Tips for vocabulary study (12 Viewers)

[Martin]

Some of you have mentioned reviewing the vocabulary in the lessons. I'm here to tell you that the way you learned to study vocabulary in school might not have been the state of the art (shocking, I know).

To make a long story short there is a method that you can use to learn all kinds of facts, including vocabulary. It is based on a theory about human memory. You tend to remember some facts more easily than others, right? Therefore, why should you review all of the vocabulary equally often?

The method is called Spaced repetition and the way it works is that you use software to review vocabulary. The software knows, based on your responses, how well you remember certain vocabulary and can decide when to ask you about a certain vocabulary item based on how well you are able to remember it.

There are a number of software programs for this, the most popular is called Anki. Watch and that should explain it very well.

I used Anki myself to learn Italian and it helped me learn a lot of the basic words much quicker than I would have without it.

Also, for you smartphone lovers, you can install Anki on your smartphone and use it to review vocabulary when you have a 5 minute wait for the bus or whatever.


If you decide to use Anki it's recommended that you create your own decks, because then you'll add words that you actually care about knowing, not just some list someone else made. Here's a screenshot of my decks that I was using last year:

 

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[Bozi]

i love decks

 

[Marc]

 

[Quetzalcoatl]

This Anki thing looks useful. I'll try it.

 

[swag]

Of course, I have an all-important vocabulary list that's yet to make it in Anki format.

 

[Quetzalcoatl]

Watching movies in Italian with English subtitles, do you think that's helpful in learning Italian?

 

[Kate]

I do! You have to make sure to listen, though, and not get too comfortable just reading the subtitles.

 

[Martin]

Watching movies in Italian with English subtitles, do you think that's helpful in learning Italian?

Watching stuff in Italian is always helpful, but depending on where you are in the learning process you can expect different things. Some people advocate flooding yourself right from day one, even when you understand nothing. They say it makes you absorb the rhythm of the language and so on.

I generally don't use subtitles, I start my heavy watching once I understand enough that I can follow the story. That means largely learning to recognize in speech what you're used to seeing in text. But it's also very key to learning colloquial language. If you are in this situation that you seem to understand a lot, but you don't really know what one would say in situation X then tv/movies is the key imo.

 

[Quetzalcoatl]

I do! You have to make sure to listen, though, and not get too comfortable just reading the subtitles.

Any recommendations?

Btw, I'll get to your exercises a little later

Watching stuff in Italian is always helpful, but depending on where you are in the learning process you can expect different things. Some people advocate flooding yourself right from day one, even when you understand nothing. They say it makes you absorb the rhythm of the language and so on.

I generally don't use subtitles, I start my heavy watching once I understand enough that I can follow the story. That means largely learning to recognize in speech what you're used to seeing in text. But it's also very key to learning colloquial language. If you are in this situation that you seem to understand a lot, but you don't really know what one would say in situation X then tv/movies is the key imo.

I watched a movie in Spanish with subtitles the other day and found it was bringing back some of the things I learned in school, so I was thinking maybe it'd help with Italian too.

 

[mukumsplau]

che cazzo is a big part of my vocab now lol..nice that ppl here dont know wat it means..i hope..

 

[Kate]

Any recommendations?

What sort of thing do you normally like?

 

[Inglip]

Watching Juve matches on Sky Italy has helped me a lot

 

[blondu]

playing fifa with italian commentary helps too

 

[The Curr]

che cazzo is a big part of my vocab now lol..nice that ppl here dont know wat it means..i hope..

What the fuck does that mean?

 

[Quetzalcoatl]

What sort of thing do you normally like?

Thriller, sci-fi... anything, just not romance or drama

 

[Elvin]

@Martin, I've seen 'fino alle fine' spelled millions different ways...

is it alle, alla, or allo?

The root of the word is fin or fine or fino? Plural would be...?

Literal translation is the end of ends, correct?

 

[Trequartista]

Fino alla fine is the correct one.

It means until the end.

 

[swag]

I know it as the singular fino alla fine.

 

[Elvin]

So, the end of end? Literally?

 

[Martin]

@Martin, I've seen 'fino alle fine' spelled millions different ways...

is it alle, alla, or allo?

The root of the word is fin or fine or fino? Plural would be...?

Literal translation is the end of ends, correct?

Like Treq said, fino alla fine. (fino a + la fine)

"fino a" means "until" but "fin da" means "since" so it's a bit confusing.
Btw you also have the alternatives "sino a" and "sin da", same meaning.

So, the end of end? Literally?

No, because "fino" doesn't mean "end". Only "fine" does.