Thread: what are your ways for building vocab?

I'm interested in finding different ideas for broadening your vocab.

How many words per day do you take on? Of course it depends on your memorization ability, but is there somewhat of a consensus? I've been told to tackle two words a day. My point being, should you stick with just a couple of words at a time so that they become memorized, or should you go for a bit more at a time, 5-10 or so, so that they just become familiar and over time memorized?

What techniques do you use? Flash cards, associations with pictures, associations with common words in your native language, common groups of words at a time, etc...

Sorry for these broad questions. I've never studied a language before, plus I've been out of school for a few years, so i don't really have any technique that i remember. I'm sure that you who have studied one or more languages have some pretty reliable techniques that worked for you that I might be able to try out to see what works best for myself.. ..

I would just like help from those who like to give it Thanks..

Jeff

id just go with a small amount everyday...that way it will stick better in your mind if you take more time for each word.

if you think you can, learn 15 words per day.

Make sure, if you learn verbs, to learn both the imperfective, and perfective (Even if you dont understand the difrence yet, it will help you later!)

and dont do it everyday. Just like anything u brain will get tired of it and you'll soon forget.

It's good to learn a word here and there, and then every once in awhile go on a killing spree. have been learnign for almost 2 years, and at first i would learn probly 20 words per day for awhile. Now there has been whole periods where i havn't learned anything new for months.

You get better at it as you go along, like anything u just need practice.

Best to read russian websites centered around your level too. No sense in reading stock reports and complex mathimatical equaitons if u cant understand it. Try MTV Russia, with a little easyer, everyday speach. Also, find some russian bands you like. I can probly credit 25% of my vocabulary to russian bands like Taty, russkiy razmer, sektor gaza, kraski... etc.

Thanks to both of you guys for your help again. Actually both of your posts makes sense... A couple words here, and maybe on a day when I've gotten a lot of sleep go for broke..

Now Dogboy, I'm at the beginning stages of learning, do you really recommend not doing it everyday because of saturation, or maybe just 10 min - 1/2 hour per day? But I totally understand about not saturating yourself with it...

Good idea with the music.. I'll have to see if I can find some downloads for Russian bands.. i usually listen from Lisa Loeb to Metallica, although I don't think Metallica's speed would be a good choice, so i'll see what i can find....

The tips on learning verbs.. that's exactly the kind of small info I need.. If you ever get bored and feel like PM'ing me with more quick tips having to do with verbs, cases, etc, feel free to do so ....You're time is valuable, so don't worry about it....

thanks again..

Jeff

When I was studying English intensively, I memorized about 40 words a day, day in day out. The procedure was as follows: whenever I read a book or some other text, I kept writing down on a piece of paper all the words I didn't understand together with their most common Russian translations. When the number of words ran up to 40 words, I used to take the list, cover the translation column with a blank sheet of paper and attempt, while looking at the English word, to remember the translations and write them on that new sheet of paper. Then I took that second sheet of paper which now contained only Russia words and tried remembering what the English words had been. I would repeat sequence for 2 or 3 times, and then proceeded to the final part of the drill, which was to take a new blank sheet of paper and write down the complete list of 40 words with their meanings by memory. If I missed some of the words, I read the original list all over again, paying particular attention to the words I had missed, then tried to write the entire list from memory again.

The drill was considered passed when I managed to write the complete list without any errors or omissions. 40 words normally took about 1 hour or so. I think I still know about 99% of the words I learnt in this fashion.

One important thing is to do this with words that you run into the text that you actually use or read, not just from a dictionary.

There is another method that, reportedly, was used by Anna Akhmatova. When she was reading a book in English, whenever she had to look up a word in a dictionary, she marked the dictionary entry with a pencil mark. When some entry in her dictionary had 3 marks, she knew it's time to memorize the word.

On my last trip to Russia I bought some childrens comic's, the dialogue is simple and straightforward, and being cartoon comics if you don't understand a particular word you can usually guess it correctly from the cartoon caption.
I also use a language CD which is very good.
Recently I started using the BBCRUSSIAN.com website, whatever your interests are you will likley find a news article of particular interest you, when you click on the particular link of course you want to 'read' the story, the incentive is already there to translate and learn at the same time. If you want to cross check switch to the 'English' version of the same article. Have fun

Each time I come across a new word - one I feel is commonly used (that Akhmatova suggestion is good) - I write it on a (small) flash card in the context of the sentence so that I connect the word up with something i.e. for 'to drive' I would write 'to drive a car'. I learn no more than 30 new words per week. I go over the words at least once per day over the week then put them away. I keep revolving the bundles of words round & introducing one new bundle each week. Eventually I can discard a lot of them (and I do that a lot now) because over time the words have stuck or they simply come up all the time when I am reading. Some whizz kids might find this painfully slow but it's steady & there's no scary lists. And I keep the bundles everywhere - my backpack, my discman holder - all you need is a minute to look at them. People will think you're nuts but they're probably not learning Russian

I love to read, and have read some of my favourite books so many times that I know them almost by heart. Now I've bought some of these books in russian, and I try to read one of them a little bit every day. My vocabulary isn't that big yet, but I can follow the plot because I already know what the book is about. This way I learn a few new words every day. And if I can't understand something, I compare it to the "original". Or I might read the "original" book and the one in russian at the same time, sentence by sentence.
Sounds funny, but it works for me.
Of course I use the traditional way of memorizing the words from my russian text book, but this is a nice addition. I've learned so many interesting words this way...not very useful, but interesting

hey irisheyes.. I must say that flashcard is one of my favorites so far that i've used also.. It's just easy to carry them wherever you go...

Yep, I found using the flashcards has really helped me to absorb the vocabularly much more quickly. They can be jumbled up and I think you're less likely to peek than if you are reading from a list. Good for numbers too. There are some really good suggestions cropping up here. Reading a book in Russian alongside the English version is a good idea. As we know learning a language is necessarily tedious in parts so where you can jig it to fit into your lifestyle then you are less likely to give up. That's what I think.....

I use a similar method to that Akhmatova suggestion. Every time I read or hear a word that I don't understand I ask my wife to translate it. If she tells me to go boil my head then I know I must have asked about the same word several times, and its time to learn it properly.

Scotcher, my compliments to your wife, I admire her style....

LOL! Yeah, a there's nothing like a smart Russian wife... :P

Vino, the best way to remeber womething is to associate someting with it. Be it visually or just emotionally. Then link these assocciations... So, when you write that word on a flashcard, think of something that you know will stick in your memory. I remember doing an exercise like that, and learning upto 30 unrelated words at a time... you create a 'storyline' and as you go over it in your head you visualise the associated words... the nack is to link them with their meaning...

You're on the right track though

I looked into studying Russian at university (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands), and was interested in the speed of building vocabulary as well.

Now they have an explicit goal of teaching their students 1000 words in the first semester, and another 1500 in the second one. Both semesters, language learning proper takes 50 % of a student's time. So if spread over an entire year, first-year students of a BA in Russian are supposed to learn less than 10 words a day!

Inkblot..

I understand what you're saying, but can you give a quick example so it's completely clear?

Ok, yes, I should’ve been more specific… Your brain has a better chance of recalling if you ‘cluster’ the information, just like irisheyes said – in bundles. Now, you’ll have to go over that bundle a lot in the beginning in order to transfer it from your short term memory into your long-term memory. In order to do that you’ll have to process the sensory info (this is where your imagination comes in, because your brain ‘sees’ it as real) which is then stored… the idea is to successfully recall that information.
Now the most vivid stuff our brains remember is something unusual (if you’re learning the word 'ladder' – лестница (les-nee-tza), think of this gigantic useless ladder made of glass, which has the Russian word sandblasted on its side… think of yourself running your fingers over the rough letters, slowly tracing them, repeating the pronunciation) If you’re using all your senses, there are more ‘anchors’ for your brain to permanently store it and then retrieve it. On the other hand you can use personal existing knowledge to base your anchoring. A good example would be of someone you know trying to climb that ladder, and you trying to warn them off using the Russian word.
Linking the sound with the meaning is another way of remembering a word eg. The pronunciation of a word ‘heart’ – сердце (ser-tze) can remind you of a posh English gentleman (a Sir ) and an irritating tsetse fly (tze) which’s attacking him, while he’s trying to not let go of this big, red balloon in a shape of a heart… You immediately get the visualisation. Once you get the hang of coming up with these bizarre, but memorable examples, you can go on linking them, creating a story with actions that your ‘characters’ perform, linking the words (eg – the ‘sir’ ran up the ladder, popped the balloon and fell off, killing the tze-tze fly (now you’re reminded of the action words which the ‘sir’ shrieks (growls, spits, mumbles) out in Russian as he performs them. (humour always helps with remembering))
A human brain absorbs 80% of the information visually… so, help it to remember. Oh, and make sure to go over the ‘story’ as many times in the first 24hours as possible, coz that’s when there’s the most of a chance of it leaving your short-term memory before it gets to the long-term one. This is a personal method of remembering and will not work for a lot of people. Also it takes time for the creative juices to start flowing, but after that, there’s no stopping you!
I hope these are the sort of examples you were looking for… Your brain is capable of picturing a scene like that in a fraction of a second; therefore the recollection of a word should come easy, once it’s stored and ‘anchored’

Since one of my goals in Russian is to be able to read the newspaper fluently, I concentrate on learning words that are found in a paper or magazine rather than a book. IMO, this is a good way to do it, because the words used in a newspaper article are more likely to crop up again and again than words in a book.

I first choose an article that interests me. I begin by reading the first paragraph. I underline every word I don't know with a red pen. I cut index cards in half, and put the russian word on one side with its english translation on the other. I try to memorize the words I've looked up, and spend time re-reading the first paragraph keeping these new words in mind. This helps me understand better how to use the word. I then use the same method with remaining paragraphs. I band index cards together and take them everywhere with me. I like the flash card method because I can sort through them and remove ones I know.

There are lots of news sources you can use. I often read www.izvestiya.ru. If you're interested in eurasia, www.eurasianet.org is a good source because many of the russian articles have english translations (as do some other sources). I also occassionally use scola's (www.scola.org) insta-class resources because there you get the text, a translation, and can also hear it. The downside of this site is that, IMO, the articles are not well-chosen and contain a large amount of obscure vocabulary.

Another thing to do is to have conversations with yourself. Think of something you'd like to know how to say, and look up the necessary words in the dictionary. These words are probably common words you'd use in real conversation. Then use flash cards to memorize such words.

The main thing is to be consistent and spend time studying words each day. Good luck.

the way i do it is when i see words i dont know i write them down and the translation in english then i try to use them at school when im talking to people or buying lunch.actually that sounds like what a lot of yall(yes, im a southerner)are mentioning.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
rindert-
do u speak dutch? because im part dutch and ive tried to learn dutch(i didn't do to well )