Hey is it possible everyday to learn new words and each day learnt new 100 words? I have lots of time this summer and this autumn I will go to England and I want to be fluency in english as much fast as possible. Of course I wont be only focused in learning new words, I will listen audio as well and I will watch movies with subtitles and I will watch one movie, lots of time the same movie that I would know all words in this film… Give me your opinions how fast is possible to become flunecy in english and feel good to speak with native speaker? and how to learn that I would be fluency
How long have you been studying as of now?
@ Tautvydasnba, what do u think your level is ?? Intermediate ??
IF u want to be fluent in the summer like 3 months , there is only one way to get fluency. Research shows that u have to listen to understandable English and listen to the same content every day for at least 6 months… Remember, repetition is very important. Understanding to only real English is not yet finished to achieve your success. These are not my opinions . There are the facts that are discovered by research.
IF u feel bored to listening to the same content, then , put your favorite music before u listen, move your body, jump up and down . and walk while u listen . While u walk , keep your shoulders back , chin up , eyes up and breath deeply every time u feel exhausted. Focus on the end result u want. Imagine u are in England , u are making friends and speaking English fluently.
There is another way to make you feel less bored. Each time , u can listen to the same content with distinctions. By that, I mean , first, focus on the understanding while u first listen. And then , second , focus on the songs of English - the intonation - when does the narrator go up , when does he go down. By doing like this, u will also improve your pronunciation and accent.
OK. I am sure this will help u . Good luck with your English learning. See u around.
^ Lol. Listening to the same content over and over doesn’t work for me, I can’t focus on listening in any language. I understand listening is important, but I prefer to do this by watching films and listening to music. And definitely not the same things over and over.
100 words a day seems a bit too much. Have you thought of how you want to do this exactly? And where will you get the words from? Remember you’ll need repetition to learn the words. If you want to get enough repetition, you’ll have to find comprehensible content, get the words from there, and repeat this content… every day… but to find 100 new words every day and repeat everything you will need to read and listen to so many things you won’t be able to keep up and actually learn something at the end of the day. If you want to do it in a more traditional way, you could use a SRS and repeat just the words. But this is only good for improving your vocabulary (which is IMO not that important) and at one point you’ll have to do 1000 or so reviews a day, and it will be too much.
Your English already seems to be at a good level. I suggesty you 1. watch films without subtitles, or only watch them with subtitles once, in England you won’t have subtitles when people talk to you. 2. Speak. You want to be able to talk to native speakers, well then talk to native speakers. You will never be comfortable talking with them until you’ve done it a lot. If you think you can learn 100 words a day though, just try. There’s no harm in it, right?
watupboy101* I have been learning english for about 3 years
100 words , I don’t know if that few you help , I’m use a tips for learning the foreign language words.
1.Write the word on a paper on 10 lines.
example :
Line 1 : word word word word word word
Line 2 : word word word word word word
to line 10.
2.Pronounce the word.
3.Think to this word.
Good luck
To be honest, I would focus more on output now. As watupboy says, your English is already very good. Write and speak more, obviously while still listening and reading.
Tautvydasnba, Just keep doing what you are doing and don’t worry about it. Within a week of arriving in the UK your English will just take a big leap forward. If you have the chance to speak in the meantime, either via skype or with people you meet, do so. You can also speak to yourself.
Thanks all for your advice, I really appreciate it 
by the way
Stealerofgrammar*
Dont you think that style of learning new words is just like academic learning. I know that is a good method to learn new words before exams, but right here I am learning English, because I want to speak good in English and I dont care the result of exams out here. In addition, I think this method will take so much time. 
100 words per day? Easy with flashcards. I don’t like flashcards but I’ll do 3 or 4 days of 100 new words and get sick of doing new ones. After that, I’ll just review. Still, that’s like 3/400 new words and I typically remember them all. I pick them all from textbooks which I’m using the dialogues (text/audio) from anyway. So, the argument of ‘out of context’ doesn’t really apply at all and I get the needed review just from that.
I’m going to try and do a 30 day session of 100 words per day some time this year to try and get a real foothold in one of my languages. It might take me another 30 days of review + read/listening to the dialogues to truly master them but it’s like 2 months to low-intermediate. Can’t complain there.
Can you learn 100 words a day? Sure. Can you retain the words you’ve learned on a 100 words a day basis? Almost certainly no.
Reviewing the words you’ve learned this way with flashcards is not the same as pulling them from memory when needed. That’s tantamount to using a cheat sheet.
Now, just to give you a rough idea of our average abilities, here’s an interesting article:
http://www.balancedreading.com/vocabulary.html
Two short excerpts from the article:
“The average student learns about 3,000 words per year in the early school years—that’s 8 words per day.”
“Consider these words: WHITE, DOG, and HOME
And compare them to these words: CALLIOPE, FOP, and BRACHIAL
I don’t know about you, but while I am certain that I ‘know’ the first group of words, I would only say that I recognize and have some limited knowledge of the second group of words. Dale and O’Rourke (1986) described four levels of word knowledge, which they characterized with four statements:
- I never saw the word before
- I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it means
- I recognize it in context, and I can tell you what it is related to
- I know the word well.”
Hope this helps.
I think that it’s not reasonable to say “You haven’t learned a word unless you can’t use it actively!” I know many, many words in English which I never use actively. That’s just the nature of what it means to use language. We know more than we use. The point is that the more we are exposed to the language, the more we see these words and feel like using them actively, when we get the chance to use them in this way. They are still learnt words, regardless. I can learn 100 words a day and they are largely in my “passive box”. But, I don’t disdain ‘passive’ knowledge. It’s passive knowledge out of which the active use is able to develop. Out of active use - passive knowledge can’t be derived.
Astamore - I remember between 90/100 of the words after the first day (1 or 2 review of the words). So, yes it’s totally possible. It simply takes work and organisation. Not chance.
@Astamoore:
Thanks for the link! I’ve just read both parts of the article and found them fascinating. It certainly gave me food for thought regarding both first (i.e. one’s mother tongue) and second language acquisition. I have to read more on this topic.
Re the “four levels of word knowledge”
-
I never saw the word before
(this is not a level of word knowledge) -
I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it means
(Yes these words exist, but on the other hand I often encounter a word I have seen before, a yellow word at LingQ, and yet have forgotten that I ever met it before. I think it is a new word. Yet it is somewhere in my brain, and seeing it again moves it along the chain) -
I recognize it in context, and I can tell you what it is related to
(Yes I often can guess the meaning of a word in context which I see for the first time, because I can relate it to something else. At other time I know the meaning of a word in context, without relating it to any other word. I just know it passively, but cannot use it) -
I know the word well.”
( I know many words well, and use only a few of them)
These four levels are, in my view, typical of the pseudo knowledge of the world of linguistics and applied linguistics. I think we gradually increase our knowledge of words and broaden our understanding of their scope and how to use them, in a continuum that is different for each word. Some words we learn quickly, for no apparent reason, and some words stubbornly resist, and these can be the simplest words, like words describing colours or the parts of the body.
To me, we know a word if we know its meaning in context. But even knowing the word this way is just the beginning, as our knowledge will get deeper and broader as we continue to encounter it.
Flash cards work for those who enjoy putting in the time doing them. I prefer to spend my limited language learning time with enjoyable and interesting content. I know that flash cards, and for that matter, writing correction, would help me. I prefer listening and reading. This is individual.
I think that what is really difficult is internalize these 100 words in the brain in a way that you will can use them naturaly in a conversation.
Even I now the meaning of some words when I read or hear them, sometimes they desapear from my mind when I’m trying express myself(writing or speaking).
I’d like to say that there’s nothing “pseudo” about linguistics. Some of it is opinion - people trying to work out what is going on with the evidence they have. This is not perfect but it’s something that everybody engages in (you included). When linguists say something you don’t agree with, understand, or find useful, you call it ‘pseudo’. When they say something you do agree with, you call it ‘obvious’ (and question the very existence of the field). The thing is that an overwhelming majority of linguistics is derived from (very rigorous) experimentation. But, at the end of the day we’re all human and do make errors of perception and logic.
From that page “Research has shown that past the 4th grade, the number of words a person knows depends primarily on how much time they spend reading (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988; Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nagy & Herman, 1987; Stanovich, 1986).” But, don’t you yourself claim that more reading leads to a greater vocabulary? Does that mean you prescribe to pseudo-knowledge? Whether or not you agree with some hierarchical system of word knowledge works for you or not, doesn’t make the linguistic world ‘pseudo-knowledge’.
The findings of studies can be interpreted in various ways in all fields. Findings from experimentation are not always perfectly applied. Krashen - a linguist who you cite often - applies linguistics (through an applied-linguistics sub-field second language acquisition) very well. That’s pseudo-knowledge?
You wrote:
- I never saw the word before
(this is not a level of word knowledge)
Let’s say I had to fill out a form and it asked me for my amount of debt. If I entered ‘None’, it’s not debt, but my level of debt. Zero is a concept, and a valid one. Negation is real. “I have no apples.” This is showing ‘level of knowledge’, to which the value ‘none’, can correctly be ascribed.
The 4 classes are not perfectly detailed. Everybody realises this when they think about it. It is said that to every rule there is an exception. (And then some smart-ass says, is there an exception to that rule too? :D) How many shades of blue are there? How many shades which are somewhere between blue and another colour? Do I not say the word “blue” any more because of the spectral nature of phenomenon? The ‘continuum’ idea is great. I think that it could be applied to existence itself. Everything is along a continuum, a spectrum, or whatever you want to call it. But, it’s over time and space. and that makes it very complex. How is someone going to come up with a classificatory scheme to cover all of that? They aren’t but that 4 point summary is good insofar as one is able to describe nature with limited concepts. I suggest you to make your own.
I think that your attacks on linguistics as a whole are unneeded. If you’ve got a problem with a particular concept, then take issue with it alone, instead of throwing the whole lot into the bin. People here, hang off every word you say without forming their own opinions. Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of venom coming towards the linguistics community from you and those who don’t dare to say a word against what ‘you think’. Your views are welcome, but before you go dismissing entire fields, use your brain a little and stop acting like your views are the best and only views which could possibly be valid.
Imyirtseshem,
Your defense of linguistics has not changed my opinion that much of it is an unnecessary complication of the obvious, contributing little of value. Of course my opinions are “unneeded” as you say, they are just my opinions. You are, of course, free to express contrary views here.
You assume that people here are incapable of forming their own opinions. How did you come to that conclusion?
If you disagree with me, just state your case, but I would go light on admonitions like “your views are welcome but”, “use your brain” or “stop acting like your views are the best”. After all, you are not the moderator here.
I know that you’ll never change your mind on linguistics. You’re sticking to the point that it contributes nothing. If you’d instead say that it contributes nothing to you personally then I’d have no issue (even though you agree with some perspectives of linguists). To say that it’s completely useless is plain wrong and I take issue with that. Stop being a grumpy old man for a minute and try to look outside the box into the world where other people don’t necessarily hate what you hate.
I’ve noticed often around here that people like to parrot the things you say. This is human nature, but I don’t have to like the sheep-like behaviour which I see here and through your youtube channel at times. I think that some of your ideas are great and some aren’t so great. Some people don’t know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Unless you are correct 100% of the time and I’m mistaken…
The admonishments come because I feel you are being unfair. I can’t make you believe or say anything but I think you’re simply being too extreme in your views when it comes to linguistics. I used to think mathematics was useless. Now I’ve come to see how useful it really is, even though I don’t use it directly, myself.
Some people agree with my some of my views. Some agree with your views, and others have entirely different views? None of this makes anyone a parrot nor a grumpy old man.