Evergreen organized vocab list - any thoughts?
Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:55 am
Have any of you created on an ongoing basis an evergreen, thematically-organized list of words when learning a new language, and if so, was it productive for you or did it not represent a good return on time investment?
My usual practice is to keep a notebook in which I write down new vocabulary or phrases as I come across them, and I try to review from time to time or use the notebook as a reference if I recall having written down something previously that I need to access. Generally, depending on the source I may have been working through, this will result in little clumps of subject-related words or phrases (for example, a number of words for various colours all wind up on the same page or adjacent pages of my notebook if I am working through a unit that deals with colours) and then pages of unrelated words, but if four weeks later I come across additional colour-related terms, they will wind up much later in my notebook, either as one-offs or another little colour-related clump.
I am thinking of trying out keeping a cumulative, living list of vocabulary (likely in an Excel chart) as I go so that I can keep like with like. Is that something that any of you may have tried, or have some thoughts concerning? I am keen on avoiding inefficient learning approaches and I am not sure that this approach is a good use of time, but on the other hand I wonder whether going through that exercise will result in an improved memory of and facility with related vocabulary. Just to be clear, I am not proposing to search out all words related to, for example, colours to organize them in a list, and then go out to search all, again for example, body part names to list them, etc. Instead, it would just be a matter of adding words/phrases as they are learned through my various language materials to the appropriate place in the list.
Apologies if this has come up before but I have not seen it, and I don't see any relevant discussion in the Wiki. Thanks for any thoughts!
My usual practice is to keep a notebook in which I write down new vocabulary or phrases as I come across them, and I try to review from time to time or use the notebook as a reference if I recall having written down something previously that I need to access. Generally, depending on the source I may have been working through, this will result in little clumps of subject-related words or phrases (for example, a number of words for various colours all wind up on the same page or adjacent pages of my notebook if I am working through a unit that deals with colours) and then pages of unrelated words, but if four weeks later I come across additional colour-related terms, they will wind up much later in my notebook, either as one-offs or another little colour-related clump.
I am thinking of trying out keeping a cumulative, living list of vocabulary (likely in an Excel chart) as I go so that I can keep like with like. Is that something that any of you may have tried, or have some thoughts concerning? I am keen on avoiding inefficient learning approaches and I am not sure that this approach is a good use of time, but on the other hand I wonder whether going through that exercise will result in an improved memory of and facility with related vocabulary. Just to be clear, I am not proposing to search out all words related to, for example, colours to organize them in a list, and then go out to search all, again for example, body part names to list them, etc. Instead, it would just be a matter of adding words/phrases as they are learned through my various language materials to the appropriate place in the list.
Apologies if this has come up before but I have not seen it, and I don't see any relevant discussion in the Wiki. Thanks for any thoughts!