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How much time studying vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6399 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 129 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for not walking out then :) Sorry if I came across as dismissive towards the details of your method. I've read every post and went back to check again whether you've covered this or that thing I asked about (like the number of new cards per time unit). Remember that what is obvious to yourself is not always that to others. As I've said many times, I don't think you need to word anything differently, especially when merely describing what you did. When recommending others to do the same, though, it's good to be critical and also to consider the target audience of your method. At least listen to criticism (as you generally did) and take it seriously. But let's not get stuck in this abstract discussion. After all, we both want to talk more about your method :) Let me ask more explicitly then: would you do anything differently if you started learning a new language now? What if it was unrelated to what you already speak? (assuming you would adapt your existing method rather than do something completely different) Has anyone from the Chinese forum tried to replicate what you did (presumably to learn English?) and if so, how did they do? Do you have an ideal implementation of your method in your mind? (for example, doing SRS every day, failing fewer or no cards etc...) Also, is the following an accurate summary of your attitude to reading? You accept that it's needed, but you try to do it as little as possible. You start reading when other sources of vocab no longer satisfy you (e.g. a frequency list doesn't offer useful words anymore). You'd rather SRS than read a children's book. You also mentioned mining 200 words from a book and switching to the next one - do you finish books after you're done with the vocab mining phase? (I'm not judging you if you don't, I just think it's an important variable) As I said, the main underlying question is what the target audience of your method is (and isn't). To me it seems like an overkill for someone who likes reading or watching movies/series, for example. That's why I think your goals and purposes are relevant as well. Edited by Serpent on 17 May 2015 at 3:22pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5038 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 130 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually the selection of words for vocabulary study is a topic all on it's own. However if I were to combine your method, Jeffers wish for a script and smallwhites spreadsheet study I could do this. 1) Find an electronic copy of the book I want to read. 2) First pass, break the book into individual words, the remove all duplicates. (remove previous words if this isn't the first book by checking previous files) 3) Second pass, go back through the book file and generate a csv with individual word and the first one (possible two) sentences in which the word appears. 4) From this csv turn the sentence examples into cloze deletion by removing the word from the sentences. 5) Third Pass, google for a translation of the words, then construct a spreadsheet where column 1 is the word, column 2 is the translation, 3 & 4 are cloze deletion sentence examples and the final column. This would allow you to cram the book before you read it, thereby giving you 100% coverage of the book. As long as you keep the unique word file, you can do this for the next book you read, and the next, etc, removing known words each time and only cramming the ones you need. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4151 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 131 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
What if you end up remembering the sentence, as opposed to the word itself? As in, you won't even need to see the word, because the beginning of the sentence will be enough? Also, reviewing sentences is slower. Edited by Ezy Ryder on 17 May 2015 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5110 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 132 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hmmm... What I did was called "learning upfront" only because I stopped adding words after 8000 words / day 120. What if I hadn't stopped? What if I kept adding words? I was probably secretly hoping to reach C1 in 12 months (having been told by someone that s/he reached C1 in 10 months taking intensive classes in-country), so had I not stopped learning German, my schedule would probably have been: 8k words in first 4 months 5k words in next 4 months 2k words in last 4 months 15000 words total. An advanced student with a good vocabulary. Would this have looked more normal and acceptable to people? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4323 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 133 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
Did you by chance save the link or do you remember the title of the study? I know I've read a similar one, but I'm not able to find it again, only speculative blog posts turn up. by the way, your inbox is full ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4711 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 134 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
If 8000 words gives you 98% coverage of a text, it doesn't mean that all 8000 words appear in the text. I gave the example earlier of Alice in Wonderland, a novel of just over 250 pages (and fine, I accept Jeff Lingvist's comment that it might not be a great first choice. But it's a book I have numbers on). It has 1743 different words, so if you learned the 8000 most common words and then read Alice in Wonderland, at least 80% of the words you learned would not appear in the text. Rdearman, you've done some analysis of 1984. How many unique words does it have (bearing in mind that your script will count different forms of the same word as different words)? If you do cram the 8000 most common words, another question would be: how many books you would have to read before all of those 8000 words appear at least once? I don't know exactly, but see the table below. Paul Nation did an interesting study to ask how many words do you need to read in order to meet words from each 1k frequency band in English. I'll try to reproduce it here: 2nd 1000 ----- 200,000 words 3rd 1000 ----- 300,000 words 4th 1000 ----- 500,000 words 5th 1000 ----- 1,000,000 words 6th 1000 ----- 1,500,000 words 7th 1000 ----- 2,000,000 words 8th 1000 ----- 2,500,000 words 9th 1000 ----- 3,000,000 words What this tells me is that if I learned the 8000 most common words in English I would have to read approximately 10000 pages before meeting all of them at least once. And it's worth pointing out that if you're listening/watching rather than reading, the unique word density is much lower so you'd have to listen to a lot more words. Incidentally, prier is word 1645 in the Routledge frequency dictionary, and soupçonner is 2375, so both are what I would call common. However, neither of them appears in the script for Amélie (the only searchable French text I have to hand), which did surprise me. My point is that cramming a large number of words is an efficient way to start, but the efficiency begins to drop off rapidly after a point. One article I read (but can't find) drew the line at 2500, saying the words after that point are rare enough that it would be inefficient to learn them separately unless specifically needed. I plan to draw the line at around 3000 for my languages. There's probably a reason the Routledge frequency dictionaries don't go past 5000. The exact line is a matter of preference, but the undeniable point is that cramming words 1-1000 is super efficient, but cramming words 7000-8000 is far less efficient (in terms of time spent learning vs likelihood of that word appearing). I don't know about others, but if I see a word on a card or spreadsheet more often than I see it in print, then I think I'm being inefficient. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4711 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 135 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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After writing all that, I saw Rdearman's excellent description for making a spreadsheet of the vocabulary of a book. The only thing I'd change is that I wouldn't bother studying words separately that only appear once in a book if it doesn't appear in the top 5000 most frequent words in the language.
The nice thing about a method like that is that the required word list would probably halve in length (at least) with each new book you study.
I'm really sorry, but try as I might I can't find the article. I know I read it in the past few months and found it interesting. Usually I save pdf's of articles like that, but I didn't on this occasion. Oh, and I've cleared space in my inbox. Dang... who knows how many exciting pm's I've been missing out on!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6399 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 136 of 350 17 May 2015 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
Agreed with this part, based on my experience in Finnish too. However, when you don't get many transparent words among the 8000, that's a very intimidating goal. I'd estimate that in Finnish this figure took me at least three years, maybe four. And I was obsessed. I don't get those concerns about sentences, though. If you actually care about your learning, surely you won't rush through the card as soon as you understand/remember what it's about? At least for me it's obvious that I don't mark the sentence card as passed until I've focused a bit on the new/unfamiliar part - a grammar item or a word in context (maybe both, maybe more than one word etc). Just like LR, it shouldn't be mechanic. (although it doesn't have to be conscious or take an effort) I generally bold the important part of the card, the point of SRS'ing the sentence. The answer field often contains some information about the word/grammar. As with a snowball, with each repetition I might add new criteria for having to pass the card - understanding the sentence because the larger context is still fresh, understanding it without the larger context, knowing what every word means, knowing the grammar involved, being able to use the words actively, eventually grammar too. It may sound complicated but these decisions are generally automatic, unless I'm aware of something specific I can't do with the card (then I decide whether it's crucial or no big deal). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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