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Read some of the research by Paul Nation into how people actually learn languages. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation-pubsdate http://www.vi

Read some of the research by Paul Nation into how people actually learn languages. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation-pubsdate http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation-pubsd... In particular this research on how much vocabulary you will need to read and converse. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul-nation/2006-How-large-a-vocab.pdf http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul... For vocabulary I did the following. 1. Learn a few thousand words from scratchcards. (4000-9000 words is ideal, use a memory technique such as linkwords.) 2. Buy a kindle and install the foreign language dictionaries. 3. Start reading simplified books. (Not children's books, they have a surprisingly large vocabulary. i.e. a 6 year old has around 6000 words of his native language.) 4. After this start reading 'normal' books, i..e hunger games. You may have to fetch a few samples from amazon to find authors with a simple writing style. When you get to step 4, the vocabulary acquisition becomes fun. Forget the Bennie Lewis guy, his stuff is pay for bollocks.

xaybey 11y ago
Can you talk more about how you learned thousands of words? I've been drilling words with quizlet, and find that it takes ~10 drills to burn a given word into my brain.
- ColinWright 11y ago
  Why do you think it will take less than that? Why are you assuming that there is a magic bullet? Yes, some people seem to find it easier than others, but acquiring another language takes time. For some people, a lot of time, and there is, to misquote, no "Royal Road to Language."[0] People are always asking for the easy way to do things. Pratchett wrote about this[1][2] in the context of writing. Sometimes there is nothing better than taking a mashup of techniques and just putting in the time. I've never mastered a second language, but I've got to the point of having conversations in acquired languages. I always use the same technique: * Memorise 100 phrases from a phrase book * Memorise 500 words * Substitute memorised words into memorised phrases * Read a book in the target language: preferrably an action novel aimed at 14 year old boys. * Lather, rinse, repeat. [0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euclid#Attributed http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euclid#Attributed [1] http://terrypratchettappreciation.tumblr.com/post/66802407570/terry-pratchetts-advice-for-writers http://terrypratchettappreciation.tumblr.com/post/6680240757... [2] http://jackscarab.tumblr.com/post/105468067469/i-get-asked-all-the-time-in-letters-and-e-mails http://jackscarab.tumblr.com/post/105468067469/i-get-asked-a...
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    Why do you think it will take less than that? Why are you assuming that there is a magic bullet? Because surely by now someone has hack disrupted this space with a webapp using DJango and swift across the whole stack with a leveraged angel investor buyout round.
    - pliny 11y ago
      Are you having a stroke, or am I?
      - iends 11y ago
        He's having a Series A.
    - wodenokoto 11y ago
      Sounds like duolingo :)
- ianpurton 11y ago
  I started out with LinkWords http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/ http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/ Basically using a memeory technique to associate the foreign word with the german. In the end I stopped using their software as it isn't so great and created my own spreadsheet with the word, foreign word and memory link. I then loaded this into some flashcard software on android. Then several times a day I would try to keep on top of my flaschards. After around 6 months I had gotten through the cards and was getting a reasonable recall rate.
wodenokoto 11y ago
How do you find simplified books in target language?

xaybey 11y ago

Can you talk more about how you learned thousands of words? I've been drilling words with quizlet, and find that it takes ~10 drills to burn a given word into my brain.

ColinWright 11y ago
Why do you think it will take less than that? Why are you assuming that there is a magic bullet? Yes, some people seem to find it easier than others, but acquiring another language takes time. For some people, a lot of time, and there is, to misquote, no "Royal Road to Language."[0] People are always asking for the easy way to do things. Pratchett wrote about this[1][2] in the context of writing. Sometimes there is nothing better than taking a mashup of techniques and just putting in the time. I've never mastered a second language, but I've got to the point of having conversations in acquired languages. I always use the same technique: * Memorise 100 phrases from a phrase book * Memorise 500 words * Substitute memorised words into memorised phrases * Read a book in the target language: preferrably an action novel aimed at 14 year old boys. * Lather, rinse, repeat. [0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euclid#Attributed http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Euclid#Attributed [1] http://terrypratchettappreciation.tumblr.com/post/66802407570/terry-pratchetts-advice-for-writers http://terrypratchettappreciation.tumblr.com/post/6680240757... [2] http://jackscarab.tumblr.com/post/105468067469/i-get-asked-all-the-time-in-letters-and-e-mails http://jackscarab.tumblr.com/post/105468067469/i-get-asked-a...
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Why do you think it will take less than that? Why are you assuming that there is a magic bullet? Because surely by now someone has hack disrupted this space with a webapp using DJango and swift across the whole stack with a leveraged angel investor buyout round.
  - pliny 11y ago
    Are you having a stroke, or am I?
    - iends 11y ago
      He's having a Series A.
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    Sounds like duolingo :)
ianpurton 11y ago
I started out with LinkWords http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/ http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/ Basically using a memeory technique to associate the foreign word with the german. In the end I stopped using their software as it isn't so great and created my own spreadsheet with the word, foreign word and memory link. I then loaded this into some flashcard software on android. Then several times a day I would try to keep on top of my flaschards. After around 6 months I had gotten through the cards and was getting a reasonable recall rate.

wodenokoto 11y ago

How do you find simplified books in target language?