3 ms·

>Language is all about the right intuition in the right context Huh? How about the tens of thousands of words you need to be able to recall and recognise in bo

>Language is all about the right intuition in the right context Huh? How about the tens of thousands of words you need to be able to recall and recognise in both directions in text and speech? You can't reason past irregular verbs and inconsistent rules about gender. If you're learning a language like Chinese, you need to memorise the characters. If you're learning a romance language, you need to memorise the conjugation and genders. Immersion doesn't replace dedicated study. The words that appear the least - which you're most likely to miss - are the ones with the highest entropy.

hintymad 3y ago
I agree with you that one needs dedicated study. I just don’t think Anki card is necessary — it’s great if it works for you, of course. The repetition comes from tons of reading, writing, and listening, and speaking, all intense and dedicated. Essentially, I’m advocating learning like natives. There is an interesting contrast too: Chinese schools used to teach Chinese kids English with an emphasis on mechanical repetition: grammars, memorizing words with Anki-like mechanisms, and etc. The result? Generations of students knew no more than 4000 words after 10 years of learning English, let alone writing or speaking fluently. In the past 20 years or so, though, their elite schools changed course, trying to teach their kids English like teaching them Chinese. The result has been astonishing. For the first time, a generation of Chinese students in even elementary school can use English fluently. I’m also speaking from my own experience: I’m fluent in English, Chinese. Can read novels like Project Hail Mary in Spanish, and N3 in Japanese. I can attest that remembering words has never been a problem with intensive reading. The repetition in reading is just so contextual, natural, and more frequent than using Anki card. Listening and speaking can be a problem precisely because I don’t do them often enough.

hintymad 3y ago

I agree with you that one needs dedicated study. I just don’t think Anki card is necessary — it’s great if it works for you, of course. The repetition comes from tons of reading, writing, and listening, and speaking, all intense and dedicated. Essentially, I’m advocating learning like natives. There is an interesting contrast too: Chinese schools used to teach Chinese kids English with an emphasis on mechanical repetition: grammars, memorizing words with Anki-like mechanisms, and etc. The result? Generations of students knew no more than 4000 words after 10 years of learning English, let alone writing or speaking fluently. In the past 20 years or so, though, their elite schools changed course, trying to teach their kids English like teaching them Chinese. The result has been astonishing. For the first time, a generation of Chinese students in even elementary school can use English fluently. I’m also speaking from my own experience: I’m fluent in English, Chinese. Can read novels like Project Hail Mary in Spanish, and N3 in Japanese. I can attest that remembering words has never been a problem with intensive reading. The repetition in reading is just so contextual, natural, and more frequent than using Anki card. Listening and speaking can be a problem precisely because I don’t do them often enough.