4 ms·

It's a very bad way to build familiarity with vocabulary for two reasons—it doesn't teach word boundaries and it doesn't teach collocations. For example, even

It's a very bad way to build familiarity with vocabulary for two reasons—it doesn't teach word boundaries and it doesn't teach collocations. For example, even simple words like "nose" differ a bit from language to language. Can "nose" refer to the thing that smells on a pig or an elephant? In English, no. In Chinese, yes. In Malay, people and pigs have noses but an elephant's trunk is a different word. In English if someone asks you how you are, it's reasonable to reply "absolutely fantastic" or "pretty good", while it would be a bit odd to answer "pretty fantastic" and very strange to answer "absolutely good". This isn't because of a grammatical issue that can be memorized. It's just that certain words tend to be used together and the only way to really consistently get it right is to get a lot of input and develop a feel for the language. Extensive reading is a better way of building and maintaining vocabulary than anything you can do with flash cards and at the same time you'll be gaining understanding about the common stories, beliefs and culture of the speakers of the target language.

vlz 2y ago
Hmm, sort of agree for the later stages of learning, but learning by flashcards is incredibly helpful at the beginning and to get started. Referring badly to a nose on an elephant is better than not having any word ready at all. Saying „absolutely good“ is totally fine for most people if you are a beginner in the english language. (Also, you can put phrases on flashcards) And sure, reading extensively is a great way to build vocabulary. But it takes a while (depending on the language quite a long while) before you can begin to read extensively.
- AlchemistCamp 2y ago
  A lack of suitable resources is often a problem at the lower levels. FWIW, I experienced this first hand as the first foreign language I learned to a relatively fluent (~B2 level) was Japanese and that was from 2000-2002. Graded readers are ideal early on, but if the language you're learning just doesn't have them, then going through multiple textbooks aimed at your level (e.g. an intro textbook from publisher A and another intro textbook from publisher B) is a good strategy. Materials aimed at 5 or 6 year-old native learners are also often a decent path. It's not exciting but there's a lot of repetition, there are a lot of pictures and if it's a character-based language, there will be a syllabary like hiragana/zhuyin/pinyin to help you.
  - csa 2y ago
    > Graded readers are ideal early on Depends on learner. I’ve seen people really love graded readers from an early stage. I personally can’t stand them until the 1000-2000 word or more range. Note that I am a big fan of extensive reading, but the lower level stuff just makes my eyes bleed, and in some cases is just bad (e.g., graded English readers that use lower frequency meanings of common words to meet a word limit). > going through multiple textbooks aimed at your level (e.g. an intro textbook from publisher A and another intro textbook from publisher B) is a good strategy Very underrated, imho. I wish more folks would do this. > Materials aimed at 5 or 6 year-old native learners are also often a decent path Again, this makes my eyes bleed. There is often quite a bit of words that are aimed at children that maybe aren’t the best for beginning learners. I can’t remember what they were with Japanese, but I’m pretty sure a lot of them were onomatopoeic words that every Japanese kid knows but non-native speakers do not… and probably should not learn that early in the process. Iirc, third grade is when the language becomes more “standard” and less kids talk, middle school stuff is godly for beginning mid-range fluency, and high school content fleshes out mid-range fluency (as one might expect). Books and online content aimed at teenaged readers can be surprisingly accessible, with the main challenge being to find material with substance (imho).
csa 2y ago
> Extensive reading is a better way of building and maintaining vocabulary than anything you can do with flash cards Eh, I think that this is only true at certain ranges of fluency development. Note that I am a huge fan of extensive reading, and I don’t think folks use it enough, but… 1. It’s usually prudent to brute force the first few hundred words, maybe up to 1000, depending on one’s access to quality graded readers. The theory says that you want 95-98% lexical coverage for extensive reading to reach its highest potential. 2. To maintain general fluency, extensive reading just can’t be beat. 3. That said, for domain specific vocabulary and/or low frequency vocabulary, cards are almost necessary since the space in between exposure can be incredibly wide. For reference, as a native speaker of English, I still add new words that I run across to a vocab memorization list — recent additions are petard and malapert. Frankly, I’m not sure I will ever run across these words again in a text, but I want to know them and (in the case of malapert) use them. For specialists in a field, knowing things like “nuclear non-proliferaiton treaty” or “bilateral negotiations” might be worthy of flash card study for folks in politics/political science.
- AlchemistCamp 2y ago
  > "I still add new words that I run across to a vocab memorization list — recent additions are petard and malapert." I'm familiar with those only due to Shakespeare. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "malapert", but have heard definitely heard friends say, "<person> was hoisted with <his/her/their/my> own petard" occasionally while playing board games as a teenager. Those friends must have picked it up from Hamlet. None of us used SRS for vocabulary building back then. We just read a lot.

vlz 2y ago

Hmm, sort of agree for the later stages of learning, but learning by flashcards is incredibly helpful at the beginning and to get started. Referring badly to a nose on an elephant is better than not having any word ready at all. Saying „absolutely good“ is totally fine for most people if you are a beginner in the english language. (Also, you can put phrases on flashcards) And sure, reading extensively is a great way to build vocabulary. But it takes a while (depending on the language quite a long while) before you can begin to read extensively.

AlchemistCamp 2y ago
A lack of suitable resources is often a problem at the lower levels. FWIW, I experienced this first hand as the first foreign language I learned to a relatively fluent (~B2 level) was Japanese and that was from 2000-2002. Graded readers are ideal early on, but if the language you're learning just doesn't have them, then going through multiple textbooks aimed at your level (e.g. an intro textbook from publisher A and another intro textbook from publisher B) is a good strategy. Materials aimed at 5 or 6 year-old native learners are also often a decent path. It's not exciting but there's a lot of repetition, there are a lot of pictures and if it's a character-based language, there will be a syllabary like hiragana/zhuyin/pinyin to help you.
- csa 2y ago
  > Graded readers are ideal early on Depends on learner. I’ve seen people really love graded readers from an early stage. I personally can’t stand them until the 1000-2000 word or more range. Note that I am a big fan of extensive reading, but the lower level stuff just makes my eyes bleed, and in some cases is just bad (e.g., graded English readers that use lower frequency meanings of common words to meet a word limit). > going through multiple textbooks aimed at your level (e.g. an intro textbook from publisher A and another intro textbook from publisher B) is a good strategy Very underrated, imho. I wish more folks would do this. > Materials aimed at 5 or 6 year-old native learners are also often a decent path Again, this makes my eyes bleed. There is often quite a bit of words that are aimed at children that maybe aren’t the best for beginning learners. I can’t remember what they were with Japanese, but I’m pretty sure a lot of them were onomatopoeic words that every Japanese kid knows but non-native speakers do not… and probably should not learn that early in the process. Iirc, third grade is when the language becomes more “standard” and less kids talk, middle school stuff is godly for beginning mid-range fluency, and high school content fleshes out mid-range fluency (as one might expect). Books and online content aimed at teenaged readers can be surprisingly accessible, with the main challenge being to find material with substance (imho).

csa 2y ago

> Extensive reading is a better way of building and maintaining vocabulary than anything you can do with flash cards Eh, I think that this is only true at certain ranges of fluency development. Note that I am a huge fan of extensive reading, and I don’t think folks use it enough, but… 1. It’s usually prudent to brute force the first few hundred words, maybe up to 1000, depending on one’s access to quality graded readers. The theory says that you want 95-98% lexical coverage for extensive reading to reach its highest potential. 2. To maintain general fluency, extensive reading just can’t be beat. 3. That said, for domain specific vocabulary and/or low frequency vocabulary, cards are almost necessary since the space in between exposure can be incredibly wide. For reference, as a native speaker of English, I still add new words that I run across to a vocab memorization list — recent additions are petard and malapert. Frankly, I’m not sure I will ever run across these words again in a text, but I want to know them and (in the case of malapert) use them. For specialists in a field, knowing things like “nuclear non-proliferaiton treaty” or “bilateral negotiations” might be worthy of flash card study for folks in politics/political science.

AlchemistCamp 2y ago
> "I still add new words that I run across to a vocab memorization list — recent additions are petard and malapert." I'm familiar with those only due to Shakespeare. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "malapert", but have heard definitely heard friends say, "<person> was hoisted with <his/her/their/my> own petard" occasionally while playing board games as a teenager. Those friends must have picked it up from Hamlet. None of us used SRS for vocabulary building back then. We just read a lot.