Is "Word of the day" a Strategy For Learning Languages?

[@joepiekl]

I think word lists are useful if you need to learn a specific set of nouns very quickly. If you're in no rush to start using the language for a specific purpose, then it might be better to learn things more naturally, but if you're moving abroad, you'll find yourself in situations quite quickly where you might need to know fairly obscure vocabulary that isn't likely to come up in beginner literature. Before I moved to Morocco, I memorized lists of things that I knew I'd like to buy when I got here. And it's definitely served me well, and meant I haven't had to fumble around for a translation mid conversation, even at my very low level.

[@wennesmota3860]

I agree with you.

[@Juniorfoxnetdude]

Just expose yourself to your target language everyday. That's the best tip to enlarge your vocabulary. Don't worry too much. You'll end up absorbing all the words without even noticing it. It becomes a very natural process once you find something interesting and motivating to get exposed to. When I was learning French, for example, I got myself hooked up on a TV show called "Les Revenants". In 2 months I think I acquired at least 1000 new words. That's about 16 words a day. I guess you could say I did a pretty good job. I've accomplished that without doing much effort. All I had to do was to expose myself to something that I really enjoyed. Now, 2 years later, I'm finally fluent in French. Keep in mind that the most important thing in language learning is to make the learning process enjoyable. You'll learn quicker and retain more vocabulary.

[@ZachMikeMoller]

May I add several observations about vocab acquisition. 1. You are absolutely right that one word a day is pointless. I would say the same - that you are right - when you say that learning in context and with repetition is the best. 2. But I would say that there is a value to identifying the most common 1000 words and memorizing them as quickly as possible in whatever way you can. This is because they really do make up about 80%-85% of what you say. 3. It is also correct to say that if you know those most common words, you will not find that you understand 80%-85% of what you hear and read. This is because those most common words are not the most important for understanding, though they are necessary. That group can be divided up into two smaller groups: glue words - about 250-300 - and general vocab. Glue words are what hold the language together and the leel of the sentence. You know Russian. Think: бы, чтобы, для того чтобы, и, а то and the like. Often they are not translated. You know them only in context and render them in your own language by an appropriate linguistic structure. General vocab are those words which have to be known because they are so commonly used. All pronouns, for example, and words occurring in commonly used expressions. 4. After about a 1000 words, you begin to see words that are specific to one or another topic. These are words that deal with sports, or the weather, or pretty girls, and so on. If you are talking about sports, you may also need those words for baseball. 5. When you speak, you use all 1000 of the common words plus the words that deal with your topic. When I was learning Russian, I really did go after the common words, and once I had a grasp of them, I found that other words became easier to acquire because I could see the context more easily. I wish that MemRise had been around back then. When I was study Latin - high school - we could buy sets of 1000 flashcards for memorization. Such is my experience. I am just starting to use LingQ. I can see its value, but I have a few questions, which I will save till I have looked at it more.

[@Thelinguist]

If you do a lot of reading and listening you will come across the most common words after enough to remember them. No special effort needed, especially if you use a system like LingQ.

[@ZachMikeMoller]

+Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve True, but I got really tired of looking them up. For me, it is easier to memorize a list, and then allow the reading and listening to fix the meaning in my head. But that is a personal preference. I see that LingQ does ease the problem of looking things up rather considerably, but LingQ is relatively new. I've been learning languages for about half a century.

[@gwimmer98]

I totally agree, that a word a day is completely useless. However, I don't think that spaced repetition is useless. Of course it depends on how you "select" the words you want to learn. For example, I use Anki by uploading the words I looked up on my kindle before. That means I only learn words I came across which didn't already know. I hate word lists, but by using the kindle words, you can fill out your personal gaps faster than by looking up the words twenty times. But of course, at fist you got to read a lot to find the words you are missing. Thanks for that video!

[@Thelinguist]

Apparently there are studies that show that SRS doesn't really work. However, the main thing is what we like to do. I don't like to do SRS.

[@ouhiaachraf8943]

you should learn many worlds a day if you want to go far in language learning one world a day is not a effective way to improve your level in any language you want to learn thanks ms steve your always in the top with you're perfect ideas

[@brtoq]

Steve, I was watching a video of yours speaking japanese, and, even though I know nothing of this language, I always get impressed with your fluency, and mostly with the speed that you speak. But my question for you is: how to improve the speed of the speech in a second language? And what I mean by that is, how to get the natural speed of the language, and speak like a native speaker?

[@daviglaser2005]

Great Tip!!!

[@Da1RiSiN1sMoKe]

I never was a fan of SRS either. Flashcards are boring and I felt were an unnatural way of learning, as opposed to reading as you said. I like to read content a few times (not 20x like some people have said at LingQ) to absorb the exposure. I can see using SRS to remember infrequent or difficult words, that's about it. However, what I find strange is when I read, I can understand the words through context and translate them to my native language, but I can't put them into my active vocabulary. One would think if I had not much difficulty in understanding sentences and words instantly, I could use them in my target language. How do you get your passive understanding and make these words become part of your active vocabulary? More reading? More speaking? Also, you stress lots of reading and listening, but you must have some sort of strategy in HOW to read and listen to maximize your time spent doing so? I have tried just passive listening, but I didn't find it very useful at all. Evgueny40 stresses to listen to each lesson and pause after paragraphs to let it 'settle' in. How do you do it? -Dimethylamine from LingQ

[@Thelinguist]

You eventually have to speak and speak a lot. Listening can help you get phrases into your head. But mostly you have to go for it, trust your reflexes, say what comes to mind, and be alert to what your counterpart is saying. Gradually you improve. But don't expect too much and don't be too hard on yourself. It doesn't help, and it all takes time. Good luck.

[@Da1RiSiN1sMoKe]

I'm starting to think in passive exercises like reading and listening, we try to fall back on our native language in our head and what we think we know what the meaning is, where as speaking we are actively using the language and we can't fall back on our native language and it's more difficult.

[@64imma]

How many words do you think one should learn before they start with reading and listening? Obviously one should have some words learned before doing reading and listening.

[@Thelinguist]

you start in reading and listening. That is how you acquire the words. Have a look at LingQ.

[@Nick-nu9tz]

очень любознательный дед, успехов вам! :)

[@reginaphalange513]

do you have any advice for things you can do while in a foreign country to help learn their language?

[@egidijus6973]

I totally agree. :)

[@HardcoreSalmon]

I tried to memorize lists of words at the start of learning a language and it didn't work for me. Some words I remembered and others I just didn't. The more words you read, the more you will remember.

[@beherenowz]

estoy de acuedo

[@Sniper9Factory]

Hi steve,what do think about using the youtube channel Easy Languages to learn languages ?

[@epiresf]

How much time do you expend per day studying languages? Do you study all languages every day, a group of languages per day or one language daily? I am trying hard to keep my knowledge in the languages that i have already learned and learn new languages. Any tip would help me. Thank you!

[@prenticesmall4223]

I like a product called glossika. You can pick the language you want to review as your source language and the language you are learning as the primary language. You can google it.

[@Thelinguist]

Probably an hour or two mostly using dead time to listen and then a little LingQing and reading.

[@TheLastSophieAlive]

Steve, do you have any advice for speaking or language production? I study Japanese and have no problem watching the news or science programs; i can understand about 99% of what they say. However, when it's my turn to talk I can't even create basic sentences and feel like my knowledge is lower than an elementary school student's, but I know its not.

[@Thelinguist]

If you understand well, then you just have to force yourself to speak more and not worry about it. You could also write to develop the ability to output the language. I find that listening, more than reading, is a good lead up to speaking.

[@prenticesmall4223]

I have a feeling that we "learn" more words than we "acquire".

[@ruso1115]

Hi everyone, if someone can give me a effective method to learn a language I'll appreciate that so much, thank you all, and nice video

[@LiVYoM3lo]

Wow! No dislike.