[SERIES] Language Learning - PART V - Using Resources Effectively

 Using your course effectively

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The purpose of a course is to introduce you to basic grammar and vocabulary using phrases, explanations, exercises, dialogues, or whatever method is preferred by your chosen course.

The best way to improve your usage of your course is by using the following principle:

Principle: Don’t try to learn things perfectly the first time you encounter them
Learning happens slowly over time, usually well after you are first introduced to a word or concept. You don’t need a perfect understanding of one lesson before you begin the next. The very act of moving forward with a loose understanding will help teach you things already covered as you encounter them again.

This brings us to the key rule: Don’t try to memorise your lesson content. Using a language is not the same as being able to remember all of the rules and exceptions. Notice that you speak your native language perfectly well, but would struggle to talk about the grammatical rules you are applying. The same applies to your target language. Languages must be acquired, not memorised.

There are many learners who prefer to skim through workbooks or online resources to get a broad understanding before using content.

Some learners make their own workbook, writing down the key words, insights, or grammatical forms of every lesson. You may choose to do this too. Keep in mind it can be a time-consuming process.

When to stop using a beginner coursePermalink

You can move on once your course finishes or you have dealt with the core grammar, such as verb conjugations and noun declensions, articles, and prepositions. This occurs faster with languages more similar to your native language. After that point, it helps to use your course or some other book or website as a reference of forms to take note of when you are using content.

It is helpful to finish your course. This will give you a wider knowledge base that will let you recognise forms you might miss otherwise.

Principle: Repetition
Words and grammatical forms will be apprehended only once your brain is exposed to them enough times.
There are three main ways learners get repetition. First, content provides natural repetition as the most common words and forms are encountered frequently in context. Second, drills such as flashcards that are designed to repeatedly prompt you until you remember. Finally, you can consciously repeat the same piece of content multiple times or review past lessons.
The best repetition follows the principle of spaced repetition, where reviews are done just before the learner forgets. Try to encounter new words or forms again soon after you first learn them.

Using flashcards effectivelyPermalink

Those who emphasise learning lots of words via flashcards usually recommend doing so for the purpose of enabling you to quickly move on to using content. Keep this in mind if you end up using flashcards heavily. They are still a drill and a supplement—their purpose is to aid your use of the language, not as an end goal in of itself.

Here are a few good tips for you to keep in mind:

• Don’t learn too many new words at once—you will be fine to start, but reviews will quickly overwhelm you

• Try to study consistently every day

• Make your own cards of words you want to learn

• Delete or suspend cards that aren’t working for you for any reason—you can always learn it later

• Use phrases—I will cover this soon

• If you use Anki, tweak the settings a bit—you can use this guide to start

Flashcard reviewPermalink

There are three ways you can review your cards:

1. Prompt with native language, answer with target language (productive learning)

2. Prompt with target language, answer with native language (receptive learning)

3. A combination of both

Productive learning means you are trying to produce your target language. Productive learning is the more difficult of the two, and card review is generally slower as a result. On the positive side, productive learning is great for forcing your mind to absorb a word or phrase properly, meaning you tend to learn more thoroughly and in a way that lets you begin using that knowledge sooner.

Receptive learning means you are simply being repeatedly exposed to words or phrases in your target language and asked to recall their meaning. This method is faster, but generally helps much more with understanding than it does producing your target language. This can be great for getting you using content quickly.

I recommend a combination of both, based on your needs. What you do should be determined by your goals. Some words you might need to be using soon, so you might practise them productively. Others might just be helpful for understanding, but not something you expect to need soon, so you’d practise them receptively.

Key tip: Aim to get about 90 percent of your cards correct
As I have noted, flashcards utilise the forgetting curve to try to prompt you with a word just before you forget it. You will begin to notice that this doesn’t always work perfectly. Sometimes you will have already forgotten a word, forcing you to relearn it, but other times you will get the answer easily. While you can improve your retention by setting Anki to show you your cards more often, this has the effect of slowing down your study, as you will see cards you know comfortably far too often. Conversely, if you set Anki to show you cards less often, you may find yourself forgetting lots of words before you see them again. The best spot sits in the middle. Aim to “strategically forget” about 10 percent of your cards. In the long run this will save you time.

PhrasesPermalink

While you can learn words on their own, I recommend you use phrases. Learning phrases with their translation is useful for lots of reasons:

• They can teach you key phrases for early communication or travelling

• They help you use more complex but common constructions earlier in your learning

• They provide insight into how the language is used

• They provide context for how words are used and what other words tend to be used with them

• They can teach you grammar by forcing you to absorb certain forms

• They give you passive exposure to other words, cementing them in your mind

There are a few ways you might engage with phrases in your flashcards. These depend on, firstly, if you are learning productively or receptively, and secondly, if you are trying to learn a word with the phrase in support or the whole phrase itself. This creates the below quadrant:

Card Form	Productively	Receptively
Word + phrase	Learn word productively	Learn word’s usage, phrase provides context
Phrase only	Learn full phrase productively	Repeated exposure to phrase

When you use phrases receptively, you are generating repeated exposure. This is great for giving you context for a words usage, but you are unlikely to remember the phrase well.

Using phrases productively is beneficial for building a strong recall of the phrase in its entirety, which is useful when you want to remember a construction so you can use it yourself, but less useful for vocabulary. Because it can be so hard, I recommend you use this with phrases you already mostly understand. You may choose to highlight the word or construction you are interested in.

It is common for learners to begin with essential phrases such as “how do you say…”. These are very useful for understanding how native speakers express themselves and will help you a lot when first communicating. These are usually learned productively.

Because of this, I recommend a combination: learn words receptively with an example phrase to quickly improve your vocabulary and help you read and listen; learn phrases productively with a word or construction highlighted to absorb the usage of the language. Focus on words and forms you need to use soon.

Key tip: Keep your phrases simple
Learning something new takes focused effort, so you can only really memorise one thing at a time. Start very simple and build off that base as you come to understand more of the language. Don’t use long phrases or multi-sentence phrases.
Ideally, your flashcards should contain no more than one new word and one unfamiliar grammatical form. If you have lots of information you want to learn, split it into multiple cards.

Make your own flashcardsPermalink

The best way to use flashcards is by creating your own. If you find vocabulary that you want to know and use sentences that you have chosen, learning them becomes easier as you are more motivated and pay closer attention to what you are learning. 

Using input effectivelyPermalink

Here is the key rule: It takes a lot of exposure to get comfortable using the language, so try to use as much content as you can in your study.

How you use input depends a lot on what you are doing. There are two broad types of activity: those in which you sit and focus with a difficult piece of content in order to learn something new (active learning), and those in which you simply use content for enjoyment without focused study (passive learning). You will do both during your study. Content used for passive learning tends to be easier.

No matter how you use it, the key to input is that you try to understand as much as possible.

Principle: Engage your memory
One key to effective learning is by actively using your memory during the learning process. This means, as much as possible, try to actively recall the meaning of words and forms you encounter. Don’t just passively read or instantly turn to a dictionary or textbook for answers. Flashcards are built on this principle by forcing you to attempt to recall a word’s definition before you can see the answer.

Key tip: Repeat the same content multiple times
Repetition is important to learning. By re-using the same piece of content, the words and forms you encounter there will be much more likely to stick in your mind. The more you repeat it, the more repetition you will get.

What input should I use?Permalink

There are two key criteria:

1. How interested you are in it

2. How understandable it is

One way to ensure interest is to use content similar to what you already find interesting in your native language. That is, do the things you already enjoy doing, but using your target language instead. This can be watching YouTube or TV shows, reading comic books, or even gaming. As a beginner, finding good content can be hard, especially for those learning rare languages. You may have to compromise and choose something less interesting because it is closer to your level.

Your content should already be mostly understandable, meaning you already understand 90–98% of it.

Principle: Your level +1
Learning occurs when the brain struggles a bit before making a successful connection. The best way to ensure this is to choose content that is your level +1. +1 means that the content is just a little bit challenging. It is difficult, but still comprehensible.
What precisely +1 means depends on what you are studying. An audio recording with 100% known vocabulary counts as +1 if you struggle with aural comprehension.
For more info, read and in the appendix.

Using dictionaries effectivelyPermalink

Dictionaries are key learning aide that are best used to get the meaning of key unknown words.

More important than what you do is what you avoid doing. Here are four key don’ts:

1. Don’t simply look up new words as you encounter them. First, attempt to understand the sentence, then finish the section or text. You are unlikely to remember the meaning of a word if you immediately continue reading.

2. Don’t look up uncommon words when there are plenty of common ones to learn. A large portion of the new words you encounter will only appear once, meaning there will not be repeated opportunities to help learn them.

3. Don’t blindly trust single-word translations. Translations are imperfect. Languages use words differently. For example, the English word “exercise” has two completely different meanings, one to do with fitness and the other with study. A dictionary won’t know which one you mean.

4. Don’t use dictionaries to learn words on their own. This can cause you to learn less common words without being aware of their proper usage.

Chapter summaryPermalink

Avoid memorising your lesson content or trying to learn your lessons perfectly the first time. It is better to move on with an incomplete understanding.

Flashcards are best used by prompting with both your target language and your native language. This ensures you encounter words and forms in a variety of ways. Make sure you use simple sentences with your flashcards.

Input is best used in mass amounts. Use input that is already mostly comprehensible.

Use dictionaries to search for key unknown words. Use it once you have first attempted to understand the text you are using and have completed the paragraph you encountered it in.