I’ve read many topics talking about using metronome for deck memorizations, for example. I thought that maybe, using a metronome could be really useful to keep the correct pace in long sessions of memorization of new words. Has anyone already tried this or has any idea if it could work?
I haven’t tried it but I think that you cannot have be consistent in terms of speed when memorizing words. Words can be tricky sometimes, few of them are difficult to visualize, which means that you would need more time to come up with some meaningful association in order to remember it.
Metronome can kick your speed, of course, but you need to have the “same” information over and over again in order to improve at it, that’s why the metronome is used for cards or numbers. As far as I know.
Thanks for the answer, Nightwalker. I see that you do have a point: in fact, the words present different “difficulties” of association and, because of that, it is difficult to be consistent in terms of time. Taking it into account, i would bring 1point.
It appears to me that the metronome could help exactly because of the inconsistency of words: since our memory works in a associative way, knowing the words around that one we’re memorizing could helps remembering this word. Just as an example of what i’m talking, I, particularly, always make a 360° vision of each station once I finish allocating information in it, exactly to potencialize this side of memorization (also,normally, i make every information interact with the next one, so they reeinforce oneanother). And after this process, even those informations that were not so good memorised become clearer to visualise.
So the metronome, in this case, would not let you stop for a long time in a individualized hard word, and, in this way, could help you. you would go forward and then, when you were going to review everithing you would be able to see the word interacting with other words, so it would save a lot of time. At least, that is my hypothesis.
Besides it, a metronome for, let’s say, 20 seconds for each word, could, and that is another hypothesis, help you mantain the rhytmin for many minutes. In general, if we are making massive memorization seccions, of something like 200 new words, it takes approximatedly 2 hours directly (with 2 or 3 stop-and-review runs). Its really difficulty to maintain concentration during this time…
What do you think?
You have a point as well that forcing yourself to memorize at certain rate could help. But keep in mind that during the competition, if you lose one word in a column, it results in -10 points, which means, that if you encounter some pretty difficult word, you’re better off to focus on it a little bit longer. But do not take this in any higher regard than an advice from some world record holder, of course.
Memory works in an associative way, I get it, but I don’t think that the speed would make a difference. Let’s say, you memorize 4 words pretty fast, one word per second, then you struggle at the fifth word for 3 seconds, and then you keep going… It doesn’t eliminate your chance of figuring those words out just by thinking about the words around. I’m trying to say, that you can take your time to come up with some strong association and look at the word correctly in order to recall and spell it in the right way. For instance, I’ve started training 5 minute random words in English on memocamp few weeks ago, just for fun, because I started to miss them. English’s not my mother tongue, and few of those words are really hard to write down correctly if you have never seen them before. Association comes up to my mind in a second, most of the time, but you need to realize that the word is “witch” and not “which”, for example.
20 seconds for each word is really long time. And 200 words in 2 hours? Look at word records for these disciplines. Even I sometimes go for 80 words in 5 minutes. But that’s not the point here right now. Regarding the difficulties of maintaining the concentration for a long time… Just train to maintain it longer. And metronome could help you, but I would probably go nuts when listening to that ticking for one hour straight.
Thank you for the answer, Nightwalker. You brought very interesting points. I am certain that you know much more than me about championships and random words 5/15 minutes, and I am sure that your ideas are REALLY better than mine in these disciplines: they guarantee that you do not lose -10 or -20 points for losing words in columns, by one side, and also guarantee the correct attention to spelling problems, that would give you these -1 points. 80 words in 5 minutes is awesome, my record is 59 with much pain!.
And since I do not participate in championships(in spite of the fact the they seem pretty cool), I perceived after your answer that I wasn’t clear in my last text. I used the term “new words” memorization in a different meaning, my mistake. I will try to explain what I mean:
Since i’m concerned with using mnemotechnics to learn new foreign vocabulary (I used it to 15000 words in german and will start french in the next months), when i talk about new words i’m thinking in 3 processes:
-
the memorization of the word like in random words discipline. BUT ALSO,
-
the association of this word to its correct meaning and cases of use. (Here it is important to say, that, since I’m talking about new foreigner words, I NECESSARILY will be discovering the meaning in the moment I’m memorising it). And finally
-
this memorization is for long-term-memory purposes, since it would not make sense to know the new vocabulary just for hours or days. This third point is important because, since you are storaging new words massively, you will need always more memory pallaces and, because of that, normally(but not necessarily), you will be building you memory pallace’s spots at the same time you allocate the words+its meanings and circunstances of use.
Since that idea of “memorising new words” is a bit more complex than in random words discipline(if I’m wrong, please correct me(normally I DO am wrong!)), it takes more time.
In fact, I tried the methronome in last days, and got interesting results:
20 seconds were, in fact, more than necessary. I was able to make it in 10 seconds for each word. But 4 or 5 seconds were insuficient(in spite of the fact that, as I said, I can memorise something 50-60 words in random words/5minutes discipline).
In a 1 hour session, i was able to memorise 222 new words+meaning(in circunstances of use), while creating a new memory pallace. The condition for it was that, previously I made a “panoramic” travel through the place I was going to use as my new pallace.
I got, also, some “bonus words” derivated from these 222. For example: befinden(to be (in a situation)), gave me Befindung(the correspondent substantive), and Befindlichkeit(sensibility).
I also noticed that my speed dropped a lot after 30 minutes, so, from now on, I will try increasing this time gradually.
So, in general, methronome helped me, It was a good number by my experience(it takes 2 times more time to do it without methronome “foccusing my mind”).
So, I ask myself if we were refering to the same idea of “new words” memorization… Have you ever tried the idea of memorization i’m talking (new word+new meaning associated+circunstance of utilization(to guarantee a correct association of meaning)? If you did, what were your records? I’m really curious because I’m sure that they would be better than mine!
And if it were possible, could you answer another question that I have? Discussing about speed in memorization of new words, a started asking myself if the “speed deck cards memorization” training impacts in the speed of making memorization of new words. Do you think these “habilities” are independent? I ask this, because, since, as I said, my priorities are new languages, and mnemonics are a tool, I have never memorised a deck, so I really do not know if it could help increasing the memorization of new words for new languages…
Thanks for the answer again, the ideas were very interesting!
Yeah, I’m sorry, I realize my mistake… But most of users here talk about “competitive memory use”, so memorizing some words doesn’t bring the association “vocabulary” as first.
This will definitely take more time… And it’s obvious, since you are trying to make sense of that stream of letters in front of you. English is not my mother tongue, but I train random words in English. To be honest, I’ve tried maybe 10 times in my life this discipline using Slovakian words… What a shame… or not? I don’t know.
You are 100% right. Now when I’m thinking about your post, you are the guy who wrote pretty long post concerning vocabulary memorization. I read it maybe few minutes after publishing. And you definitely know what you’re talking about when it comes to memorizing foreign words for the purpose of using them in a meaningful way, not just reproducing them on the paper.
I’m not really sure whether you will be able to push this limit even further and get faster in a short time, since you are memorizing foreign words with their true meaning. Maybe the time will come that you get faster when you simply gain so much experience that you will immediately see some known pattern in the word. You posted many examples of “similar words”, like the following ones below…
I have to disappoint you now, but I haven’t tried it the same way as you do it regularly… I use memrise for new vocabulary, and also one common function of every web browser. “Start up with last session”. This means, that I can type new words into google translate when encountering them (reading a book or watching a movie). Then, I review them after a while, and the next day, when I get back to the computer, the first thing when I start the browser is that I see my last session, which means, list of foreign words together with their meaning for another review. And when the page is full, I simply start deleting the ones I mastered. And I use only association of the word to the meaning when I cannot “attach” it to something I already know. But I always try to find there some logic instead of “inventing” some new association.
This used to happen to me a lot at the beginning, and, to be honest, it happens even nowadays since I haven’t practiced intensely lately…All it takes is just training… And maybe some advice regarding this is below, keep reading…
Well, I think that you can figure out better how to associate objects together when you always use the same objects. This can be a good tool to figure out what you’re doing wrong and why you forget the words, since, they’re almost always foreign, and most of the time the association is completely different.
Talking of deck memorization and your passion for long sessions of learning new vocabulary, try to create some system for cards. One card system, simple thing, nothing complex. Or, maybe better, create 2 digit system, 00-99, and use it for cards and numbers at the same time. And then start training marathon events: one hour cards, or one hour numbers. My experience is that this improved my concentration dramatically, because you have to focus for one hour straight, otherwise you’re going to waste your time…