#goldlist method

BUT I was just recommended the Goldlist Method by another langblr, and my partner suggested I read up more on the spaced repetition method, and so I gave in and downloaded Anki! I even practiced my first 10 words. My goal is 10 new words every 3 days, but I may edit that to fit these methods better. I want to learn somewhere between 1,500-3,000 words and phrases this year and bring my level up from "functional beginner" to "conversational."

It was, I believe, Coco Chanel who said that after a woman is fully dressed, accessories and all, she should take one thing off. Only then she will be ready to leave the house. Believe it or not, this is very hard for true fashionistas to do.

Not being a fashionista myself, I haven’t really been able to take Chanel’s advice. (I hardly ever accessorize, so if I took one thing off before walking out the front door, I’d be an affront to public decency.) But the idea that even a seemingly perfect ensemble can and should be edited has fascinated me for years. And now I think I’ve found a way to use it in my life. 

My new rule is: No vocabulary list is complete until you take (at least) one word off.

It seems contradictory, but it could also be super efficient. We don’t need all the words we think we need.

I mean, did I really need the word “der Bekennerbrief” -- which took me nearly two months to commit to long-term memory? (There is no direct translation into English, but a “Bekennerbrief” is a letter you send to the police in order to claim responsibility for a crime.) Or how about “das Gelage,” which is a binge or a bender, but not the word used to construct the translations of “drinking binge,” “shopping binge,” or even “cleaning binge”? I don’t even go on benders in real life!

Anyway, the next time “das Gelage” comes around, I'm deleting it from my Goldlist, no matter how much it hurts. What I really should have done, though, was edit “das Gelage” from the list of candidates, so that it never had a chance to be a problem. That would have hurt less.

And now I’m going to edit something in real time. Earlier today, I mined the following words:

Verbs: abrichten -- to train anstreben -- to strive for verhätscheln -- to coddle wischen -- to wipe

Adjectives: beschissen -- crappy folgsam -- obedient furchterregend -- frightening kribblig -- tingly schutzlos -- defenseless tugendhaft -- virtuous verflucht -- cursed

Nouns: der Hubschrauber -- the helicopter der Hummer -- the lobster der Kofferraum -- the boot of a car der Kram -- odds and ends (stuff) der Überblick -- the overview die Verhandlung -- the negotiation/trial die Vorkehrung -- the precautionary measure das Gewürz -- the spice das Magengeschür -- the stomach ulcer das Werkzeug -- the instrument 

Expressions: aufs falsche Pferd setzen -- to bet on the wrong horse Katze im Sack kaufen  -- to buy a pig in a poke mit Kopf und Verstand -- with mind and intellect ins Visier nehmen -- to target auf die Spur kommen -- to get on track raus aus den Federn  -- rise and shine gegen eine Wand reden -- to talk to a wall

And this will be a dramatic culling. My Goldlist rule is twenty new words or expressions per day; above are twenty-eight. So which eight are going to go for now?

The nouns are going to take the biggest hit. I don’t foresee getting a stomach ulcer from eating lobster in a helicopter in either the near or the distant future. But these are also easy deletions. This exercise requires a little more ruthlessness. 

since I got home from europe, I’ve been trying out the goldlist method (by david james) to learn the immense using german vocabulary textbook that had been standing on my shelf for ages lol. the tl;dr of the method is to write lists of vocabulary in order to commit them directly into your long term memory, then ‘distill’ them by copying the hardest 70% every two weeks. I’m only around 1.5 months into it (up till D2 in my bronze book), and I haven’t had the occasion to use these words, so I’m not sure how well it’s worked so far, but i’ll write about it for sure!

Anki sometimes make me quite anxious and if you have sizable decks you really have to review every single day, or the cards will pile up exponentially.