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A question on the Goldlist Method
Français : A small list of common Louisiana French words different from normative French. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nice to see there are still all the time more and more people discovering the method online and finding out about it. One viewer asked me today:
Hello, in the last few days I’ve spent a few hours watching Your videos about the Goldlist Method. They have answered most of my questions, but one. Which is; as You’ve said, it is not a language course, or language learning method, but a way of learning vocabulary, so to learn a language the student also needs a book about the language. But how to use the course, if I’m using the Goldlist method? I mean, to make sure that the words I’ve learnt, I remember with the long term memory, I should not have contact with them for at least two weeks, but I would have if I were to use the course. Should I actually use the course (the way it’s meant to be used) after I learn all/most of the vocabulary contained in it? That would mean spending quite a few months learning the vocabulary, and not being able to really say anything in the target language. Or should I read enough about the target language’s grammar before? Though, that would mean spending some time learning the grammar, without knowing too much vocabulary to practice it with.
When I choose a language course, I try and find one that has vocabulary given in each lesson (as well as an index at the back, and graded grammatical explanations in each lesson. So I copy over the voicabulary items as single line items, and I copy over the grammatical paradigms as well as the explanations in summarised form as line items, just like noting things out of the book. I don’t need to write out all the dialogues and I don’t then usually need to do the exercises.
The fact that common words will inevitably be met again while I’m working further on the course is not an issue. These are the words which are so common of course you are going to learn them if you learn also the uncommon words, but in fact you shouldn’t panic unduly about seeing the words again, you just shouldn’t revise them again, but press on forward.
Even if you end up writing a word or grammar point more than once because you forgot you met it already, and only discover this on a later distillation, it’s really no big deal. Goldlist is quite a long project even though it’s probably the quickest way to learn in terms of total time spent, and these small inaccuracies will all come out in the wash.
Hope that helps.
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An amusing thought about the Goldlist vs Flashcards
Image via Wikipedia
In various places I have heard people comparing the Goldlist to flash cards and saying that for them, flash cards are preferable.
I am not saying that flash cards are all wrong, certainly you can build yourself a manual SRS with paper flash cards. However, unike the Gold list they do give people the temptation to look at words they really memorised on the first day far too many times and this they create time wasting and drag on the learning process.
Even in the course of making the flash cards, if you make them yourselves, which is a job like setting up your headlist, you are making cards, and using cardboard on words, and 30% of them you memorised the first time you wrote them. So that’s a waste of paper for a start.
But the biggest negative for flash cards was brought home to me by Mike Lin on the comments on this blog on the Goldlist Method page – he says he prefers the compactness of the Goldlist to fumbling with a high pile of flash cards. That’s what got me thinking. I had exactly that problem in University trying to make enough cards to manipulate the vocab I was trying to learn.
Im Goldlist, one piece of paper has 25 words going through various stages of distillation. A single notebook just 2 cm thick can contain a headlist of 5,000 words going through the system. Let’s consider how thick a flashcard system would be that had 5000 words in it – each piece of card is about double the thickness of a page of writing paper in a book, so if a number of words written 25 per page half as thick is 2 cm deep, the pile of flash cards doing the same would be about a metre high! A 15,000 word challenge containing three bronze books and a silver book needs 8cm of shelf space, whereas flash cards would need 3 metres! You wouldn’t fit it in most rooms, you’d have to lay it on its side. Which is just as well, because of it fell over or got blown by the wind the time you’d need just putting it back together again would be another big waste. Along with the money spent on buying all that card.
I understand about the need to replenish the carbon sink, so maybe I shouldn’t be so discouraging to these flash card fans, but really – if you intend to do a big language learning project then just do the maths. Linguists who can count too will almost certainly agree that the goldlist is a far more efficient and manageable manual system than flash cards. If you just want to learn 500, then it’s not such a big deal, but still you’ll get there in less total time applied with the Goldlist method.
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Goldlist Method Discussion on LingQ Forums – How to learn languages
Image via CrunchBase
This is a link to a discussion on the Goldlist Method again by some pretty hardcore polyglots, most of whom seem to like the method, although unsurprisingly there are dissenting voices. After all, the people who have already learned a number of languages successfully will already in the main have their pet methods, and the fact that any people in that category are willing to add the method to their arsenal is a great boon. My main case for it rests however with the people who have written to me getting success for the first time in language learning by applying the method and understanding the underlying truths about language learning – which of course it doesn’t have any kind of monopoly on – which were the reasons they failed before with conventional classroom learning, and not from their own fault.
I don’t think I will join in the discussion on LingQ, one YT friend indicated that the discussion is there, but on previous occasions when this has been discussed and I’ve chimed in it has put the discussion to death a bit. And believe me it is a great pleasure for me to read intelligent, unfettered discussion about the method.
Please go and have a look. You don’t have to be a registered member of LingQ to review the site, although you might want to look around and see if a sub there is for you. I like Steve Kaufman and have no qualms about plugging his place. Most people spend a lot more on Language Learning than they’d need to spend to get a top-level membership on there, and be engaged in studying and teaching languages all day and every day.
Here are a handful of my favorite quotes from the discussion, by various people:
The method was first invented by an English guy living in Poland (I believe his name is David James.) He seems to be a little strange…
Perhaps he is simply living proof that human genius and human madness are very close together!?
Very possibly. Who knows?
Some of this videos are funny, some aren’t.
I have been using the Goldlist method since last December, and it seems indeed that on average I remember 30% of the words in each list. I have only done the first distillation so far, but it seems to work indeed, and it is faster than an SRS protocol.
I didn’t know about Mr James’ contribution to the polyglot book before Sebastian pointed it out in his post yesterday. I spent several hours last night reading most it, and I agree it makes pretty interesting (and unusual) reading.
I liked the way he describes learning Italian in classes at school, while teaching himself Russian at home using Linguaphone and the older version of “Teach Yourself”. The result: he got a top mark in the ‘O Level‘ Russian Exam, and a lower mark in the ‘O Level’ Italian exam – leaving his Italian teacher entirely perplexed! :-0
His recollections of having a little run-in with the KGB while on a student exchange in the old USSR during the 1980s is also quite funny in the telling (although the actual experience of a KGB-third-degree was doubtless anything other than ‘funny’ for a student 19 or 20 years of age!)
Those CANNOT be his own eyebrows
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Pytania i odpowiedzi lingwistyczne w języku polskim.
Jeden z najlepszych narzędzi dla poliglotyzmu dziecka
W dniu dzisiejszym odchylam się od zwyczaju pisania w języku angielskim, ze względu na otrzymanie dwóch pytań od widzów względnie czytelnikow moich klipów i postów. Najpierw na facebooku otrzymałem ten zestaw pytań od Pani Agnieszka F.
Jakiś czas temu w sieci trafiłąm na wywiad z Panem w TVN.
Przesyłam wyrazy uznania i podziwu dla Pańskiego talentu i pracy.
Z dużym zainteresowaniem obejrzałam Pańskie filmy w języku polskim na youtube. Od stycznia z dużą determinacją próbuję według Pana metody uczyć się języka hiszpańskiego. Poza tym, że przepisuję słówka to czas spędzany w komunikacji miejskiej spędzam na słuchaniu audiokursu. Chciałbym Pana prosić o odpowiedź na kilka pytań: 1. Czy jest limit słów, jaki danego dnia mogę przepisać? Jeśli mam czas to danego dnia przepisuję nawet po 300 słów. 25 na stronie krótka przerwa i znów 25 na stronie itd. Czy jest tu jakieś ograniczenie. W wakacje planuję wyjazd do Hiszpanii i zależy mi na czasie.
Oprócz trzymaniu się reżymu regularnych przerw, tak jak Pani robi, jedynym innym limitem jest granica wytrzymałości Pani zainteresowania. Jeżeli zaczyna to być już nudnoscią lub utrapeniem, trzeba to już odstawić na inny czas. Ja też nie przerabiam więcej niż 300 słów/linii dziennie.
2. Wstyd się przyznać, ale jesli chodzi o język angielski mam bardzo słabą i to bierną znajomość, tzn. potrafię coś zrozumieć, ale mam blokadę jeśli chodzi o mówienie. Teraz jeśli będę dalej chciała kontynuować naukę tak jak sobie wszystko zaplanowałam do września powinnam mieć angielski komunikatywny, a przez następny rok akademicki opanować go tak, by móc pozwolić sobie na czytanie książek biznesowych. Czy Pana zdaniem jest to w ogóle możliwe?
Pewnie. Jak by stosować goldlist w takim tempo jak 300 słów dziennie, 5 dni w tygodniu, to w ciągu jednego roku ma się pod pasem 300/3*5*50 czyli 25,000 słów. Tylko 15,000 słów jest potrzebnie, aby z pełnym komfortem podejść do czytania np kurs ACCA.
3.Czy można się uczyć jednocześnie dwóch języków przy użyciu opracowanej przez Pana metody? Jesli tak to czy mogę jednego dnia uczyć się trochę angielskiego, trochę hiszpańskiego czy lepiej jednego dnia angielskeigo drugiego hiszpańskiego? A może jest to w ogóle niemożliwe? Będę Panu bardzo wdzięczna za ewentualne odpowiedzi, a tym samym ogromną pomoc. Jeśli prowadzi Pan jakieś statystyki mogę również poinformować o swoich postępach. Z wyrazami podziwu, Agnieszka F
Można, ale odradzę od robienia dwóch językow naraz tej samej rodziny. Na przykład angielski z niemieckim, duńskim bądz niderlandzkim. Uważam wręcz, że nawet pomaga bardzo kiedy się uczy drugiego języka obcego używając materiały przygotowane dla mówców pierwszego języka obcego. W ten sposób mogła by pani zakupić kurs zaawansowanej angielszczyzny z hiszpańskiej księgarni internetowej, na przykład.
Mam nadzieję ze to pomoże, no i naturalnie zawsze jestem ciekaw usłyszeć o wynikach i postępach ludzi, którzy stosowali moje metody i porady, więc bardzo proszę!
Drugie pytanie jest od markam91 na forumie www.how-to-learn-any-language.com
– Previous Private Message –
[B]Sent by :[/B] markam91
[B]Sent :[/B] 14 January 2011 at 11:12pmWitam,
Czy mógłbym się dowiedzieć w jaki sposób nauczyłeś swoją córkę trzech języków? Jedyne, co przychodzi mi do głowy, to sposób mojego polonisty, który postanowił sobie, że żona będzie odzywała się do nowo narodzonego dziecka wyłącznie po polsku, a wspomniany polonista tylko po angielsku.Pozdrawiam
Jeden rodzic mówi w swoim języku, drugi w swoim języku, a środowisko ma jeszcze trzeci język.
Na przykład, w naszej rodzinie ja z córką mowiłem głownie po angielsku, żona po rosyjsku, a środowisko (czyli szkola, telewizja, przyjaciolki na osiedlu) jest polskojęzyczne. Od tego, że ja mowię do żony głównie po rosyjsku, i tez pracuję, więc często nie ma mnie w domu, trzeba bylo uzupełnić angielskie wpływy poprzez kupienie DVD ulubionych filmów dziecięcych z Anglii bez języka polskiego, i wiecej książek po angielsku, plus wakacji u moich rodziców, którzy tylko mówia po angielsku.
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