How to recite English words?

To learn words efficiently, we must first realize the importance of "context" and "circulation".

Context: Words never exist alone, and their context is very critical. When learning a word, don't separate it and memorize it mechanically.

Context refers to the scene where a word is located, which can be a word, a sentence, an article and a deeper cultural background. For example, British English and American English differ in spelling, usage and pronunciation. For example, the word color is color in American English and spelled "color" in British English. British people often say "great" and "cheers", while Americans often say "cool" and "goodbye". Different expressions and usages reflect the context behind them. In different sentences, the meaning of words will also change. For example, "blue" only refers to blue, and "he looks blue" can also indicate depression.

When we talk about learning words, we should always contact the context behind the words, learn the words in the context and record their specific usage in different contexts. Only in this way can we learn and use it. At the same time, learning is not only about remembering its spelling, but also interesting. We should understand it from listening, speaking, reading and writing (the following "notes" will give examples).

Listen: We should know this word from its pronunciation and be familiar with its pronunciation.

We should know the words in expression and be able to pronounce them and express them correctly.

Reading: You should know the words in the article and understand their functions in the context.

Write: We should know this word in writing and be familiar with its spelling.

While having situational thinking, we need to establish periodic thinking.

Word learning is a step-by-step process, which also corresponds to different language abilities. To learn efficiently, you should know your overall language learning cycle and learn rhythmically, instead of blindly pursuing vocabulary. Memorizing complex vocabulary at first is often counterproductive, which is not in harmony with the overall language ability, but discourages your confidence. I mentioned in the first article of "The Tao and Techniques of English" that English learning has cycles, which are divided into lead-in period, growth period, maturity period and decline period, and different stages have corresponding characteristics and vocabulary.

Feng Xiao, a senior student: How can I change from a person with poor English to a person with good English?

When learning words, we should choose words according to the progress and situation of the whole English learning cycle. Suppose, by contrast, you find yourself a comprehensive English user in the B 1 stage, but you find that your vocabulary in the work scene is still very lacking, so you can focus on improving the vocabulary of work topics and their special expressions in this scene according to this situation.

Practice: I talked about "context" and "circular" thinking. Let's talk about practice first.

1. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat! It is the key to learning words efficiently.

This paper mainly introduces a method called

"Interval repetition", my understanding is repetition with distance.

According to Allen's book Human Memory: Theory and Practice (1997):

Interval repetition is a learning skill, which increases the time interval between subsequent reviews of previously learned materials for use.

Psychological interval effect. Optional names include interval preview, extended preview, hierarchical interval, repeated interval, repeated scheduling, interval retrieval and extended retrieval.

In practice, I will review the materials in the vocabulary regularly, repeat them at intervals, and turn them over if I forget them. Here we should distinguish it from Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, which is familiar to everyone and often used. Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve is mainly based on people's memory of new things with meaningless and irregular contents, arguing that the memory interval is just over, after 20 minutes, 1 hour, after 8-9 hours, 1 day, after 2 days, and so on.

Language is actually regular and meaningful content. In my opinion, everyone's forgetting interval varies from person to person, as long as you review regularly according to your own situation and make sure you remember it, there is no need to strictly follow the time interval of Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

2. thesaurus! Lexicon! Lexicon! The base camp of word learning

In order to review regularly, the role of thesaurus is very important. From the beginning of learning a language, the learning of words will not stop, no matter what level you finally reach. Thesaurus is a foundation for vocabulary upgrading, iteration and continuous accumulation. Let me talk about how to build a thesaurus.

It is recommended to build a font on Microsoft Onenote to support cloud storage and mobile phone opening for free. As shown in the figure below, we can build a notebook with Ononote and name it thesaurus. At the same time, the types of thesaurus can be set on different sub-pages, such as new words, error-prone words, classic expressions, IELTS core words, TOEFL core words, oral expressions, roots and so on. Sort out the words and review them regularly.

Try to cultivate the awareness of storing words anytime and anywhere in your study and life. For example, when watching American TV series, you feel that your expression is authentic. You can immediately take out your mobile phone and open Onenote to record it with "classic expression".

With the font, my mother no longer has to worry that I have to recite words from the beginning every time.

So how do you remember words? I focus on two ways: intensive reading and extensive reading.

3. remember! Remember! Remember! The depth of vocabulary

Because we have limited time and energy to learn a language, it is impossible to learn every word comprehensively. Therefore, it is particularly important to learn words differently and strategically.

In real expression scenes, the complexity of vocabulary and sentence patterns is not so important, but the key is flexible use. For example, when you listen to President Trump's speech, do you think that "I met a fake president and spoke fake English" and you can fully understand it with the words "great man, I like him and make America great again". He used simple language to the extreme. According to incomplete statistics, Trump's speech was more than a thousand sentences long, but only 480 words were used! The United States has a Flesch-Kincaid test that defines the difficulty of an article. After testing, Trump's language is probably in the fourth grade of primary school.

(Image taken from the network, deleted)

Philosophically speaking, "the road to simplicity" is actually the same in daily communication. Generally, you don't need a long speech, you should be elegant. Of course, academic and commercial occasions require more exquisite language. In our daily communication, influenced by the exam-oriented education in the past, we often want to find the most beautiful words and sentence patterns (college entrance examination composition is the accumulation of good words and sentences) and the most perfect and pure pronunciation, but forget that its real function is to express the feelings at that moment fastest and most efficiently. In fact, many spoken languages do not conform to strict grammar, but are born for expression and become idioms.

For the core commonly used vocabulary, we should not only know, but also master its core usage. Comprehensive understanding from listening, speaking, reading and writing. There are countless words in the core vocabulary of different English levels. Here, due to the limitation of space, I will focus on how to study. We should learn the pronunciation, spelling, common phrases, synonyms and antonyms of core words, and master some example sentences. For example, the following word "lapse" in my notes:

When we record the core usage of core words in vocabulary, we should try our best to apply them to the later oral expression and writing. For example, "Time has changed" is very common, and it is also the name of a song. In this way, the application ability brought by memorizing a word in depth and breadth is immediate. As the name implies, you don't need too many words to recite, what you need is depth and understanding.

4. Pan Ji! Pan Ji! Pan Ji! The breadth of vocabulary

Of course, we can't do it, and there is no need to memorize every word. For non-core words and uncommon words, we can adopt the strategy of general memory, so as to cover all aspects without requiring very detailed solutions. When you meet in reading, try to avoid looking up words directly, but infer from the context. We only need to know the words by memorizing them, without going deep or even knowing the correct pronunciation, such as many GRE words, medical terms, proper nouns and so on. If you encounter it repeatedly, you can switch to the enhanced memory mode to learn more.

5. root! Root! Root! The magic weapon of pan-memory

Finally, talk about the root cause. Many learning strategies also mention the use of root affixes. The radical is a part of a word, and its function is similar to the radical of Chinese characters. Many words can infer their meanings from their roots. There are more than 200 commonly used words, and I will put them in the root library of the thesaurus.

There are many reference books on etymology, so I won't expand them here. I don't recite the roots, just as we don't recite all the radicals when we learn Chinese. In the root library of thesaurus, I will consciously record the words that I couldn't guess at that time in the universal library and analyze their root composition. Gradually form a guessing ability, which can quickly combine context and roots when remembering.

The combination of intensive reading and extensive reading can balance the breadth and depth of vocabulary.

Dictionary recommendation:

Finally, talk about the usage of dictionaries.

Here are three recommended ones that I use more: Eurodictionary Cambridge Dictionary; Word reference; These three dictionaries have their own advantages and disadvantages. Let me interpret them one by one.

Take the word entrepreneur as an example.

The first is Eurodictionary, which is mainly convenient to use on mobile phones. Both Android and Apple can be downloaded.

Contains the level of words, spelling, phonetic symbols, English pronunciation, American pronunciation, adjectives, nouns, synonyms, idioms and common example sentences. As shown in the figure below, the advantage is that it is very convenient to use and has all the contents needed for basic memory. The disadvantage is the lack of English explanation of words.

When we need to know more about words, we need a Cambridge dictionary. The advantage of Cambridge Dictionary is that it is more comprehensive, including English definitions, usage of different scenes and more vivid usage. The disadvantage is that there is no mobile APP, which is not so convenient. Mainly used on the PC side, do not climb over the wall.

The website is dictionary.cambridge.org.

The content of words will be much richer, and more importantly, they will give meanings in different contexts, including British, American and business usage.

British:

Americans:

Synonym:

Example:

Finally, talk about word reference and multilingual dictionary. Advantages, as the name implies, can realize mutual query between languages. Ying Ying, English, English, Japanese, Chinese and English are a dictionary with more functions. The disadvantage is that there is no APP, which is suitable for PC. Especially suitable for multilingual language learners.

Let's also search for entrepreneurs:

Search supports interpretation in Spanish, French and other languages, and also supports one-click access to Collins dictionary.

The three dictionaries have their own advantages and disadvantages, so you can use them in combination according to the situation.

Usually use Eurodictionary, learn how to use Cambridge dictionary, and learn to use WordReference in multiple languages.

Conclusion:

Word learning is not a day's work, but persistence and accumulation, accompanied by the whole process of language learning. It is necessary to establish a sense of "context" and "circulation", build a systematic thesaurus, review it irregularly, and adopt intensive reading and extensive reading to expand the depth and breadth of vocabulary. There is no "most scientific" learning method for word learning, and everyone can find their own suitable method. The following is a summary of my struggle with English, Japanese and western words, hoping to help my brothers and sisters who suffer from words.

For more language learning considerations, please see? Senior WeChat official account Feng Xiao, ID: Paula Tsui 600.

PS: Many schoolmates privately believe my questions and set up an English learning exchange group. There are written briefings and reading briefings every day in the group, and dry goods carefully arranged by seniors every Sunday, and regular exchanges and questions are organized. If you need a small partner, please reply "Join the Group" on my WeChat account.