Language and Culture Lessons - Vocabulary

Hi everyone, 

I have been enjoying RS for a few weeks now, but I have to say I am not a fan of the vocabulary within the Language and Culture sections. In the audio lessons, vocabulary is introduced gradually and organically as part of the narrative, whereas I find myself wading through dozens of new words that were simply used to teach us about articles and pronouns etc. These words just don't resonate with me in a meaningful way. 

So, I am using these sections to memorise the actual articles and pronouns etc but ignoring all the other words. I wonder if anyone else has a similar or differing view? 

• save vocabulary that you're having trouble with to your Saved Vocab list so that you can practice it separately whenever you like;
• create custom Flashcard sets according to topic (e.g. food, animals, family members, etc.) so that you can practice related words together;
• give the words and phrases that you find difficult a harder rating in the Reinforcement activities at the end of the lesson, so that you can get more practice with these ones; or
• ignore the terms you're finding hard to remember/process at the start and come back to them later on when you feel you're ready.

I agree with Steve. Let's concentrate on one thing at a time. By module 3 or 4 I know enough verbs and nouns so that when we are talking about telling time or counting, the lesson would be much easier using what we already know. I understand that you always want to introduce new words but Steve said exactly what I thought- these words have no context and so they aren't as easy to remember. Again, in my opinion, let's do one thing at a time.

¡Hola Daryl-O1!

Thanks for getting in touch with your feedback!

I know that it can certainly be overwhelming to have to take on board so much new vocabulary when you're starting out with a language. However, the start is the hardest part: as you progress even further into the course, you will find yourself encountering a lot of the same vocabulary time and again, and working with it will become ever easier.

Some of the techniques that I suggested above for SteveH68 might be helpful for you as ways to deal with new vocabulary. Also, keep in mind that you don't need to get through a single Language & Culture lesson in a single day: our courses are designed so that you can really take your time and work at your own pace. We like to recommend that learners only try taking in 20-25 new words/phrases per day - anything more than that can often be counterproductive, especially when the vocabulary is new to you. Another helpful technique is to backtrack when you get to the end of a module and try the lessons over again, so that you not only reinforce new words, but you also see how much you've learned!

I hope that this has been helpful!

Saludos,

Liss

Thanks,

Ok, I'll stop complaining and just suck it up and do it. I do think it would be better to contain things like telling time and counting and body parts in verbs and nouns that we already know to keep it more ‘organic’ as the OP says. But I also realized that there are thousands of nouns and verbs that we need to learn so we need to keep them coming. 

I was here about 5 years ago and stopped after completing level 1. I'm back again and I don't think we had the flashcards back then, those help a lot to reinforce prior lessons, I usually spend 30-40 minutes a day on previous lesson flashcards  before doing a new lesson. It is slowly penetrating this thick skull. 

Daryl

¡Hola Daryl-O1!

I'm glad to hear that you've returned to the course and that you're enjoying the flashcard feature! It sounds like you have a good strategy for reviewing material, and I'm sure that with time, you'll be flying through the vocabulary in the lessons! 

Do let us know if you have any other questions or if there is ever anything we can do to help.

Saludos,

Liss