Method works like this
-Memorizing 200 new words everyday, 4 groups of 50 groups each time. Divide them into group A, B, C and D. After finishing a group, go over all the previous ones (so each group gets repeated x4 times). Repeat again by using spaced repetition but this time over periods of 2 days, a week and a month. Immediately after practicing, apply the newly learned words by practicing (talking with someone, writing, listening etc). Repeat every day for 2 months
-learn verb and noun declension
-practice listening and speaking
I plan on memorizing the words by using AnkiApp (using the linking technique between foreign word and definition without using memory palaces). I’ve never tried the linking method for foreign vocabulary. On average, I can memorize 500 pairs of words in one continous hour, have the pairs inverted and randomly organized and be able to recall each pair perfectly (making only 1 mistake per 50 words). How well would this translate into learning vocabulary? What are some other things I need to keep in mind except being able to link the foreign word and it’s definition
I have been working on something similar, I challenged myself to memorize 5000 Spanish words in a season (this summer). I chose this number because it was round, already had an Anki deck available, and roughly corresponded to C1 vocab levels.
Each Spanish/English card also has an English/Spanish equivalent card so there are 10000 cards total, so roughly 105 cards to learn per day for a season. Adjusted for your shorter time period, perhaps 1hr per day of memorizing. Very doable. I will happily suggest you go do so.
I’m about 3600/7200 word pairs in. When reading books, it has absolutely increased my comprehension to the point that A1/A2 content is now about 95% comprehensible without a dictionary. Reading is also much less frustrating when I don’t have to look up definitions constantly. I can already tell that 5000 words is not going to be sufficient though; 5000 words corresponds to a ~98% coverage of vocab, apparently 10K words is 99% so there is a long tail of vocab to learn. However, I do feel I will have a strong “foundation” to learn vocab in my areas of interest naturally.
Speaking, grammar, and listening are all separate challenges. I think listening will be your biggest challenge, as I am not sure how much this process can be rushed. Perhaps others can chime in.
I listen to or watch probably around an hour of what they call comprehensible input (CI) per day whether that is language learner podcasts or videos. The problem is that your ability to comprehend the spoken word increases slowly, so that for me, I could not do 10 hours a day of beginner content at first, my brain felt like mush after just 15 minutes. I have read anecdotal reports that about 2000 hours of CI is the rough fluent level, which corresponds to 33 hours per day over 60 days…
As for speaking, some people say that you should wait until >1000 hours of CI listening, and that doing so will give you a more native-like accent rather than learning to speak before you brain has internalized the sound of the language. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea.
Nice! Very very cool, you very much so motivated me to go practice
By the way, what techniques do you use alongside using flashcards? Do you link the words and definitions togheter by using visual images? Do you create chains or memory palaces/town to memorize groups of words? Or do you rote memorize them while using spaced repetition? I would greatly appreciate any insight
I can’t say with authority, but my every instinct from anything else I’ve ever learned says it’s wrong. Getting engaged with what you’re learning is the way to go, which means speaking.
Yes, that’s what I was taught in traditional language instruction as well. Since I’m accidentally trying it the no-speaking way while I self study, I’ll report back how it works (although I’m not sure what we can make of a datapoint of 1…)
I am not using any “structured” or ordered memory techniques like memory palaces. My thinking was that vocabulary is mostly random access, and contains a very large amount of items, so I’m just using spaced repetition / Anki. That said, I am using visualization and kind of sound-alike word games to make my mind remember the difficult words.
