Does anyone have any useful tips for learning vocab in a foreign language? I'm doing AS level French and Spanish and so I'm being given lots of vocab to learn and I'd like to learn it as well as possible. However, we never really had to learn vocab at GCSE level and so I don't really know any good methods. Any help would be appreciated!

Not doing any AS languages...but we got loads of vocab tests for GCSE. The only method that worked for me was to write all the words down once, then cover up the French/whatever and write it all down, going down a list until I knew them all. Basically, just keep testing yourself; eventually it'll sink in.

Thanks!

I did GCSE French and Spanish and I think that in 2 years, we had ONE vocab test, in French.

Anyone got any more tips?

I have loads of possible ideas, but am off out in the next couple of minutes. Bug me in a PM to come back to this thread and post some ideas, OK??!

Will do! I have to learn 30 words for tomorrow (ok, I shouldn't be leaving stuff this late) and my French teacher seems kind of strict so I'm definitely going to follow CPPF's method.

Rainbow, if you have to learn 30 words so quickly, my opinon is that the only method that will work is the following (adapted from the way chinese children learn characters).

Make up a set of playing card sized pieces of card. Write the foreign word on one side, the English on the other. Start with just four until you have the right (going foreign to English only) - then add two more cards and repeat, keep this process up until you have them all from foreign into English (this should only take about 30 minutes for 30 words), then shuffle the deck and repeat (still going from foreign to English). Once you've got them this time, turn the cards around and repeat until you're comfortable going both ways.

The whole process shouldn't take more than an hour.

Make sure you say the foreign word, followed by the English word when going from foreign to English and the English word followed by the foreign word when going the other way - this will help you make a permanent connection in your brain.

Allan

Try "before you know it" - byki.com. It's like Allan's falshcard idea but on the computer, it's a free download in whatever language you like and I think *crosses fingers* you can adapt and make your own vocab lists, otherwise it's a bit rubbish.

Write them out in different colours.

Put the words on pictures of the objects (if they are objects).

Draw an elephant and put the words in different places on the elephant (or something else if you prefer).

When I was learning my Performance Directions vocab for my theory exams I put Post It notes all round the house with the words plus the english translation, so everywhere I went there were reminders. And I put the whole list on the wall by the kettle, so that each time I made myself a cuppa (which is many times a day!) I would read through them all.

Omigosh, that is EXACTLY the way I learnt words for my Chinese GCSE last year! I find learning Chinese really hard, but that method definitely works if you have the patience...and plus, cards are good as you can reuse them!

Wow, thanks everyone!

And is it just me or should the words 'pecher' and 'connaitre' on the vocab lists be spelt thus: 'pêcher' and 'connaître'. My dictionary does not agree with the vocab lists!

Try linking the words you need to learn with some in your own language. (that's me in a mess if ever I want to learn Chinese! )
You do need circumflexes for those two French words - sorry, I can't do them on here...pecher, to fish, is related to pisces, the Latin for fishes, hence the astrological symbol, and connaitre, to know (someone), comes from similar roots to the Scots "to ken"someone - (and the German is also kennen). I'm lucky enough to be bilingual already, but had little bother learning vocab of other languages because I'm used to seeing similarities between languages - and I can read Chaucer without much trouble, too.

Yes, I think pecher has 2 different meanings depending on whether it has an accent.

Post Its, cue cards and making audio files to listen to all work well

Post Its or lists on places you see a lot are good - on the loo door for example or by your bed.

Some people I knew at uni colour coded lists, so verbs, adjectives etc were always in green or blue or red ink. I wasn't organised enough for that, but I did find that the lists I had up in bathrooms etc did seem more likely to catch my eye if I did them in slightly more interesting colours, and I used to put the Russian words, for example, in green and then the English translation in red. I don't think that helps especially with the memory thing but, sad as it is to admit it, it did make me more likely to look at them I think *grin*

If any vocab is related to things you use or see (I know it's unlikely at this level but you never know) then post its on the related objects can help.

Listing all your vocab in one book - English and the foreign language in columns down the page - can really help you keep track of what you are learning, and you can apply CPPF's method to your lists.

Look for similarities and ways to remember things, like the pecher/pisces thing.

If you can make yourself listen to your own voice, recording the vocab and listening to it can help, another way of reinforcing it aurally.

For general vocab learning, I don't know if there's a frequency dictionary available for French, but many of us used a Russian one while in Russia: it's very heartening to know that the vocab you're using is frequently used and the further you get through the book the more capable you will be of being able to read things fluently.

I'm sure I know other good ways but I'm a bit brain-befuddled

Remember that getting the words into your short term memory is one thing (ie for a test) but the trick is to revise them, use them, and get really familiar with them, so they get into your longterm memory and become part of your working vocab.

I find that I learn vocab quite easily (because of endless mind numbing reptition of the same point) , but when I do need to learn vocab I just read it through. And again. Until it sticks.

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions, I will definitely be trying them.

I got 28/30 on the vocab test, which is good but the two I got wrong were really silly mistakes so I need to work on how to learn things better and concentrate more.

To add to what everyone else has suggested:

Something fairly simple to add to your flashcard is a sentence containing the word written on the card as well. Especially with French this assists with conjugation and usage of the word. Also making those vital connections between the word and its meaning. E.g. with "to fish", your sentence can be, your sentence can be something like "I like to fish because I like to eat fish" and then doodle some pictures of fish on the card. Get creative with sentences and pictures and you'll enjoy the process while at the same time remembering the words without having to memorise them.

Another trick, which I haven't used for years is writing a "story" with all the words on your vocab list. E.g. 30 words = 30 sentences. Depending on whether the words on your list have any relation to each other, the story can get pretty silly but the exercise (usually quite entertaining) of putting a story together keeps you interested and laughing, you learn the words without thinking about it too much and you work on your more general vocab at the same time because you're writing sentences down.

Hi there Rainbow -

such a pity that memory work is sidelined these days - vocab tests learning poems, prose, Shakespeare even!
I think the ways that everybody has suggested are the tried and tested methods. Constant repetition.. (like scales?). Primary schools used to teach words/spellings using LOOK when you see the word, COVER -hide the word, WRITE - try to write it down, CHECK- check what you have done. And repeat as necessary!

When I taught GCSE French a few years ago we always tried to get pupils to learn a group of words at least once a week. If it's only 10 or maybe 20 if you keep at it the total soon adds up. And at your level you will probably WANT to broaden your vocab.

Another way I think helps a lot is doing as much reading as you can. Find French story books for children 3 or 4 years below your own age and read them without looking up every word, checking some when the meaning in the context isn't clear. pm me if you want - I may have some books left over ....

My French dictionary has two spellings of 'pecher' - sorry I don't know how you put those accents in!
pecher - with an accute accent on the first e - is to sin
pecher - with a circumflex accent on the first e - is to fish
pecher - with a circumflex accent on the first e - as a noun is a peach tree

could be important - are you a sinner, or someone who goes fishing - though it is possible to be both

By the way, do you have a French dictionary or only the two language dictionary? I think a "French-French" is a good idea.

Good luck

A French monolingual dictionary is an EXCELLENT idea - you should definitely buy one of those rainbow (my vote is for le petit robert).

Be careful with story books, however - many books intended for children as young as four years old are written almost exclusively in the passé simple tense, which I don't believe is covered at UK GCSE level - it's very natural for a French native to hear this tense used in story telling but it may be confusing for foreign learners who haven't come across it yet.

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A French monolingual dictionary is an EXCELLENT idea - you should definitely buy one of those rainbow (my vote is for le petit robert).

Be careful with story books, however - many books intended for children as young as four years old are written almost exclusively in the passé simple tense, which I don't believe is covered at UK GCSE level - it's very natural for a French native to hear this tense used in story telling but it may be confusing for foreign learners who haven't come across it yet.
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My monolingual is the petit Larousse illustre - getting a bit old but still works sometimes the definitions help you 'think' more French.

And I would agree with you rosfrog about being careful with story books, but I think they also do give you more 'feel' for the language. Pity about the passe simple not being taught ... I should think someone like Rainbow would very easily get it though once it had been explained.

It's a lovely language - good choice, Rainbow!!

Assuming I remember accurately, and that things haven't changed, it's one of the tenses one learns at A Level.

I'm studying French at A2 and we haven't touched on the passé simple yet. The only new form my teacher has mentioned us studying is the subjunctif. Saying that though, we have done the preterite in German so who knows if it'll appear or not...

I guess it depends on both board and teachers: there was certainly a wide variation in understanding and ability to use grammar in my first year French Grammar classes at uni (I was one of the clueless ones....!). We learned to recognise and understand it, as far as I recall, we didn't really learn how to use it - or maybe that was me....

Vocab learning: I just PMd this one to Rainbow but am posting it here in case it'll help anyone else

Oooh something my mum reminded me of today when I was learning vocab for theory: all the relevant words were on bits of paper, Italian or whatever on one side, English on the other. These were stuck to the wall: each time I revised, I had to say, with those that were English side up, what the foreign term was, and with those that were Italian/German/French side up, what the English equivalent was. Only once I was totally confident and 100% going both ways did the term get consigned to the "learned" pile.

More revision than learning, but it helped me

Wheras I used to learn vocab lists by setting them to music and singing them. ( French nouns to nursery rhyme tunes works really well. So does Latin verbs to Christmas carols)

Thank you very much for all the suggestions, I've tried some of them and I'm finding French a lot easier but Spanish is still quite difficult (but then I was always better at French anyway).



I am going to be trying that, watch this space!

have you been learning French longer than Spanish? If so it might be the reason for the difference you feel in difficulty?

Yes, I've been learning French since year 7 but Spanish only since year 10. I'd taken German in years 8 and 9 but didn't want to take it for GCSE because the teacher was incredibly boring, so I asked if I could do Spanish. The thing is, I was in a GCSE class with people who had been learning it since year 8, so I had to learn the basics really quickly and now it's coming back to haunt me.

keep at it, you'll get there. I never liked Spanish quite as much as French - maybe because I started French first, some time ahead of Spanish.
I didn't find German quite so good, as I was asked to do GCSE with the idea of teaching year 7s! But it didn't work out that way...

Am I the only one around here who started German in Yr 7, followed by spanish in year 9, and now finds spanish as easy (hard!?) as German?

Thanks! I like them both about the same but Spanish is definitely harder!



I should imagine it would be quite difficult to teach with only GCSE - I know I couldn't teach either French or Spanish.

Just out of interest, what do you think about modern foreign languages being optional at GCSE level.

I think its better. Then you don't get the absolutly hopeless, can't be bovvered and twits taking up lesson time. As you do in English, Math and Science.

I agree with you on that point - even though languages were optional, we still had a few people like that in my classes.

On the other hand, I do feel that more people should learn languages as they're useful and, dare I say it, fun.

I really think that the National Curriculum people or whoever decides what we're taught in languages should get their act together, as despite doing GCSE French and Spanish, I have very few useful language skills in these languages. We have a lot of German exchange students at my college who all speak fluent English and reasonably fluent French and it just makes me sad that very few English people could go on an exchange to another country for a year, as we don't have the necessary language skills.

Yes. Perhaps doing things like reading papers, watching tv, listening to the radio should be compulsory. I know listening to spanish music has helped my spanish an awful lot, and all my knowledge of italian come from hearing italian songs.

Yes, I don't think I would have been too happy teaching German. Some of teaching though, if it is starting youngsters really, is enthusiasm for the subject, not just knowledge (though that is useful too )

I don't think MFL should be compulsory. Language learning tends to be a bit academic and I have had pupils in lower sets who really really didn't want to be there - that makes it so difficult for teacher and other pupils. I had one Yr 7 on his first day of French who announced "I hate French" !! Nice one.


sorry for delay - I've been watching the new Pink Panther on dvd!!




I like that Rosemary - if it's not in an Italian opera, I can't say it in Italian!!

Yes it should be compulsory and if it was introduced at a decent age (<7 ish) then less people would struggle with it. It works for the rest of Europe, why not here?

Because we're lazy!

I don't know if it should be compulsory. When I first started teaching English in France I was working in a "lycée professionnel", a kind of technical secondary school. I had a couple of classes in which there were children who could barely read in French and I was supposed to be teaching them English. It would have been far more useful to have given them remedial French lessons.
Their reading skills were so bad that they couldn't pass the written part of the driving test (some of them had taken it six times!) because they couldn't read the questions in the time allowed!

And by the way, most French people are convinced that the French are really bad at languages too!

I think it's at least partly to do with the way languages are taught - a good teacher who understands how to make learning interesting, fun and relevant is worth his or her weight in gold. Too many language teachers make it SO dull.

I know what you mean! My German teacher was SO boring. However, both my AS language teachers are really good - the Spanish teacher is really bubbly and my French teacher is quite eccentric but genuinely nice.

As others have said getting a vocab copy and writing the words down to keep them together works well. Cover the French/ Spanish and write it on a scrap piece of paper. Then check you've got the phrase right. Keep covering and chacking till you get all of them right at least three times. And remember to do it again a week and again a month later to remember the vocab for your end of year exams.

It's hard to believe that students in the UK don't have to study languages. In Ireland pupils learn Irish from the age of five and by A Level have to write personal pieces and essays on poetry, prose and history of the language at a standard only slightly below the English exam standard. And a modern european language is necessary to get into university.

That sounds useful, thanks.



Wish my grandparents had stayed in Ireland then, I'd actually quite like to learn Irish.

I was taught French by a teacher whose French was excellent, to the point that he had worked in France during the war I think with the Resistance - unfortunately this experience caught up with him from time to time and he was off sick with nervous breakdown! Great enthusiastic teacher though! when you got things right he threw chalk up to the ceiling with excitement...

Another of my French teachers was so very good too - traditional, but gave SUCH a grounding in grammar and syntax and understanding how to use the language. He was English but interned here during the war as his wife was German and his German was also excellent. Very pedantic but you learned a lot from his standards.

I can look back and realise I was lucky. What I learned then I haven't forgotten. AND I enjoyed it.

To be honest, I learned far more of the languages I used through work than I ever did at school.

Most of that work-related learning was because I'd quite often be the only Brit travelling with a group of Americans who were visiting a company in mainland Europe. As I was prepared to speak something other than English, that tended to make meetings less hostile, even if the Yanks still needed translators. And when you're talking about take-over bids and financial performance, hostility is really not needed, and empathy is.

I used to break the ice at such meetings by opening my vast briefcase and extracting a small file of paperwork and two or three huge dictionaries - it always made people crack up.

The nightmare came in one French meeting where the translator had called in sick while we were on the way in the taxi from the airport. I ended up trying to translate for the whole meeting (for which I certainly wasn't qualified). I ended up spending two and a bit hours waving my arms around, running round the room, drawing diagrams on a whiteboard and convincing myself and everyone else present I was totally crackers. But at least the French staff took me under their wing after that and the work went a lot more smoothly in subsequent visits.

Eccentric goes with the territory

I had a fantastic teacher for my first year of German: practically full immersion for the first couple of months, we learned SO much... we got marks in the region of 97/98% in the end of year exams and had loved every second. Then she went to Germany for a year and we had a German teacher of English, who spent the entire year telling us how rubbish we were and how much better at English German students of our age were (carefully ignoring the fact that they'd been learning for 6 years not 1 and that languages are prioritised in Germany). Still got good marks but hated it at the end of that year and took French GCSE instead.


Me too, though for preference I want to learn Scottish Gaelic...

My cousin is a teacher, she specialises in French and Geography. Unfortunately, her fluency means occasionally her geopgraphy students get an impromptu lesson in French as she forgets what language she should be speaking........

Coming in late here...
Learning FL vocabulary for written vocabulary tests: the only advantage of word lists is to learn the "correct" (=expected) English equivalent for tests. However, you can do this by reading your textbook dialogs and translating them into "textbook" English in your head.

If you use word lists, at least make a column in your vocabulary list for example phrases or sentences using the target word - that way, you learn enough grammar to be able to use your target word correctly and without hesitating and fumbling for words.

Read your example sentences out loud until memorized. Really ham it up, even use actions.

Copying out dialogs or passages also helps your spelling and writing ability.