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Best way to learn vocab?

I'm currently taking GCSE German AQA and my teacher wants us to learn a page of vocab a week (about 120 words on each page). Does anyone have any vocab revision tips or apps?
Original post by Snowystar
I'm currently taking GCSE German AQA and my teacher wants us to learn a page of vocab a week (about 120 words on each page). Does anyone have any vocab revision tips or apps?


Inexorably's techniques are all really good - particularly the spaced repetition technique. If you don't want to use Anki you can devise your own system by doing this:

- Day 1: write down (manually - take your time to do this neatly as your application at this stage will help you memorise the words) 25 words at a time, in columns of the German word on the left and the English translation on the right. Read your list out loud. This should take about 20 minutes. You'll need five such sessions to cover your page of vocab for the week, and you'll need to space out your sessions over the day.

- Day 2: go over your first 25 words without looking at the translation. Then write down the words you did not know - again, take it slowly and mindfully, and read your words out loud when you have finished writing them down. Do this for all your five groups, spacing out the sessions if at all possible.

- Day 3: as Day 2, using the new lists from Day 2. At this stage, you may be able to combine two of your lists to make up new groups of about 25 "difficult to learn" words.

- Day 4: as Day 3. By now you should be able to remember most of the words. If not, keep making new lists with your "difficult to learn" words,making sure that you write them slowly and thoughtfully, and that you read them out loud when you finish. That's really important for your brain to assimilate the new words.

- Days 5, 6 and 7: Depending on how you've got on, you can now go back to the original page of vocab you needed to learn and check that you still know the words you knew in the earlier days! Revise, revise and revise again.

- When you are in your second week of learning new vocabulary, make sure you go over the first week's list again towards the end of the week. Ditto for later weeks. But you don't need to do the whole lot every week - always do the previous week, but then space out the earlier weeks. For example:

Week 2 - revise Week 1.
Week 3 - revise Week 2.
Week 4 - revise Week 3 and Week 1.
Week 5 - revise Week 4 and 2.
Week 6 - revise Week 5, 3 and 1 (week 1 should now just be a formality)
Week 7 - revise Week 6, 4 and 2.
and so on.

If there are words from earlier weeks that you find you are struggling with, just make up more lists and revise them more regularly.

To be honest, 120 new words a week is pretty tough; your teacher is certainly making you work hard! But if you put the effort in at this stage you'll certainly save a lot of time later on when it comes to revising for the exams.
Reply 2
Original post by Anna Schoon
Inexorably's techniques are all really good - particularly the spaced repetition technique. If you don't want to use Anki you can devise your own system by doing this:

- Day 1: write down (manually - take your time to do this neatly as your application at this stage will help you memorise the words) 25 words at a time, in columns of the German word on the left and the English translation on the right. Read your list out loud. This should take about 20 minutes. You'll need five such sessions to cover your page of vocab for the week, and you'll need to space out your sessions over the day.

- Day 2: go over your first 25 words without looking at the translation. Then write down the words you did not know - again, take it slowly and mindfully, and read your words out loud when you have finished writing them down. Do this for all your five groups, spacing out the sessions if at all possible.

- Day 3: as Day 2, using the new lists from Day 2. At this stage, you may be able to combine two of your lists to make up new groups of about 25 "difficult to learn" words.

- Day 4: as Day 3. By now you should be able to remember most of the words. If not, keep making new lists with your "difficult to learn" words,making sure that you write them slowly and thoughtfully, and that you read them out loud when you finish. That's really important for your brain to assimilate the new words.

- Days 5, 6 and 7: Depending on how you've got on, you can now go back to the original page of vocab you needed to learn and check that you still know the words you knew in the earlier days! Revise, revise and revise again.

- When you are in your second week of learning new vocabulary, make sure you go over the first week's list again towards the end of the week. Ditto for later weeks. But you don't need to do the whole lot every week - always do the previous week, but then space out the earlier weeks. For example:

Week 2 - revise Week 1.
Week 3 - revise Week 2.
Week 4 - revise Week 3 and Week 1.
Week 5 - revise Week 4 and 2.
Week 6 - revise Week 5, 3 and 1 (week 1 should now just be a formality)
Week 7 - revise Week 6, 4 and 2.
and so on.

If there are words from earlier weeks that you find you are struggling with, just make up more lists and revise them more regularly.

To be honest, 120 new words a week is pretty tough; your teacher is certainly making you work hard! But if you put the effort in at this stage you'll certainly save a lot of time later on when it comes to revising for the exams.


Original post by Anna Schoon
Inexorably's techniques are all really good - particularly the spaced repetition technique. If you don't want to use Anki you can devise your own system by doing this:

- Day 1: write down (manually - take your time to do this neatly as your application at this stage will help you memorise the words) 25 words at a time, in columns of the German word on the left and the English translation on the right. Read your list out loud. This should take about 20 minutes. You'll need five such sessions to cover your page of vocab for the week, and you'll need to space out your sessions over the day.

- Day 2: go over your first 25 words without looking at the translation. Then write down the words you did not know - again, take it slowly and mindfully, and read your words out loud when you have finished writing them down. Do this for all your five groups, spacing out the sessions if at all possible.

- Day 3: as Day 2, using the new lists from Day 2. At this stage, you may be able to combine two of your lists to make up new groups of about 25 "difficult to learn" words.

- Day 4: as Day 3. By now you should be able to remember most of the words. If not, keep making new lists with your "difficult to learn" words,making sure that you write them slowly and thoughtfully, and that you read them out loud when you finish. That's really important for your brain to assimilate the new words.

- Days 5, 6 and 7: Depending on how you've got on, you can now go back to the original page of vocab you needed to learn and check that you still know the words you knew in the earlier days! Revise, revise and revise again.

- When you are in your second week of learning new vocabulary, make sure you go over the first week's list again towards the end of the week. Ditto for later weeks. But you don't need to do the whole lot every week - always do the previous week, but then space out the earlier weeks. For example:

Week 2 - revise Week 1.
Week 3 - revise Week 2.
Week 4 - revise Week 3 and Week 1.
Week 5 - revise Week 4 and 2.
Week 6 - revise Week 5, 3 and 1 (week 1 should now just be a formality)
Week 7 - revise Week 6, 4 and 2.
and so on.

If there are words from earlier weeks that you find you are struggling with, just make up more lists and revise them more regularly.

To be honest, 120 new words a week is pretty tough; your teacher is certainly making you work hard! But if you put the effort in at this stage you'll certainly save a lot of time later on when it comes to revising for the exams.


Thank you so much for this technique I'm going to try it for the next weeks vocab. I will let you know how I get on :smile:
Reply 3
I know the Leitner system is a great and efficient way to memorize vocabulary. It's basically spaced repetition flash cards. Check it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

I used a program called Anki for that: http://ankisrs.net/
Reply 4
Original post by Inexorably
Either:

Spaced repetition (look up Anki)
Flashcards WITH pictures.
Memory palace/method of loci technique.

Darn it, you beat me to it!
Original post by Snowystar
Thank you so much for this technique I'm going to try it for the next weeks vocab. I will let you know how I get on :smile:


Yes, please do let me know! Good luck.
Reply 6
Original post by 571122
I know the Leitner system is a great and efficient way to memorize vocabulary. It's basically spaced repetition flash cards. Check it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

I used a program called Anki for that: http://ankisrs.net/


I will also check out This technique thanks so much :smile:
Original post by Snowystar
I'm currently taking GCSE German AQA and my teacher wants us to learn a page of vocab a week (about 120 words on each page). Does anyone have any vocab revision tips or apps?


OMG CHILD!www.memrise.com is your saviour! Make a free account, search up your course and it'll come up, you can just start learning it on there, there is also an app
This got me an A* so :wink:
quizlet.com is also good for making your own sets to learn and print off as cards :wink:PM if you get stuck and viel SpaB :h:
Reply 8
I always find it really useful to actually incorporate the vocab into my work - might be a bit tricky with that number of words, but if there are any you find just aren't sticking it's always good to even just write a sentence containing the word so that you have a bit of context and can associate the word with its meaning rather than just learning the English equivalent off by heart. :smile:
Reply 9
Original post by Anna Schoon
Yes, please do let me know! Good luck.

Hi I just wanted to let you know how I got on for the week of vocab. For me it was really effective and ended up gaining full marks for my vocab test, so thank you so much for this revision technique to learn new languages !
Original post by Snowystar
I'm currently taking GCSE German AQA and my teacher wants us to learn a page of vocab a week (about 120 words on each page). Does anyone have any vocab revision tips or apps?


Write the vocabularies on cue cards down, especially the one where you are insecure.

Here is my tip to deal with the vocabularies:

1.) write the German meaning on the one side of the card and the English one on the rear side.
2.) To make it easier to keep the meaning in your mind, you may write an English explanation in addition to that (on the side with the English word of course).
3.) After you have studied the vocabularies from the first to the last word, mix the cards thoroughly and start new.
4.) revise this procedure within a week as often as possible.
5.) revise the words more often where you are insecure. If the meanings of words are very familar to you, you can exclude them in your revision.*
Original post by Snowystar
Hi I just wanted to let you know how I got on for the week of vocab. For me it was really effective and ended up gaining full marks for my vocab test, so thank you so much for this revision technique to learn new languages !


Fantastic! Well done and keep it up!
Original post by Snowystar
Hi I just wanted to let you know how I got on for the week of vocab. For me it was really effective and ended up gaining full marks for my vocab test, so thank you so much for this revision technique to learn new languages !


* I am pleased to hear that. I have realized that I am a week too late with my advice to you. Next time you have the chance to test it out. It is very effective, trust me. :smile:
Reply 13
Original post by Anna Schoon
Fantastic! Well done and keep it up!


Thanks so so much for the revision technique!
Original post by Snowystar
I'm currently taking GCSE German AQA and my teacher wants us to learn a page of vocab a week (about 120 words on each page). Does anyone have any vocab revision tips or apps?


In my french class we use flash cards quite a lot, writing the English word on one side and the French (or in your case German) on the other, that way you can test yourself, or just read them. Our teacher also recommends making a sentence with the word each time which is quite useful. Hope this helps :smile:
Reply 15
The best method I used for learning vocab for French was quizlet (helped me secure and A*)

You don't need to create your own cards, there are publicly shared quizlet cards for essential vocab for a GCSE language so you will know (by testing yourself) what you don't yet know.

You can save different cards into your folder and even create your own flashcards.

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