March 22, 2011
If you’re looking to focus on building up your stock of usable words in a language, a vocabulary training software might be the kind of software you need. Designed to teach individual language items for retention, they offer one of the quickest paths to quickly enriching your active vocabulary.
Vocabulary trainers use a variety of methods to teach words. Finding out which ones your specific software uses will go a long way towards ensuring it fully meets your learning requirements. Some of these methods include:
- Self-documentation. Here, the software makes you actively participate in your learning by having you record words you know, then randomly testing you for them.
- Flashcards. I’m a huge fan of flashcards for any type of memorizing, as they’re both simple and effective. Software-based flashcards add convenience to the mix, so it’s definitely one we recommend.
- Multiple-choice and fill in the blank tests. The default resort for a lot of vocabulary software, these straightforward testing techniques are easy to perform, yet manage to effectively gauge a user’s actual vocabulary level.
- Targeted testing. Many new vocabulary trainers use targeted testing, based on your level of abilities and current test results. Provided their targeting algorithm is sound, this type of feature can be very useful for seeing gradual but consistent improvements.
March 5, 2011
Everyone can do a good job at remembering new vocabulary for their target language. Provided, of course, that you’re willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen.
These four principles, often referred to as the 4 R’s, for improving your ability to memorize should offer an excellent way to approach the activity:
- Resolve. Make sure your head is in the right place. If you don’t want to memorize a bunch of new phrases, no amount of technique will help you. Develop a serious intention to commit elements of a language to memory — that’s how the process should start.
- React. Don’t just passively take in information. If you want to remember things better, you have to actively respond to the language elements you’re trying to commit to memory. Every time you learn a new word or phrase, react to it — process it mentally, create a visual image in your head, write it down on your journal and do other things that will help you form natural associations.
- Reflect. Contemplate on the new information by relating it to something you’re already familiar with, making analogies and comparisons that flesh out the new information’s inherent qualities.
- Refresh. Solidify your acquisition of new language elements by reviewing immediately, either through practice or exercises in your language software that will strengthen the associations you’ve made with it in your mind. Do this right away — the less time you allow to pass, the better results you can gain from your review.
February 15, 2011
In many ways, learning a foreign language is all about building up your vocabulary. The bigger the stock of words you can commit into your bank, after all, the more of a foreign language you can understand and use.
The more you advance in your language abilities, the more that a strong vocabulary will play a part in your effectiveness with a language. Here are a few ways to make that richer vocabulary a reality:
- Read a lot. The more materials you read in the target language, the more elements of it you end up exposed to. Over the course of going through a book or several articles, you’ll likely become well-acquainted with many new words and phrases, some of which will end up added to your vocabulary.
- Open a thesaurus randomly, find a word and make up sentences using it. The sentences you make up need not be grammatically perfect, although it makes for good practice to try and make them as correct as possible.
- Play word games. Word-based games, like Scrabble and crossword puzzles, can work great for building up your vocabulary. Try working with a dictionary or thesaurus in hand, so you can get precise definitions as you need them. Some language software come with both games and a thesaurus bundled in, so you might not even need to look far to find tools you can use.
January 28, 2011
Want to build a bigger vocabulary and improve your spelling in any language? Doesn’t matter if it’s English, French or Spanish, the best path to take is usually the same: read more.
Assuming you can already read at an elementary level in a foreign language, this is one of the most powerful tools you can add to your arsenal of language learning activities. Just integrate reading as a regular activity, even for only short periods of time (a page a day from a book probably wouldn’t impinge much on your time).
The more you read work written in a language, the more commonly-used words and phrases you are exposed to. Even if you’re encountering a word for the first time, you can infer some of its meaning from the context expressed in the rest of a sentence. Being exposed to it several times, you begin to get a clear picture of its usage, allowing you to slowly integrate it in your own use of the target language.
You don’t even need to look far for evidence of this. Consider your group of friends. Which one of them has the best vocabulary and spelling skills in your native language? Chances are, it’s going to be the one who is the widest reader of the bunch.
To put it simply, integrating reading as a supplement to working with your Dutch, Portuguese or French learning software will yield tremendous benefits in the areas of vocabulary building and spelling. Who knows, you might even end up discovering a good book while you’re at it?
January 14, 2011
I once asked my language study group how much of a language they thought we needed in order to be fluent. The answers, when heard together, sounded ridiculous. One would say, 50 percent, another will venture 10 percent and someone else will volunteer 90 percent. I remember my answer being 99 percent, since fluency is supposed to mean you’ve achieved the target level, right?
According to language researchers, however, fluency can be achieved with much less than that. In Spanish, for instance, having a stock of 2.5 percent of the most-frequently used words in the language is enough to get you speaking in a fluent manner. Many languages follow along the same lines, as well.
That 2.5 percent represents around 2,500 words out of the estimated 100,000 in the Spanish language. That may not sound like a lot, but being frequently used in daily interactions, you can supposedly understand up to 95 percent of conversations using just those stock of words alone.
Knowing about that fact can give many students some much-needed confidence, especially those a bit too worried about their chances of actually learning a language. While 2,500 words is no easy feat, it’s a goal that can realistically be achieved, especially with the help of a good language learning software.
January 3, 2011
Reading a lot, along with your foreign language software lessons, can help you build up your vocabulary. This is true whether you’re attempting to grow your stock of phrases in English, Spanish or any other foreign language.
With a trip to the library, you can read books and other publications (such as newspapers and magazines) in the foreign language. The more you read, the more new words you’ll naturally end up coming across. If you go about it actively (e.g. looking up the meaning of new terms you encounter and jotting them down), you can build a hefty stock of vocabulary over time.
The internet, of course, is a rich source for reading materials in any language. Even better, there are many browser plugins you can use, that will enhance the experience for learning. One plugin you can install in Firefox, for instance, lets you automatically see the meaning of a word on a page by simply pointing the cursor over it. The one I used before worked for English, Spanish and Portuguese; there’s a good chance a similar tool is available for other languages.
As with many activities you can use for second language vocabulary building, this may be more applicable to some languages over others. If you’re an English speaker, for instance, reading Chinese will probably be a lot further down the line in your own language development. In case you’re studying a language system that uses the Roman alphabet, however, then it should be more feasible.
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