I just came across this article from 2002 which addresses the use of multimedia in language acquisition in particular the use of pictures. They found that a combination of pics and text annotation improves retention more so than if text annotation/explanation is used alone.
It would then suggest that when learning new vocabulary it is helpful intially to include graphics with a text explaining new items/items of interest. They also mention just using bilingual dictionaries (ie google translator) is not as helpful as having proper annotation that highlights the vocabulary item and explains it.
I have been experimenting myself on the use of including graphics in my mnemosyne flash cards and it was my impression it improved my retention. And also I found that I remember the words better where I was able to put down the explanation given by the teacher or given by the text as annotation. I am finding that if I read a text, I try to look up new vocabulary in a dictionary but cross-checking it with other texts, just to make sure I got the meaning right.
This also seem to be confirmed by the study here
To me the question is not whether these memory assists work. I assume that they do. The question is where to spend the limited time available for language learning. I have over 40,000 known words and 35,000 saved LingQs in Czech since I started about a year ago. While we can dispute what these statistics mean, the fact is that when I read on familiar subjects, like the news, history, business etc. I know most of the words. On the other hand when I pick up a novel there are lots of words I don’t know. I am more motivated to read and listen to new content and acquire the words that I don’t yet know through the process of reading and listening and reviewing, rather than devising mnemonics, attaching graphics or other tasks that would distract me from reading and listening and which I find inherently less interesting.
It helps students to retain vocabulary in their short term memory but I am not too sure about its effectiveness on their long term memory. This has been my experience so far. For me, just reviewing words with example sentences (lots of it) without images and sounds is the way to go. Creating items with images and such(if you are using a spaced repetition software) is time consuming and you are expending more time on creating items than actually reviewing them. So, if you have plenty of time on your hands, why not, give it a try.
As long as it’s a question of words like apple, car, house, amusement park, librarian, doctor etc. you’re likely to find pictures somewhat helpful, but as soon as we’re talking of abstract words like mood, configuration, principle, journey, moral, liberalism etc. it’s not as easy. (Maybe that’s one reason why a method like Rosetta Stone may work for basic skill levels, but not at advanced levels?)
I think the time and effort of adding pictures to words would never pay back for individual users.
The study concluded:
“However, the results show that, over time, the Combination group (the dually coded) did not retain vocabulary better than the Picture-only group (singly, visually coded) or than Text-only group (singly, verbally coded). The retention rate of vocabulary among the three groups did not significantly differ.”
i.e. there was no long-term benefit
A bit off topic, but are images added to LingQs shared to other users?
@keke_eo - The images aren’t currently shared among users, no. Only the user hints will be shared, everything else (custom phrases, images, audio, notes) are just for that individual.
Quote:
I think the time and effort of adding pictures to words would never pay back for individual users.
Why not? in the old days people spent an inordinate amount of time looking up words in the dictionary. Moreover they wrote the flash cards by hand. Some research has indicated the longer you stay with an item continuously, the more chance of it ending up in the long-term memory. I remember reading that it had to be above 7 seconds. Whilst you are lookiing for the image and putting it in the system you are solely focused on that word. That I personally believe may be of some benefit rather than flicking through flashcards at a rate of knots.
I have worked with images in the past for my flashcards for Chinese characters above the 3000 most common characters and I feel I benefitted from that. But characters are images of course.
I certainly agree time spent with a word has value, and the act of looking up (more than just picking the best of a few suggestions) cements the word somehow. I use mnemonics only after a frequent important word isn’t sticking in my memory after repeated exposure (AKA a leech). Words in LingQ’s Top 25 list are typically these.
The process of picking an image, saving, uploading etc would be just too long to retain my interest in the reading of the underlying material.
I am with keke on this one. I am most motivated to use the language to read and listen and learn. It is the interest in the content that drives me. I did this even with Chinese where I did a lot of home mad spaced repetition for the first 1000 characters and thereafter just relied on massive input to learn the rest. I can read novels, newspaper and magazine articles etc., especially in fields that I am familiar with, or authors that I like to read.
I have no idea how much time we should spend on each new word, as opposed to plowing ahead to meet the word again in different contexts.
I do enjoy looking at examples in LingQ. I do some vocabulary review, but it is all quite sporadic. Mostly I am guided by what I feel like doing.
@Jeff: “…As long as it’s a question of words like apple, car, house, amusement park, librarian, doctor etc. you’re likely to find pictures somewhat helpful, but as soon as we’re talking of abstract words like mood, configuration, principle, journey, moral, liberalism etc. it’s not as easy. (Maybe that’s one reason why a method like Rosetta Stone may work for basic skill levels, but not at advanced levels?)”
I think this is a very good point. However, as a complete beginner in a new language one is surely most likely to start out by learning words like “car”, “house” and “journey”…?
As a rule, things like “configuration”, “principle” or “liberalism” are going to come to us later on, after we have the put together the linguistic tools needed to begin reading and/or listening to authentic and interesting target language content - thereby understanding more advanced ideas from the context in which they occur. (Actually, I would almost prefer the German word “Zusammenhang” here rather than “context”, because it seems to express very neatly the inherently interconnected nature of many ideas and concepts.)
I think it is true that many more advanced words do, as it were, “hang together” with whole sentences (or even with whole passages) of text, and that it is only in this wider sense that we can fully grasp them. But in order to do this, we must firstly build a solid base of simpler high frequency words.
Obviously I can see that it is a somewhat different matter for folks who (like Steve with his Czech) already have a solid base in another closely related language.
I disagree that this is a matter of related languages. I essentially used this approach for Chinese.
I also find that some of the simpler words, colours, numbers, and many others are more difficult to remember than the words for abstract concepts which sometimes have a more unique flavour to them which makes them easier to remember.
@Steve: “…I disagree that this is a matter of related languages. I essentially used this approach for Chinese.”
I’m not sure that I follow you here, Steve. Are you saying that you could talk or think about “liberalism” and “morality” in Chinese before you knew words like “man”, “woman” and “person”?
@Steve: “…I also find that some of the simpler words, colours, numbers, and many others are more difficult to remember than the words for abstract concepts which sometimes have a more unique flavour to them which makes them easier to remember.”
Actually, yes, I can see your point here. I can remember learning the words like “Unbesiegbarkeit” and “Uneinnehmbarkeit” from a dictionary fairly early on when I was learning German (even though I have probably never seen them or heard them used since!)
However I still think I was spending at least 95% of my time learning high-frequency words at the beginning.
But that’s just me of course - maybe I am unusual or something?
Since the most common words account for at least 70% of all texts, and over 90% of easy material, it is quite normal, in the course of pursuing an input based approach, mostly reading and listening, that we will focus on high-frequency words. It does not require any special effort or deliberate learning strategies.
“I’m not sure that I follow you here, Steve. Are you saying that you could talk or think about “liberalism” and “morality” in Chinese before you knew words like “man”, “woman” and “person”?”
It takes time to reply to serious comments on the forum. I am not so interested in playing the straw man game.
@Nico:
Agreed, concrete nouns as “car” and “house” are indeed beginner’s words, possible to find suitable pictures for etc. but as Steve says, this kind of words will show up numerous times anyway. If you want to add pictures for various vehicles, buildings, tools, toys, fruits etc. feel free to do so. I won’t.
@Steve: “…It takes time to reply to serious comments on the forum. I am not so interested in playing the straw man game.”
Steve, I was not playing “the straw man game” (whatever that is.) Rather I was asking a perfectly fair question within the context of Jeff’s earlier comment and my earlier reply. I really don’t understand why rudeness is called for here.
As far as I am concerned readers should judge for themselves whether all comments (including yours) are “serious” or not.
However, I also fully respect the fact that this is your website and your forum. If you would prefer that I stop posting here please just let me know. (It is absolutely not a problem for me to delete my account if you would like me to do so.)
JayB - You contribute with many good and intelligent arguments on the forum and often a different perspective. I value your comments. Thank you for investing your time and hopefully continue sharing your opinions. Maybe you are being a bit sensitive on this. Steve’s tone can sometimes be a bit brash. What you see is what you get with Steve. That is Steve’s style
"Strange, Marianne. When I’m brash, you spend a lot of time telling me how terrible I am…
I think you all need to take a chill pill. Be happy we don’t all agree on everything. I’m glad that’s the case, because nobody would ever agree with me, so I’d then be required to align myself with some of your wacky opinions. Nope. I don’t think I could handle that.
But for some real input on the topic at hand: I don’t need pictures to learn concrete words. I just picture them in my head. I do this with nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Also, I can usually do the same with many abstract words, especially emotions by mentally recreating those emotions. Hope that makes sense"
