Learning words of other languages

[Zaterlord]

Hi, i'm learning spanish in school and when learning a new language you need to learn a lot of new words. So sometimes we get a list of words we should learn.
And I wonder what is the best way to learn the words (right now I just read the words until I know them)

 

[Ickathu]

Maybe make flashcards for some of the hard ones, but a lot of languages sound similar to words in languages you already know. For example, in Spanish you have Gato, in English you have Cat. They both sound really similar, except the spanish has an O on the end.
What languages do you already speak, what language are you learning, and what are the words you need to learn? I can post here how I would remember their meanings with some mnemonic tricks.

 

[5BLD]

The best way is to speak to someone who is either spanish or speaks spanish. The next best thing is to say the word out loud while showing yourself a picture of the object. To memorise translations to english slows down fluency imo, you should always try to learn spanish in spanish with pictures and stuff

 

[Ickathu]

Yeah, and even if it's dreadful, speak in it as much as you possibly can. You've really got to start "thinking" in the new language. Don't just translate words back and forth, start to, like 5bld said, associate the words with images, not english words.

 

[PandaCuber]

Dude spanish is easy.
List of words that are the same in english:
animal, color, and lesson/lección, restaurante, hospital, no, banana, abnormal, actor, sensual , debate, pastor ,.taxi, radio, motor, hotel, chocolate, plaza, tropical,popular, natural.

piece of cake. or torta. same stuff.

 

[Ickathu]

Dude spanish is easy.
List of words that are the same in english:
animal, color, and lesson/lección, restaurante, hospital, no, banana, abnormal, actor, sensual , debate, pastor ,.taxi, radio, motor, hotel, chocolate, plaza, tropical,popular, natural.

piece of cake. or torta. same stuff.

Pronunciation is different, and honestly, learning random vocabulary is not that hard for any language.
The hard part is the sentence structure (For the most part, spanish adjectives come AFTER nouns, not before. So you'd say "el mono azul" instead of "the blue monkey". Don't ask. ), the verb conjugation (english doesn't really have set conjugation, so it's weird to get used to), and noun declensions (though spanish is pretty easy with those, like english, but words can be pluralized in multiple ways), as well as all the other various things that change or don't have an equivalent in english.

Spanish vocab is pretty easy though.

 

[shelley]

If you're trying to memorize vocabulary, there's a flashcard program called Anki that you may find useful. It uses spaced repetition, which means it'll show you cards according to how well you know them - cards you know well will not reappear for a while, and cards you have trouble with will show up again much sooner.

 

[Riley]

I love Spanish, I'm in my 4th year of learning it at school and I plan to continue in college.

Always look for cognates, or words that sound like their English/other language words. For example, tornado and tornado are the exact same thing in Spanish and English. There are many of these.

The way all the language teachers at my school make us learn it, besides using it in activities from textbook, etc, are the "cuatro columnas", or four columns. It is a piece of paper with four columns, and many horizontal lines. The first column will be labeled as Spanish, the second English (or other language), the third Spanish again, and the fourth, English (or other language) again. First learn the words by copying all of the Spanish ones in the first column, and then the English ones into the next column. Study these however you'd like; I just read them over a few times. Then, fold the first column to the back so you can't see it. Now translate the English second column into the third column, by writing. After, unfold and check your answers, review the ones you missed. Then fold the first and second columns back, and translate the Spanish third column into English in the fourth column.

When at home, school, outside, or anywhere, use your vocabulary to name things. For example, if you see a "libro" or book, think "libro" or say it out loud, and have a mental image to easily think of.

And as 5BLD said, if you really want to learn Spanish, speak and listen to native speakers. This helps so much.

Hope this all helped, feel free to ask with questions, I enjoy helping others in Spanish.

 

[Ickathu]

Riley has good advice.

Sort of off topic: How do you get used to noun declensions in german? English really has nothing like it (the DOG is red; that animal is a DOG; the DOG's bone is over there; it is on the DOG. I'm pretty sure that the possessive is the only noun declension in English [that does count, right?]).
Also, can someone give me a chart for declension endings and verb conjugation? I can't find one anywhere :fp

 

[dbuck84]

Let me know if you wanna learn brazilian portuguese 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[peterbone]

I have an app on my phone called vocabulary assistant that I use when I have nothing else to do to learn vocabulary. It's like a game so not boring to use. You don't learn pronunciation but as long as you speak the language sometimes as well you can work out how to pronounce words from their spelling.