Learning foreign words through Flashcards with images…
Sounds too basic to be effective, right?
Well, that’s what I tried to find out in the fourth and maybe last installment of Vocab Wars.
Read on to find out how the method’s worked for me.
There are flashcards…..and then there are Smart Flashcards.
Smart Flashcards follow the idea that it’s easier to remember something if we couple it with something very familiar to us.
So instead of just having a word or a sentence on a card, with Smart Flashcards you want to use a sentence with things or facts close to home.
Ever since I started its sessions, I’ve been very eager to find out the long-term results of Vocab Wars #2.
The method of choice in Vocab Wars #2 was writing sentences with foreign words. And with writing I mean writing … with pen and paper.
And today — just as I’m about to start the learning sessions for Vocab Wars #4 — it’s time to reveal these long-term results.
That what’s close to us is easier to remember.
So it makes sense to couple those things to new information we want to learn.
Let’s say I want to learn the word refrigerator. If I happen to have a big, blue and rusty fridge, a good way to learn this word would be with a sentence like this one:
My refrigerator is big, blue and rusty.
I can then stick this sentence to a flashcard, with the word’s translation on the other side.
This is what Smart Flashcards are all about.
Would you remember more writing something down as opposed to just typing it?
Studies suggest: Yes.
And it makes sense:
Typing is just pushing some buttons, while writing involves creating the shape of the characters on your own.
It’s also slower, which exposes you the material for longer at a time.
So then, I thought, it could work with language learning as well.
And that’s what I wanted to find out, albeit in a humble way.
Time for something new.
I always thought it would be great to run some tests and publish the results on Smart Language Learner.
You know, testing the efficiency of language learning methods and sharing the results with you.
Well, I’m going to do just that in a new series called: Vocab Wars.
In each installment, I’ll try to learn 50 new words in 100 minutes by using a different vocabulary learning method.