IWTYAL 211: Best practice for vocabulary notebooks

Aral asks: “What's the best way to organise my vocabulary notebook?”

Episode Summary:

Housekeeping:

• Upcoming guests
• New French Book
• Conversations
• British Sign Language course

Today's podcast:

• How valuable is the time you're spending organising a vocabulary notebook?
• What's the value of a vocabulary notebook in and of itself? Does it help?
• The big question: Will you ever look at it again?
• Some people recommend keeping exhaustive notebooks with every conceivable detail about the new word, organising thematically, etc…
• I've tried all this before, but it's too slow!
• Steve Kaufmann's thinking: How are you going to cover enough new vocabulary to make progress, if you spend so much time on each individual word?

My 80/20 of vocabulary notebooks:

• Get your vocabulary from rich, compelling context (reading, listening, speaking)
• Write things down if you find it helpful
• Choose only the most useful words and learn them using your favourite process

Resources mentioned in today's episode:

• Bulletproof Memory Email Course – free email course to help improve your memory

Start Speaking Today:

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Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.