How to learn vocabulary (research deep dive)

[@attaotigba]

The degree of command of your L2 is probably the single most inspiring thing about your channel, followed closely by the brilliant content. I'd go so far as to say it's even more impressive than someone like Luca. Really love your stuff, man. Thank you.

[@TheEstelf]

The more deep knowledge a chanel has the fewer subscribers it has.

[@romekhanys9215]

People are looking for quick fixes

[@jamilamussa7250]

More people tend to like simple things

[@Lily_1X]

Only people who’re desperate to seek knowledge would subscribe, like no one wants to see a long video of someone just talking to the camera except for those who really want to know, less subscribers are better than many but only few who watch til the end

[@TheEstelf]

@@Lily_1X Yeah. Always good to remember that Israel is a terrorist state.

[@BruhNature]

I appreciate you taking the time to create and share this video. Japanese learner here (hopefully Spanish one day), but my biggest issue is that I get ahead of myself and jump into content that is above my level. This makes me think that I haven't learned anything in three years, then I scale back, and the cycle continues. I think my expectations around language learning are unrealistic, even when I truly believe I am being realistic.

[@norabalogh5910]

I find that explicit vocabulary study is much less important for the initial few thousand words when first learning a new language because those are words that will come up extremely often. I would not take a frequency list and try to “kick-start” by attempting to memorize those - I would spend much more time learning naturally using graded readers in the beginning with maybe a bit of supplemental explicit study. I think this is more fun and interesting and you learn the words in a far richer and more complete way.

[@loistalagrand]

That's true, I've made a similar observation.

[@jjero1]

That's assuming there are graded readers for A0 and A1, which is often not the case outside of the very popular languages.

[@tullochgorum6323]

Useful summary! Seems to me that the key issue when using a mass sentence SRS approach is the sheer volume. Using your definition of fluency, we have at least 6000 words and collocations to master. Plus we have a number of grammar patterns. Plus in many languages we have a huge number of inflexions. If we put each of these on individual cards, it's all going to get out of hand. An idea I've been playing with, which I haven't really seen discussed, is progressive aggregation. I'd appreciate your feedback. Let's imagine someone learning English from scratch. They might start with something as simple as "the house". After 3-4 exposures they know it pretty well. And they might learn the verb "I leave" the same way. Now they want to learn the conjunction "and". So they can delete the first two cards and create a card for "I leave the house and...". Eventually this might evolve into "I left the house late and nearly missed the 9:00 bus". This card consolidates 5 or 6 more detailed cards that can all be deleted. And the learner starts to get comfortable producing more realistic complex sentences. If new words or patterns are added one at a time, the cognitive load should remain manageable. It's the mechanics of making this consolidation process efficient that I'm still playing with, but I'm already convinced that it can help tame the explosion of Anki reviews involved in your 1-year schedule of learning 20 words a day + grammar. And the process of combining cards becomes a useful review in itself. What do you think? Is there anything in this?

[@tombaryla]

It seems to me that it has to be very well organized otherwise it will be very difficult. Another point is the amount of time needed to remake the sentences. Generally speaking the idea seems to make sense and definitely it's worth trying and testing. Thanks a lot.

[@Kyle-uo5bg]

This sounds similar to the method I have thinking of attempting, your explanation is great! The main way I have been using this is when I come across sentences with a lot of unknown words. What I will do is pick the most useful/obvious unknown word and learn it first via anki, and then a day or more later I will make a flash card using that word and another of the unknown words from the original sentence. I will repeat this until I can eventually just use the original sentence as a flashcard and practice recalling it. The difference is that I haven't been deleting the older flashcards, I keep reviewing them. I do wonder if it would be more time efficient to stop reviewing the older cards as you mention!

[@matteoallegretti1663]

Very useful and very well done overview about vocabulary learning strategies...the science based ones! Great Lois👌👍

[@ibrattoshpolatov4761]

Thank you a lot, I really enjoy every episode of your podcast.

[@douglaskim1228]

A fantastic video; very informative and practical!

[@QUINTUSMAXIMUS]

I use several apps to encounter as many sentences and vocabulary words as I can. It's a lot of work.

[@ScatterheartAnna]

I love your research-based approach! Very helpful, thank you🙏

[@loistalagrand]

Thank you!

[@norabalogh5910]

I developed my own way of studying vocabulary that I much prefer to flashcards with spaced repetition. It uses 3 copies of a text containing 20-25 vocabulary elements to be learned, and the vocabulary-to-be-learned is “played with” to practice both passively and actively over a series of sessions on different days (the spacing of which is under your own control). I can explain how I set things up but the advantages over flashcards are: it is faster to set up (and low-tech to boot -no software to learn), the vocabulary is studied with its full, meaningful context, it is very precise with only one right answer when you get to the active study step and finally, unlike with an SRS, your vocabulary study is fully under your own control (nothing is “due”, you study when you want to and for as long as you want to, you can prioritize the kind of language-learning you feel like doing that day whether vocabulary practice or other).

[@loistalagrand]

What language are you learning using this technique?

[@romekhanys9215]

Can you explain more, please, with link to examples? It sounds very interesting. Would that be similar to reading an article or a story many times? How do you "play" with your selected vocabulary? Why 3 sets? How do you get the text for your practise?

[@s_mach]

If one learns the vocabulary just to know the vocabulary it's OK to link new words to L1 words, but if the goal is to use the L2 it is crucial to build an independent semantic net for L2, where the words are connected together inside this net, unless one is not a translator and really needs these links between L1 and L2 words and collocation.

[@matteoallegretti1663]

From min. 37:40🕕: the comparison (in picking up new vocabularies) between just incidental/receptive learning (e.g. reading) Vs deliberate learning (e.g. Anki)

[@denfu6638]

That is so profound that it almost gave me a headache. Brilliant content.

[@SpanishLearner-cl8qz]

Hi Loïs, I really enjoy the deep dive and was wondering if you are familiar with the literature (80's onward) measuring vocabulary size of native speakers. I skimmed through a few randomly (each with its own mini-survey) and the vast variation (by a factor of 10) left me confused. The inconsistent definition of a "word" (from any literal word to an overly restrictive lemma-based definition with random exceptions) made me realize that the numbers are pretty arbitrary. After reading the methodology of how they rate a participant as "knowing" a word, this sub-field seems ludicrous. Have you read through many of these (and can suggest a good one) and/or have your thoughts? I think that an Anki deck as used by a medium sized Reddit community would be more accurate than the handful of papers I've read.

[@PhoenixWright-r2l]

Thanks for giving us these advices 🎉

[@alecmilejczak462]

I agree with your suspicions on the studies that suggest the ineffectiveness of reading. I have spent much time learning vocabulary by making flash cards that test my recall of words in my target language. If I know a word, I can typically produce it without an issue. However as my desire to grow my vocabulary has taken me away from the core 5000 or so words , each word having their own flash card was becoming very time consuming. I turned to LingQ and was surprised how easily I could recognize/ recall words when I studied their flash cards. This was NOT the case from reading in a target language when I had a significantly lower vocabulary. I am also curious who the subjects were for this study. From my point of view, here in the United States, most “language learners” are typically concerned with passing a class that while getting the highest grade achievable, will be highly unable to communicate in their target language and the majority of the rest are relying on the newest App to have cracked the language learning code. Thanks for the content, I learn something great with each of your videos!

[@vinirodzzz]

thank you for this amazing content! You answered some of my questions.

[@belqisanwari3642]

Thank you so much for yor explanation and great effort ❤

[@elwingw2137]

this video is really useful for me, thanks very much

[@Alec72HD]

It depends. If you want to be near native, don't learn through translation. All ESL teaching is done in English exclusively. Those who learn English using their native language NEVER become proficient. If you just want to learn some useless (to you) language to a beginner level, then sure, learn through translation. Those studies are probably misleading, because an adult (using translation) can store a few words in a short-term memory rather well. The problem is such learning method never "translates" (pun intended) into long-term language skills.

[@Alec72HD]

PS Learning a second language without using a native language also creates a very long lasting language skill. I will use my friend as an example. As a teen he lived in Germany while his father was stationed there on a US military base. For a while he stayed on base, and though he took German as a class, he didn't learn much. Then he hooked up with a local gang of German teens. I do mean "a gang", as they did some illegal mischievous activities. He became very fluent in a couple of years. And that was about 50 years ago. He doesn't use German living in US, but he still remembers most of it.

[@Ryobunko]

No way...! But In my case, as a person acquired Japanese (1 year and a half to the highest proficiency N1 from scratch) mainly through KZbin videos and light novel reading, I never ever deliberately tried to memorize any of a vocabulary or grammar... I don't think I'm a special case or something. I typically do only one thing probably special is that I looked up the dictionary at a frequent pace during my input consuming process. Now I‘m doing the same thing with my Korean and I’m kind of satisfied with my progress

[@loistalagrand]

How far along are you with your Korean?

[@Ryobunko]

Thanks for replying! I couldn't exactly tell my current Korean level, because I just picked it up again for 2 months (I previously learned Hanguru 4 years ago and knew a little bit of basic words). I'm now mainly acquiring my Korean through repetitive short story listening and watching KZbin gaming channels with Korean subtitles, I could understand the main ideas and most of the phrases with some help from my browser plugin. From my past experience, I guess bringing my Korean level to a high proficiency within a year would be possible if I start to read Korean light novels. @@loistalagrand

[@leandrolucato]

how did you look up the dictionary at a frequent pace that is different?

[@dianach-fl7fw]

I understand when listen to someone teaching english even without subtitle, but when I'm watching video such national geographic or documentary for example,i really got stucked in my listening even my comprehension of reading on the trascript

[@dianach-fl7fw]

How is the solution?

[@aMaljOsHY1]

Great

[@notaleuntold]

Really liked this video. When you make your anki cards from Netflix, are you including audio for the sentences and/or a screenshot? Do you think that is helpful or unnecessary?

[@loistalagrand]

Yes, I do include the audio and a screenshot. I think it's useful because it makes the card more memorable. It's also less boring to study.

[@notaleuntold]

@@loistalagrand Great to know. Thank you for replying! I subbed and will be watching more of your content.

[@loistalagrand]

Take a look either at my Migaku review, or my LingoPie review. Both of these will allow you to make flashcards from Netflex. Migaku's setup is trickier, but you'll get screenshots / audio (and it's not expensive). @@notaleuntold

[@DrOrman]

You may want to look up how to pronounce the word vocabulary

[@romekhanys9215]

A major problem that I've had with flashcards is that as the number of words you're learning is growing you are left with less and less time for new vocabulary until you actually have no time at all (because all your time is consumed by repeating the vocabulary that you have learned so far). I have tried to overcome this by retiring the vocabulary that is a few months old (that means I will no longer repeat that vocabulary), but it's not an ideal solution. Any ideas anyone?

[@yuliangonzalez1025]

I think once you feel like you already know that vocabulary that you have been studying for a significant time, I consider you can just put that vocabulary aside and start learning new ones. The thing is that with the vocabulary that you already possess, you are gonna try to recycle by reading and listening to environmental exposure of the language. If you are constantly exposing yourself to a suitable environment, you won't need to repeat certain vocabulary because it's already internalized in your brain. Through active exposure to the language, you will start to recognize the vocabulary that you wish to gain. Once get it you can start to implement the direct use of techniques or methods such as " spaced repetition" and so on in order to increase your repertoire.

[@romekhanys9215]

@@yuliangonzalez1025 I agree with your comments. That was also the idea behind "retiring" aged vocabulary.

[@beirne]

I've never understood the reason for retiring words in Anki. If you know the word then it will get pushed farther and farther into the future. So rather than retire a card, just answer it correctly. As you do this your cards for known words will repeat months or even years apart.

[@romekhanys9215]

@beirne Just answering the card correctly is not an arbitrary decision - you actually have to know the meaning of the card to push it forward. Many (if not most) words will have to be learned again, and will not be pushed ever further forward. But even in an ideal situation (in which you answer every card correctly) you will come to a halt at a critical mass in which there are so many cards that you spend all of your time answering old cards and you don't have any time to learn any new cards.

[@sunobel955]

Thanks for sharing the knowledge. one suggestion- It would be a lot nicer and bring to the next level in conversation if you can take out filler words, and limit hesitation.

[@mattstone8111]

So basically it's fair to summarize by saying that explicit vocabulary memorization is only useful paired with lots of listening, reading, and speaking, and lots of listening, reading, and speaking, without explicit vocabulary memorization on the side, is just way too inefficient. You'd need thousands of hours to reach a decent level (like people trying to use Refold, for example).

[@loistalagrand]

Explicit vocabulary memorization is useful, even on its own. But there's not enough material/time to cover all variations of a lexical item, which is one of the reasons why incidental learning is necessary.

[@mattstone8111]

@@loistalagrand That makes sense. I've heard Paul Nation talking about how it is useful to look up the meanings of words, even though a word in another language will have many uses that are very different from how the equivalent word is used in your own native language. I'm glad to hear that you're familiar with him. Are you familiar with the linguist, J. Marvin Brown? Of all the theories of language learning out there, I'm kind of stuck between the supposed virtues of a real purist and "natural" style of language learning like J. Marvin Brown advocated, and where the current trends in language learning have gone, which is towards lots of spaced repetition flashcards with Anki, watching a lot of content with target language subtitles, lots of extensive reading, and a heavy reliance on visually seeing the words along with hearing them (whereas the natural method of course is to become fluent before you ever interact with written language). I wonder if you have any thoughts about that.

[@beirne]

I've found, and have heard this from others, too, that when it comes time to use the word learned via Anki that I do not always remember it when I need it. I know that I had learned it though, and once I do recall or get told what the word should be it reinforces it. If it's a word I learned from listening or reading, it's pretty much gone unless it's a real common word. So Anki anchors the word but I still need to use it in real life to be proficient with it.

[@bhainikumar830]

Love you forever

[@abubakarlawanharuna573]

Thanks

[@nativemoneyandkun8966]

LingQ anki migaku sentence mining

[@raj8294]

Can anyone summarize this

[@beirne]

Use Anki to learn your vocabulary and then apply your learning through reading, speaking, and writing.