Category: GoldList Method

This is a place where I have collected materials about my system for learning languages called the GoldList method. I have started work on a book, which should be a useful addition to this, and in the near future, following on from my appearance speaking about this on “Dzien Dobry TVN” on 1st November 2009, I shall do a Polish film about the Gold List method, to help the large number of people who contacted me about it following the show.

More answers to questions on the Goldlist method

Hangeul placement and the Romanization of Kore...
Hangeul in a Nutsheul.

Loyal viewer Kahnkanter (but unfortunately not yet subscriber, hint hint) in Youtube has had to wait nearly two weeks for the answer to his last questions. Sorry about that but it is that time of year for accountants!
Here goes, and they are excellent questions, as ever:

Hi again 🙂
As you may remember I asked about the goldlist method for learning Korean. I am at a very casual start, about to do D1 for a batch of 200 initial words.

OK, not a very rapid pace, but there’s no rules about that. When you get the taste for it I think you will speed up naturally.

I still have some questions, and I would appreciate your insights on these:

1. What exactly happens in activation – just be in that zone where you need to speak? What about for languages no longer spoken, or when you cannot go to a place for 3 days + to activate? Is it enough just to hear snippets of real-life dialogue day by day? Does it count enough if you skype with someone of that target language for 3 hours a day for a week?

I think that it may differ from person to person, but it will either be having with you a guest with whom you can only speak that language and who wants to be spending time with you at the rate of like 6 hours or more a day. The realisation that you’re needing the language will tell your brain that it needs to bring that set of knowledge to the fore. I’m not the person to say how that works in terms of synapses and electrical pathways and all that brain surgeon stuff, I don’t even make pronouncements on what parts of the brain are involved in language learning as I see it as of little relevance to me – the fact is it’s a phenomenon that many people have observed and you can try it yourself and see it.

The easiest of course is to go there, but if you go to the country and you are accompanied by people who will not let you spend about 6 hours a day with the language, then you may need longer to activate or in extreme cases you might not activate at all.

If as you say you cannot go there, either because the language is dead or because the place is not open politically, then either you need to find a community or if there is none then you have to fall back on reading literature. A good book in the language could do it, if you spent 6 hours a day reading it for a few days. When I was reading War and Peace in Russian I had a dream in which I was looking for Pierre Bezukhov and speaking Russian. The question is, though, is there any actual point at all in being activated in a language which is dead or beyond the pale? You only really need passive knowledge in that case.

2. I have noticed a password only section to your website for the future goldlist book – I would like to know what is required to be involved with reading the draft or pre-order copy of the book? It would be an honour to be involved in any way, and if I may have your email I can attach some files for you to browse, such as charts or graphics that may help with delivering the book’s message.

I’d be delighted to have your collaboration, and I’ll get back to you when the book is that far on. As it is your questions here are already helping.

3. My current approach is (hopefully) still congruent to what you’ve prescribed – interested, not rushed, uses writing, doesn’t force through with this or that technique. I am starting with learning maybe 1000 words in different categories – people, actions, feelings, and then do some more grammar-focussed headlists. I’m doing this as I’m not too sure how to integrate grammar early on and not feel rushed (within the 20 minutes) and to stay interested.

You’re still talking about Korean and I don’t know enough Korean to even know at which point it could become prejudicial to leave grammar out, but as the language is from what I understand not an inflected language, you should be OK learning a thousand words without focussing much on grammar. You need to get the pronunciation right, that seems tougher in Korean than in Japanese. If I were going to learn Korean I would have done the Pimsleur before ever putting pen to paper on the Goldlist. Not that Pimsleur is brilliant, but there’s no Michel Thomas in it as far as I know – and a pity that is.

As an update, I have learnt the sounds of Hangeul and with words in Hangeul on the left side, I put the English and the Chinese (which I’m capable of) on the right column. I only put the chinese in if it’s a direct word loaned from the Chinese language. E.g. Gwa Bu is 寡婦widow. I had wondered if that was too much work in one go, but I guess I’ll see! The moment I read a chinese-loan word in Korean I can make good guesses on what it’s referring to.

Thank you 🙂 I look forward to distilling my first batch of words and hearing from you!

If you know Chinese characters and speak Chinese well, then it will not be too much at once. It sounds like a good plan. However, in due course you might want to know which character goes with which word in Korean hanza even if they are not loanwords. It depends on how far you plan to take Korean.

All the best, and please keep me posted!

Related Articles
Out of the Shadows: Revealing the Truth About Non-Human Intelligent Life
4.3 out of 5 stars(43565)
$22.83 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
The Fires of December: A Cosmere Novel
4.6 out of 5 stars(465291)
$17.71 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)

Reakcje na metode goldlist na forumie Spolecznosci GRMG

Gold List

#1 Mikulew


Postów: 408
Dołączył: 21-luty 09
Płeć:Mężczyzna
LocationTarnów
Napisany 15 luty 2011 – 21:04

Słyszeliście o tej metodzie zwana Gold List? Metoda została stworzony przez David J. James który potrafi mówić w 20 językach! Rozmowa z nim w DzieńDobry w TVN

Najpierw oglądnąłem ten film który podałem powyżej i zachwyciłem się nim niedowierzając, że ktoś jest w stanie komunikatywnie rozmawiać dwudziestoma językami!
Znalazłem go na youtube (ma ponad 1000 filmów na youtube w różnych językach) i znalazłem filmy jak mówi po Polsku – jestem zaskoczony jak on jest w stanie mówić po polsku – jakbym nie wiedział, że jest z Anglii pomyślałbym, że to rodowity Polak! I wtedy znalazłem ten film
Metodologia Gold List #1 – Pochodzenie i Dlaczego To Dziala


Metodologia Gold List #2 – Jak To Dziala w Praktyce
(nie wiem czemu, może tak jest tylko u mnie, jak kliknie się w ten link zaczyna się od 24 minuty więc trzeba przewinąć na sam początek)
Ten post był edytowany przez Mikulew dnia: 15 luty 2011 – 21:08
Życie jest po to żeby żyć, a nie da się żyć bez osiągania. Nie żyje się po to żeby osiągać. Żyje się po to żeby żyć i żyjąc osiągamy.
Continue reading “Reakcje na metode goldlist na forumie Spolecznosci GRMG” →

Threshing Day [Dramatized Adaptation]: The Empyrean
5.0 out of 5 stars(5051)
$14.39 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel
4.2 out of 5 stars(425131565)
$20.48 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)

Word Frequency Issues for Language Learners

Peter and Jane book 1a Play with us
One well-known and practical application of word frequency analysis, but is the word list still current?

I wanted to address some issues with the whole question of using word frequency analysis when learning languages. It is obviously a good idea to use frequency studies if they are available.

They can function both as checklists to ensure that our courses (whether we are users or compilers of courses) contain a complete coverage of the most frequent words. I do think that a course which claims to give 2,000 words lets its users down if a noticeable percentage of say the top 1000 words are still missing, whereas students are expected to learn words for wainscotting, walruses and woodpeckers.

One big problem with frequency dictionary analysis and word count – especially when comparing between languages or methods – is what does it mean? If we are talking about uninflected languages then the number of individual words is shorter. The original poster referred to Italian, and here it is a problem, because every single verb has umpteen forms, so is that one word or is that umpteen words?

If you use a machine to collate the frequency, then “has”, “have” and “had” will all show up as different words. Should it be three or one? In those cases where a noun has 12 separate declined forms in Czech or Polish, is that 12 words or one word? Or is it something in between, with the forms guessable out of usual paradigms being counted as the same, but the irregular parts being considered separate?

And are words like “jack” or “rose” which have so many individual meanings counted as one word or as ten or so words? If a machine does it the count is objective, but again not true to the substance of the matter. If a human intervenes, then subjectivity enters the frame and the way one person collates it may have very different outputs to the way another person would do it.

That’s why I take statements like “80% of the words used are in 10,000 words” with a pinch of salt. Assuming the same rules for collation of word variation under headwords apply through the list, it is probably proper to parrot Pareto and say that 20% of the vocabulary gives 80% of the effect, but that is comparing relative numbers to relative numbers, which is probably wiser, and more likely to hold good when comparing different languages together, than comparing absolute numbers to relative numbers

And then another problem is the way word frequency changes over time. Even more subtle markers of how languages change over time than the incursion of new words (which obviously don’t show up at all in the old frequency lists) is the change not even so much in meaning but in fashionability of words which are there in the language the whole time. Some of these are glaringly obvious – nobody uses “comrade” in Russia as much as it was used 30 years ago. But in fact it applies to a greater or lesser degree to every word we use.

Frequency studies, then, ironically, need to be carried out far more frequently! I answered a question the other day on frequency lists for what used to be Serbo-Croat. Quite a lot of change has entered that language, especially as emerging ex-Yugoslav states have sought to distinguish their language from other similarly speaking states, including new letters in their languages and emphasising either regional words or regional pronunciations. There is of course a degree of artificiality about all that, but it cannot fail to influence the language really spoken by people.

However, from my research the last available frequency studies for Serbo-Croat were from the 1960s. They are not available online for free you have to pay to get them, which I did not do. I can only therefore imagine how erroneous they must be by now. The half life of usefulness of such a study is probably ten years, and these were done 50 years ago, in a different country constellation, a different political regime, with a different world going on around it with different things to do than now and different ways to live. High time for new frequency studies to be made in that language, but also in many other languages. I just wonder how old by now the frequency studies are which Ladybird books admirably used to create the Key Words Reading Scheme so known and loved by children in the English speaking world? Can anybody tell me that?

Related Articles
Threshing Day (Wing and Claw Collection)
4.7 out of 5 stars(47545395)
$14.39 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel
4.2 out of 5 stars(425131565)
$20.48 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)

Answers to Krzysztof on layout of Goldlist books.

Snail shell
As it goes around the cycle, it gets less and less. The outer cycle is like bronze, the middle like silver, the inner like gold.

One Polish viewer, Krzysztof, asked me the following questions about the Goldlist over in Youtube, and agreed that I could answer in English and over here so that more readers can benefit. I haven’t translated the questions, as the questions will be obvious from the answers.

Witam.

Chciałbym zadać kilka pytań o Gold List, otóż mam taki który ma 40 lini jednak gdy piszę 25 słów pod sobą to jest to mało czytelne, czy nie mogło to by być 20 słów ?

If you have large handwriting, and go over the lines, you may need to look for another book with larger lines, but these ones frequently don’t make up 40 lines per page. In such cases instead of having 25 lines in the headlist, you might need to reduce it to 20. 100 is easily divided by 20, so dividing the headlist up into 20s instead of 25s is a very valid alternative method.

Even for people who can easily fit in 25 in the headlist, limiting to 20 allows the goldlist book to take an alternative form which may appeal to some people: 20 for Headlist in the top left, then D1 (1st distillation) on the top right has maybe 14 words of the 20, in the middle right you have D2 with let’s say 10 words, and D3 on the bottom right with say 7 words. You would then be coming back up the left hand side with D4 on the bottom left on about 5, and have D5 on the left in the middle with maybe 3, and just take maybe 2 forward to the next book, if by that stage you even wanted a second book. I’d see it as a perfectly viable alternative.

Czy dobrze zrozumiałem, iż nie mam się tego uczyć, czy może warto to przeczytać kilka razy po napisaniu ?
Ciężko mi uwierzyć, że po przepisaniu 25 słów w języku niemieckim zapamiętam je.

You won’t have learned them all, only about 30% will have stuck. But you won’t know which really have stuck unless you leave it lie for two weeks at least at each stage. If you want to read your page out loud once, after writing it, that’s not likely to be a problem, but for pleasure. Repetition is what starts to feel like forced learning – you switch on your conscious memorizing and the unconscious one turns off – they don’t both work at once, you see. And the unconscious memory is the one that samples effortlessly a certain percentage of all you see when you are not actively trying to memorize, direct to the long-term memory.

Jednak to pan się zna, więc proszę o radę.
Te słowa mam pisać pod sobą, czy w jednej linijce można napisać

I would write them one at a time in the headlist. Condensing gradually into phrases or fictional book titles is fine in later distillations, and helps the memory process.

Po co są następne zeszyty brązowe, czy tam trzeba robić kolejne słowa z danego języka czy kolejne destylacje ?
Jednak pan mówił, że na kolejne destylacje jest zeszyt srebrny.

The second bronze book keeps going with the headlist and distillations 1-3 when you have run out of space in the first one. The silver book can be a lot thinner and contains distillations 4-7.

Related Articles
Threshing Day (Wing and Claw Collection)
4.7 out of 5 stars(47545395)
$14.39 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
This Inevitable Ruin: Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 7
4.8 out of 5 stars(48553299)
$27.98 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)

Top 30 Languages to learn for 2050

Map showing countries and autonomous subdivisi...
The Turkic linguation - to a greater or lesser extent mutually intelligible languages. However often not the preferred business languages of their regions, hence only 12th place in this economic utility-based prediction.

Here are my 2050 predictions, originally shared on http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com :

1. Chinese (all types)
2. English (all types)
3. Arabic (all dialects)
4. Russian
5. Spanish (all types)
6. Japanese
7. German
8. French
9/10.Portuguese and Korean(if there is Korean unification, Korean takes the higher slot)
11. Italian
12. Turkish and mutually intellible forms of Turkic Continue reading “Top 30 Languages to learn for 2050” →

Fourth Wing: Empyrean, Book 1
4.8 out of 5 stars(485540219)
$27.69 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
East of Eden
4.7 out of 5 stars(4757212)
$28.35 (as of 17/10/2026 01:26 GMT +02:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)