the topic. But you could also end up having a hard time even remembering what the topic was .. like when you forget you dreams unless you deliberately try to remember them.
There may be individual differences insofar that some persons are better to remembering ephemeral tidbits of information than others, but I personally have to get things down on paper and repeat them a couple of times to make them stick. And that includes new vocabulary. And I prefer wordlists because I there also can control how and when I do my repetitions. SRS programs would make me feel like a human dartboard.
Over the years, there has been a growing realisation that the key to efficient and effective L2 learning may well lie in shifting our focus from single words to phrases and formulaic multi-word expressions. Though interest in these lexical phrases, idioms and the more formulaic aspects of language use go back at least 40 years (Bolinger, 1976), it is thanks to both the corpus linguistic revolution of the early nineties and the cognitive turn that was taking place at the same time that the lexicon and aspects of L2 vocabulary acquisition got into their own.
Cavesa wrote:(I had to gain a large vocabulary for C2 French and I would never have achieved that without extensive reading and listening).