Mammad YahyayevWelcome to our new article. Today, I am going to share my effective language learning technique which help me to overcome very tedious job. Learning new English words is always a boring task. However, in order to enrich your vocabulary you need to be persistent.
What is Learn and Repeat Approach?
It would be very appropriate if we say spaced repetition instead of learn and repeat approach. What is this method? Quite simply, learn a new word, then repeat the word over time. If you still remember the word 3 months later without repeating it, there’s an 80% or 90% chance you’ve learned it.
The duration varies from person to person. For example, some people can learn pretty quickly, while others can’t.
You may ask how I learned words quickly or slowly. I wouldn’t say I’m a quick learner. Because I believe that learning a language is a process that can take a very long time, such as months or years. Once I tried to learn words quickly, but after a while I realized that I had forgotten more than half of them.
Learning something quickly will only give you immediate results, but you need constant and tangible results in order to attain your goals. If you stick to this strategy, you will be wasting your time. Avoid making this mistake over and over again, not just for language learning, but for other things that involve the learning process as well.
How to Learn New Words?
Before we begin to our habit, you must understand your techniques which you use until today in order to enrich vocabulary. If you fail to implement correct strategy to learn a new word at start, then try tons of other techniques for spaced repetition, all of them will be time wasting.
In my opinion, word and its translation is not enough to learn it very well.
Bad Strategy for Language Learning
bad -> [translation in your language]
In above strategy, you only know the meaning of the word, but you need see how and when the word used in sentences. Only this way, you’ll be confident to use it daily.
Therefore, I always learn new words in following way.
Good Strategy for Language Learning
bad -> [translation in your language] (OPTIONAL!!!)
Definition: unpleasant and causing difficulties
Sentences:
- Our holiday was spoiled by bad weather.
- We've just had some very bad news.
Again above is the strategy that I used for language learning. You can try other techniques as well, but don’t try Bad Strategy (bad -> [translation in your language] ). It seems easy to learn, but our goal is not to learn fast, learn slowly and never forget them easily in language learning process.
Translation in your mother language is an optional part, you can omit it when you guess meaning of the word by looking at its definition. Sometimes, it will be very hard or unpredictable to guess its meaning, in those cases, you can write translation.
CAUTION: The strategy that I've been using daily is worked for me, however it is not guaranteed that it will work for you. There is only one way to know that, just try it.
How to Choose Words to Learn?
Another mistake most people make is choosing words from the dictionary. This way of learning will make learning process very tedious and difficult.
Choose words from the book you’re currently reading or the video you’re watching right now. If you stick to this strategy, you are likely to see these words again after a while. However, if you choose words from the dictionary, you will have less chance of seeing those words, perhaps those words are only used in certain areas where you are far from them.
How to Configure Times for Spaced Repetition?
Let’s assume you learned a word today, then try to practice it in the following time limits.
today -> tomorrow -> 3 days after -> 1 week after -> 1
month after -> 3 month after -> 7 month after -> 1 year after
If you fail in any of the time limits on given above, then start from the beginning.
Write When You See or Where You See?
We are reach to our main part to the technique of effective language learning process. The title seems unclear to you at first glance, but you will understand what I mean in a minute.
We’ve already talk about how to choose words to learn. Let’s assume, you are watching a video on YouTube, and you heard a word, and decide to learn it. If you stick to the strategy that I gave on above. You can modify the template as described on below.
bad -> [translation in your language] (OPTIONAL!!!)
How heard the word: [write when or where you heard the word]
Definition: unpleasant and causing difficulties
Sentences:
- Our holiday was spoiled by bad weather.
- We've just had some very bad news.
That’s the template. Let’s look at a real world example.
junk
How heard the word: I see the word on Atomic Habits book, Author talks unhealthy habits in the chapter.
Word used in sentence:
Despite our best intentions, unhealthy habits like eating junk food, watching too much television, procrastinating, and smoking can feel impossible to break.
Definition: things that are considered to be of no use or value, or of low quality
Sentences:
- We ought to clear out this cupboard - it's full of junk.
- I can't stand watching the junk that's on TV these days.
This is the template I use for hard-to-memorize words. In the following picture you will see how I implement this on Anki.
What is Anki?
I use Anki flashcards almost every day in my life. For me it is the best flashcards application for learning anything. It has following advantages:
Easy to use UI and good user experience
Supports adding images. This option only available for mobile and desktop applications of Anki, if you use web version of Anki, you can’t add images.
You can practice the words wherever and whenever you want by using your phone.
Statistics about your flashcards.
How to Use Anki for Language Learning?
In order to use Anki, write the word on front of the card, put definitions, sentences, translations are on back of the card.
The technique help me to learn an average of 20 new English words a week, this number can be more or less depending on the level or meaning of the word because some words have more than one meaning.
In the long run I rarely forget them, it just happens when I practice less or not be able to focus completely.
Another great thing about Anki is time limits. Anki has an algorithm that will make calculations for you so you don’t need to worry about.
The first image is the front side of the card, the second image is the back side of the card. You can write your story about the word, for example:
- When you see?
- Where you see?
- How was used in the sentence?
- Your imaginary sentences.
All of those will give you a hint about the meaning of the word. If you guess the meaning correctly, I recommend you to press GOOD button, because after a while the time on the EASY button will be a lot more such as months or years. Only press EASY button if you feel, you will never forget this word in your life. This is possible, if you see the word again and again in your daily life.
If you couldn’t guess the meaning, I recommend you to press HARD button, because 1 minute duration is too short, and presumably you will guess the meaning correctly after a minute. However, if you press the HARD button it will take some time and meanwhile you will study other words until the time for the HARD word runs out. But it depends on the time which you see over the buttons.
Keep that in mind after some iterations, time limits will change.
How to Schedule Card Review Time?
If you think that time on the buttons In Anki it is possible to give custom time. In order to do that, click 3 dot sign on the top-right corner. Then select Reschedule in the menu, and press Reschedule for review in x days. In the opening popup, write day that you want to review the word again.
Conclusion
That’s it for today, I hope you liked it and learned a lot.
Don’t forget to check my other articles.
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