Memorizing Vocabulary
One of the greatest obstacles to learning a language is tackling the thousands of vocabulary used in everyday life, while also grasping the finer details of each word. For example, あげる (ageru) and くれる (kureru) both mean “to give”, but when do you use each one?1 Traditional methods don’t work amazingly, and while apps like Anki2 are great for memorizing vocab, words are really easy to forget, and these methods don’t give you the full context of a word, keeping understanding at a shallow level.
Context
Think of your traditional flashcard: on one side, a word in the language you’re learning, and on the other side, its translation in a language you’re familiar with. It’s supposed to help you associate an unknown word, 노력 (noryeok) for example, with a known word, “effort”, and in that process, you’re supposed to understand the definition of the word.
But that’s the problem. A simple connection often isn’t enough, and when learning hundreds of words, many of them are forgotten. Finding vocabulary naturally through reading texts is more effective, since you’ll see the word in context, and the most common words will naturally float to the top as you see them again and again.
Knowing how certain words are used is so helpful. Simply knowing that 反応 (hannou) means “reaction” or 満足 (manzoku) means “satisfaction” is pointless, and reading something like 「彼女は良い反応を示したわ。」(She reacted well) tells you that 反応 can be used with 示す (shimesu).
Output
Learning vocabulary traditionally isn’t bad though; it’s helpful alongside reading and consuming media, and trying to form your own sentences through speaking and writing. A great way to increase the probability of memorizing a word is by forming connections, or by applying it while it’s fresh in your mind. Maybe it’s a cognate, like “imaginar” meaning “imagine”, or a loanword, like the Japanese word 普通 (futsuu) borrowed from the Chinese word 普通 (pǔtōng). Maybe you could try to put the vocabulary into a sentence, like 「私は普通の男の子だけです。」
Either way3, memorizing vocabulary shouldn’t be extremely difficult, and learning words in context is extremely helpful. So go out there; read a book. Write in a journal about how your day went, or what you hope to do in the future. Talk to a camera and just say whatever comes to mind. Eventually, your vocabulary bank will build up, and more words will be committed to long-term memory.
Life Update!
School starts in two days, and January 5 is in one day. I’m just so sick of college applications, but over winter break, I’ve applied to a decent amount of colleges. It’s strange to think about how I now have to wait a little under four months to see what will result, and what will happen after I spent the past four years preparing for this. It’s all done! All that can be done is done, and now we wait! Now we hope we don’t fall into senioritis these next few months. We’ll see what happens.
1. The difference is in the perspective of the speaker. If the speaker is giving, then あげる is used, and if the speaker is receiving, then くれる is used. 「私がジェームスに天井をあげた。」means "I gave a ceiling to James." and ジェームスが私に天井をくれた。」means "James gave a ceiling to me."↩
im going to touch you
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