How to turn negative vocabulary into positive vocabulary?

How to transform a negative vocabulary into a positive vocabulary and build long-term memory? Before answering this question, let’s take a look at the definitions of these two terms.

Negative vocabulary refers to the vocabulary whose meaning can be inferred from the context of hearing or seeing a word after a short period of thinking (such as most GRE vocabulary, Collins one-star word); while positive vocabulary refers to words in English You can use free vocabulary in practical applications (such as in spoken dialogue and English writing, etc.).

In English listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and reading are input skills. The vocabulary recognized during input is a negative vocabulary (that is, it can be understood or understood, but it may encounter certain obstacles when completing productive tasks. Output freely); speaking and writing are output skills, and the vocabulary used during output is positive vocabulary (that is, learners can flexibly and freely extract and use from memory). Under normal circumstances, our reading vocabulary is the largest and our oral vocabulary is the smallest. There is a relationship between each vocabulary: reading vocabulary> listening vocabulary> writing vocabulary> speaking vocabulary. These types of vocabulary can be converted from top to bottom (for example, reading vocabulary is converted to listening vocabulary or writing vocabulary), and the key to completing the conversion is the frequency of use.

For English learners, negative vocabulary and positive vocabulary are not fixed, they can be transformed into each other. Negative vocabulary is exposed to more times and can be transformed into positive vocabulary, but for a positive vocabulary, if it is not used for a long time, it may become a negative vocabulary. For example, skittish is a less common vocabulary. If you can memorize and use it repeatedly in a short period of time (for example, use it 20 times a day), then you can turn it into a positive vocabulary in a short period of time. But if it is not used for a long time after remembering it, it will soon become a negative vocabulary or even an unfamiliar vocabulary again.

Under normal circumstances, a negative vocabulary needs to go through these two processes to be transformed into a positive vocabulary: 1. Word memorization 2. A lot of practice application

Let me talk about the first point, word recognition.

Word memorization is not simply memorizing a word dozens or hundreds of times-even if you do it, the effect is lackluster, and it is easy to forget it after you remember it. The human brain naturally likes to remember organized and logical things, but the definition of words is obviously not included in this list. The word explanations we see in most vocabulary books lack a logical connection, and it is very difficult to remember

Rather than memorizing the meaning of a word, it is more effective to memorize the context of the word and see how a word is used in the context. We can remember the context of words in two ways: reading example sentences and doing reading.

Reading example sentences is a way for you to remember words quickly and accurately. In the example sentences, we can clarify the collocation of words, usage scenarios, and polysemy of a word, etc. For example, the word sanction can mean “sanction, punishment” and “formal permission, approval, acceptance”. How to understand this seemingly contradictory pair of interpretations? Look up the English-English dictionary and read the example sentences in it.

After reading through the example sentences in the dictionary, we can find that when sanction means “sanction”, it usually refers to sanctions against a certain country, and the plural is often used. The verb collocations in front are generally applied, ease, enforce, impose, lift, etc. Prepositional collocations are generally against/on, such as impose/lift sanctions against/on

When sanction means “official permission, approval, acceptance”, the preceding verbs are generally received, require, get, etc., and the post propositions are with/without

When a sanction is used as a verb, it means “approval, approval”

The amount of information contained in the example sentences in the dictionary is often very large. By learning multiple example sentences of the same word, we can better understand and memorize this word, so that it is easier to transform it into a positive vocabulary.

Regarding the example sentences, I am not satisfied with the current vocabulary memorizing applications on the market, because this software explains too much vocabulary and too few examples, it is difficult for learners to truly understand the context in which words are used. If you really need to use the vocabulary app to memorize words, you can consider using Mdict or the European dictionary, load multiple vocabularies on it, and accumulate vocabulary by memorizing example sentences. For the usage of Edict and the European dictionary,

In addition to reading words and example sentences, it is also important to read a lot of articles and appreciate the context in which words are used. A word has life only when it is placed in the context. In this context, it is no longer a solitary concept, but a living story. For example, for the word skittish mentioned earlier, you will see this explanation in the Oxford dictionary:

Seems not enough? Then try the following sentence:

The snippet of the article in the screenshot is from the biography of Jobs. Anyone who sees this should be able to feel how accurate and vivid the word skittish is. It writes the rebellious and moody state of Jobs. Associating the word with the specific character of Jobs, it is much easier to understand it and remember it.

How many times does a word need to be memorized repeatedly before a learner can turn it into long-term memory? An experiment conducted by foreign researchers such as Sarag in 1978 found that if the target word is presented less than 6 times, only 50% of the experimenters can learn it, and if the number of times is 6 or more, 93% of the experimenters can learn . Therefore, if you want to memorize a word for a long time, it is necessary to read a lot and memorize the word repeatedly. Reading a lot of articles can play the role of “word reproduction”, and the more times a word is reproduced in reading, the easier it is for us to remember it.