Effective ways to learn vast vocabulary and retain it in Longterm Memory

[Sreeni]

7 hours ago, imron said:

These techniques are a great way to remember random sequences of unconnected things, but a poor way to learn a language because a language is not a random sequence of unconnected things.

 

True. Story telling is not suitable for language/vocabulary learning mainly due to time of recollection. The context given to remember list initially was different.

 

 

7 hours ago, imron said:

Language already encodes meaning, adding layers to that ends up slowing things down.

 

the main thing is to re-collect the meaning when someone is speaking and understand. Best way is to practice by testing repetitively /re-reading/flash cards/other methods until you achieve that. All techniques breaking down into smaller components, turn into image, repetitive learning, re-reading, reading faster, mnemonics etc are all to achieve the goal of recollecting when hearing chinese.like additional aids.

 

“language encodes meaning” definitely true, but could you elaborate a bit, to absorb this into my mind

 

[imron]

5 hours ago, Sreeni said:

language encodes meaning” definitely true, but could you elaborate a bit, to absorb this into my mind

When you think of the word 蘋果, rather than thinking ‘apple’ you can instead visualize an apple and think of 蘋果 as another word to represent that concept.  
 

When you hear or see 蘋果 you can then directly think of the object this word represents without any intermediate steps. 
 

You can apply this concept to most words. 

[Insectosaurus]

Memorizing vocab has never been a problem for me, so I might as well tell you how I've been doing it for quite a while now. Sentences. All words I study I try to learn I learn in context, or what is basically known as sentence mining. However my sentences I always take from dictionaries, because I want an English translation of the entire sentence. I've never one felt it hindering my learning, but rather increasing it since I will really have to understand *why* that sentence means that, not just what the words in it mean. This method will not help you remember the word out of the blue next time you're going to use it, but it will help create a link between the word and your brain, which for me at least, dramatically decreases the effort of really learning it while encountering it in my immersion.

 

Earlier in my studies I never used sentences, and having now tried both I'm for sentences all the way.

 

Nowadays I only learn morphemes, since I find it much more effective. And no longer in context, but that's because I'm moved over to Japanese as my primary language for study. It's mostly to be able to look them up quickly but many of them actually stick without that process.

[somethingfunny]

10 minutes ago, imron said:

When you think of the word 蘋果, rather than thinking ‘apple’ you can instead visualize an apple and think of 蘋果 as another word to represent that concept.

Or, in other words, no language is the translation of another language. 蘋果 is the Chinese word for the delicious red/green fruit that goes surprisingly well with cheese.

 

This is why it’s important to use target language dictionaries once you can.

[Insectosaurus]

2 minutes ago, somethingfunny said:

This is why it’s important to use target language dictionaries once you can.

 

And I would argue that it's absolutely not (but one can of course use it if one prefers it). I still to this day prefer the English-Swedish dictionary than any other and my comprehension is at a near native level, both reading and listening. I'm way worse at actually using the language, but the reason for that is probably that I never do, apart from posting here or being on vacation. A monolingual dictionary wouldn't take me much further, speaking the language daily would.

[Sreeni]

2 hours ago, imron said:

When you hear or see 蘋果 you can then directly think of the object this word represents without any intermediate steps. 
 

You can apply this concept to most words. 

 

I am applying this from now on. This must improve effective recall and processing time of mind shortens for each word, Composition also improves and many more I imagine.

 

Let me unlearn the old habit and learn this new habit and be it part of my learning process. 

 

@somethingfunny @Insectosaurus thanks for further explanation. started applying..

 

[imron]

3 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

that goes surprisingly well with cheese.

Does it ever!  One of life’s simple pleasures. 

[Jan Finster]

3 hours ago, imron said:

When you hear or see 蘋果 you can then directly think of the object this word represents without any intermediate steps. 
 

You can apply this concept to most words. 

 

Imron, what about words that are abstract (= no "object" to think of)? 

[Apollys]

On 5/14/2021 at 2:42 PM, imron said:

The way I memorised the colours is a big green frog ate an orange and then in turn got eaten by barney the purple dinosaur who got eaten by a blue whale that got squashed by a giant white swan, which got in a fight with a black swan which swam past pink flamingos standing in brown water that led up to yellow sand.

 

Doing this works great and I'll probably be able to remember this sequence of colours for a long time - however if I want to retrieve this information I need to walk through my story - I can't just recite these colours in order without walking the story.

 

Well this really shows the importance of creating your own ways of remembering things.  This story seems completely random and useless to my brain, like why did the dinosaur get eating by a whale rather than vice versa, and how did a swan crush a whale, etc etc... So you need something that clicks with your own way of thinking naturally.

 

As for this last sentence I quoted: Interestingly, I can recite the colors as fast as I can say them with my method, perhaps because I used imagery rather than narrative.

[imron]

48 minutes ago, Apollys said:

like why did the dinosaur get eating by a whale rather than vice versa, and how did a swan crush a whale, etc etc.

Because Barney is purple so comes before the whale which is blue.  I chose objects that matched the colors and then visualized imagery based on that.  As for how the swan crushed the whale, the imagery doesn’t have to be real or make sense it just needs to be vivid. 
 

I also use imagery rather than narrative - I don’t recite a narrative to go through the colors I just visualize the image and can also do it quickly - it’s just that I can’t do it in the correct order without that imagery - there is a middle step needed (imagery) to get the list. 
 

14 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

Imron, what about words that are abstract (= no "object" to think of)? 

Focus mostly on the words you can do it with first and the others will then fall in to place, as you’ll understand them based on the function they perform. E.g with something like 的 you can’t really associate it with a physical object or action but you can associate it with the function that it performs.  So if you know 我 and you know 蘋果 (both of which can be associated directly with what they represent) then abstract things like 的 can be understood by thinking about its function in things like 我的蘋果. 

 

Likewise things like 而且, remembering it as the English ‘furthermore/and also’ is not so useful because there are a dozen other similar words with a similar function, and so it’s better instead to learn these words and associate their meaning by the function they perform and the patterns they appear in.