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

https://youtu.be/3voBSKr9Sl4

Start Speaking Today:

I’d like to thank italki for supporting the show. To claim your free lesson and start speaking today, visit: http://iwillteachyoualanguage.com/italkishownotes

Do you have a question?

Ask me your language learning questions by clicking here, and I’ll do my best to feature it on the show! Also, please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.

---

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the podcast! If you’ve got any comments about the show then please leave them in the “comments” section below! If you’d like to help me out, then I’d love it if you could…

• Share the episode using the social media buttons around you
• Leave an honest review and rating of the podcast on iTunes (click here to do that)

iTunes reviews in particular really help the rankings of the podcast and help me to reach other aspiring language learners out there! See you in the next episode of the I Will Teach You A Language podcast!