What do you think about memorizing HSK6 wordlist in this way?

[Appeceix]

Hi everyone,

I've recently started studying the HSK 6 vocabulary list with the book HSK 6级 词汇突破. The way I'm going through it is the following: 

First, I split up the whole list in 5 groups of 500 words each group. After that, I read quickly the first group so I have a general idea about the words it contains and the example sentences.

The next step is to start writing the words. I try to write down 50 words (using 汉字) + pinyin + full sentences every day, checking carefully their meaning, proper context and how to use them. When I'm finished with the first group of 500 words I'll review them focusing on pinyin and meaning because I think it's kind of easy to me to guess the meaning of a word according to characters and radicals but I find it a little bit harder to link sounds to meanings.

The third step after double-checking pinyin and meaning is to review all the words focusing on writing and, again, meaning.

So it can take me around 14 days to learn 500 words and review them (10 days 'learning' the vocabulary + 4 days reviewing it).

I'd like to know other people's impression about this approach. Do you think it's useful or maybe a waste of time?

[maggieh]

Hard to say - because everyone has different study habits and different things that work for them, as an individual and to some extent, we might as well just do what we enjoy.  What you write above, sounds a sensible way to learn Chinese, generally, but I wonder if that is particularly helpful for HSK6. 

For HSK6 you will have to read passages of text very quickly. I think the core skill is speed reading.   My preference would be to just read and read, learning vocab. on the way - so that the vocab. you learn is in context, rather than in a vocab. list.  And crucially, that you get used to skimming through chunks of Chinese.   

I used to read lots of reports of the BBC Chinese site - 'cos they have general scientific stories as well as pure news. And I think there are some books that have HK6 type texts and example questions in.    

[Tomsima]

used this book and recited every single固定搭配 listed in it for about 6 months. no idea if it helped for HSK6, but I loved this little book, as a result my interpretation skills made a big improvement, being able to guess what people are about to say (or write) helped enormously with comprehension speed. i actually tried reciting the sentences too, but the pressure got to me after about a month, and I dropped that part of my routine. other than that I think you'll see great results, push hard but don't expect too much from yourself

[Appeceix]

Thank you maggieh and Tomsima for your answers!

 

Yes, having a really good reading speed is a must in order to succed in HSK 5 and 6 but I'd rather focus on truly learning the language than just on passing the test. You know, 2500 words is a lot and I think that being truly able to use them properly might be worth the effort.

 

[imron]

7 hours ago, Appeceix said:

but I'd rather focus on truly learning the language than just on passing the test

In that case, lots and lots of reading will also be more beneficial than just memorising what is essentially a list of random words.

 

At this level, the most efficient way to improve is by reading Chinese content and learning vocabulary as you encounter it.

[roddy]

If you want to pass an exam in two weeks, maybe. If you want to remember those words in a year's time - less quantity, more quality. 

[eddyf]

One thing I can tell you is that learning 2500 words in 10 weeks seems like a way faster pace than what I would consider possible. I think you are way underestimating how much time you will have to dedicate to reviewing. Learning 2500 words in one year is a more realistic pace, unless you're a super-genius or unless you're spending 5+ hours per day on it (and that's always at the expense of other stuff you could be doing to improve your Chinese, like listening practice).

[li3wei1]

I did my second year of Chinese over 9 weeks in Middlebury, and I think there were around 2000 words given to us to learn. Of course this was with 4-6 hours of class a day, plus activities in Chinese, and supposedly all-Chinese everyday conversations. I can't say for sure how much of that vocab I retained at the end of the summer, but some of it comes back much later. So I don't think it's unrealistic to learn that much that quickly, with the understanding that some of it will have to be relearned. However I would advise you to give each word some sort of context, at least a sentence. Words are much easier to remember when there's an image that goes with them.