Vocabulary learning 2

Vocabulary learning

 

This is my second blog post about vocabulary learning. In my first post on this topic, I have already explained in detail how to, in my opinion, learn new vocabulary best. I thought that my vocabulary learning strategies actually already include everything you can possibly do to remember new words and phrases, but I was wrong.

Because I was interested in how the strategies of my colleagues look like (and because I had to, of course), I looked at the other blog posts on this topic.  By reading these partly incredibly clever ideas, I realized that I can do much more to memorize new words permanently.

I was really amazed at how much time my colleagues invest in learning vocabulary and at the systems, which lie beyond that. Besides the usual strategies such as constant repetition, example sentences, synonyms and antonyms and so on, I have read about a lot more extensive and innovative methods.

One colleague, for example, uses various vocab-learning apps for her mobile phone. An idea I would have never come up with and very handy when traveling or just on the road.

Another colleague works with digital flashcards. These can be made much faster than physical ones, and you can change them at will. Also a great idea that would never have occurred to me.

These are only two examples of the many great things I have read in the blog posts of other students. I'm really glad that we have posted our strategies on our blogs. Surely all of us have learned something new from reading the posts of the others and were able to improve their personal strategies.

 

Strategies to improve pronunciation

Strategies to improve pronunciation

I must admit that I didn’t think about my pronunciation that much before we started talking about this topic in Frank’s class. Therefore, I am really glad that I was made aware to work on this aspect of language learning. I was previously unaware of the many special sounds the English language actually has and that I really have to work on them in order to pronounce them perfectly.  

The most difficult part of pronunciation for German speakers is for sure to get rid of the German accent. In order to identify your own accent, it is unavoidable to record yourself when you are talking English and to listen to that recording afterwards. For most people it is terrible to listen to a recording of their own voice, but to do this and then compare your pronunciation to a native speaker is the best way to realize your own mistakes.

Self-analysis by recording my own voice was also the first step I did in order to improve my pronunciation.  I have recently started to make recordings at home while I am reading English texts. I will save these recordings somewhere to compare them to new ones next year. I am curious if there will be big differences.

So far, recording was the only thing I deliberately did to work on my pronunciation skills – except of watching TV in English and the exercises with Frank, of course. I have, however, already thought about how I'm going to consciously practice my pronunciation in the future. The plan looks like this:

Step 1: watch even more TV in English - but news and documentaries instead of series and movies in order not to hear only colloquial English

Step 2: get a tandem partner - to have someone with whom you can speak English in everyday situations is helpful and fun

Step 3: try to do an internship in an English-speaking country - to be in the country and to be constantly surrounded by the language you want to learn is simply still the best way

Step 4: practise difficult sounds I always get wrong like the difference between v and w

Step 5: do pronunciation exercises in books like “English Pronunciation in Use”

I am sure that if I really stick to my plan my pronunciation will improve incredibly. 

Pronunciation

Pronunciation

In school and in the first year here at the university, we have worked diligently to perfect our writing skills in English. This means that classes and exams were mainly composed of grammar exercises and text production. Of course, this is essential when learning a language, however, another important point to really master a language has been largely neglected: pronunciation.

These days, at least here in Austria, people are constantly faced with English words. Therefore, most have a general idea of how to pronounce these common English words. Here at the university, however, we often have to deal with words whose pronunciation is a bit more challenging. Add to that the fact that we not only want to know how to pronounce certain words, but also want to sound like native speakers. To do that, I am very glad that we are know dealing with pronunciation in Frank’s class.

Frank tries to expel us our German accent by telepromting sounds and words, showing us helpful links and making us aware of difficulties of native German speakers, which we probably wouldn’t even notice. A very useful exercise we did in this respect was the Pronunciation Diagnostic Exercise. For this exercise, we had to record ourselves individually  while reading an unknown text, an unknown dialogue and describing a picture. We did that to get an idea of what our English really sounds like when listening to our own recordings afterwards. I think that was a very important exercise to become aware of our own mistakes.

If you want to perfect your pronunciation further and do not want to be recognized as a non-native speaker, you should opt for a particular accent of English. There are so many different variations of English, which you shouldn’t mix as a perfectionist in any way. The most common types of English are of course the British and American English. But if you only  think of how many countries have English as their official language, it is obvious that there are many other interesting accents you should get to know.

Personally, I think that I will rather work as a translater than a interpreter in the future, so perfect writing skills are the most important thing for me. Nevertheless, I also want to have a good pronunciation. In my next blog post about pronunciation, I will explain exactly how I try to improve my skills in this regard and give some tips. 

Credit Crisis Summary

Credit Crisis Summary

For our English class with Henry, we had to write a Summary about the English credit crisis based on a video. The video was called The Credit Crisis Visualised and explained the credit crisis in a very simple manner.

With the construction of the summary I really had no difficulties since the video was easy to understand and we even got a piece of paper with questions which concerned the main points of the content of the video.

We even discussed the answers of the questions with Henry in class, so it posed no difficulty writing the summary. Without having these questions, however, I don’t know if I would have identified the key points.

One problem I faced was that the speaker in the video spoke in a low register. Because of this, I wrote my summary in a low register too, which was a mistake.  

In the office hour we had with Henry afterwards, he explained to me that I should use less spoken English when I am writing. To do that, I will read more newspapers like The Economist and The New Yorker in the future. I think that was a very good tip to make my texts more sophisticated.

vocabulary learning strategies

Vocabulary learning strategies

To expand my vocabulary, I have developed several methods and techniques over the past year. These methods include the extensive use of glossaries and many more sophisticated strategies because as advanced learner of English, simple bilingual vocabulary lists are just not sufficient.

A very important part of my vocabulary learning plan is reading newspaper articles. Whenever I use social media sites like facebook, articles from the New York Times and other newspapers appear and by reading them, I improve my vocabulary and general knowledge. When I come across new and interesting words and phrases in these articles, I always add them to my vocabulary list.

My expanding list of words is stored in the cloud and includes all the words and phrases that we have had to learn for the PC’s so far, plus my private collection. Whenever I have to study for an English exam again I revise the entire glossary. I believe that this is a very important step to keep the words in mind.

In addition to constantly reviewing new words, it is essential to look at them in some meaningful context like example sentences. To really understand a word and the many different ways it can be used, my glossary contains example sentences for every possible usage.

In order to find good example sentences, monolingual online dictionaries like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary or Collins COBUILD are the perfect source. With the help of these dictionaries, you can find example sentences of all types as well as a clear explanation of the word you searched for.

To really etch a word on my hard disk, however, I like to have the German translation as well. To get the words and phrases into my active vocabulary, I just need a link to a German word so that I can associate it with something.

In addition to example sentences and the German translation, another factor is crucial to push words into your active vocabulary: Listen to it to know how to pronounce it. This step can be easily done with the help of most learner’s dictionaries or sites like howjsay.com.

In order to practise these words and phrases even more, the exercises in our Porter book, for example, are of course very helpful. By actually using the words in such exercises, they stick in your mind and maybe settle down there and stay for a while.

The Porter book contains academic vocabulary, which is necessary in a university setting. To be able to use these often difficult academic words correctly, it is a good idea to use corpora like the British National Corpus (BNC). There you can search for a particular word and see how it is usually used and in what contexts.

Trough the interaction of all these factors, my vocabulary has expanded exponentially since I started this adventure and if I continue to develop even more strategies, there is no end in sight.

How to become wealthy

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