I found myself to have some spare time this summer and decided to find and try a method for rapid language acquisition. The target is to hit around 3000 words which is supposed to be about 90% of everyday spoken language (i.e fluency); obviously this isn't a hard rule but rather a target for where I'd like to be. It is high enough to be challenging but low enough to be reasonable achievable within a few months.
My target language is Icelandic
Why Icelandic?
- It is a language I have not learnt before, so essentially starting from zero. This lets me gauge how effective the language learning methods are.
- I've learnt some Norwegian and Swedish before so it isn't going to be entirely new, there are some similarities. (Also that it essentially uses the same alphabet)
- Icelandic history is also of interest which gives some motivation for learning it.
The first step is to learn some of the words: i.e. build up some working knowledge of the Icelandic words and what they mean in English. More importantly is that I don't want to just learn how the words "look" but must hear how they sound. This involves either buying a book with a CD, or finding software with flashcards.
I had a look for software and couldn't find anything that had spoken Icelandic, so I was close to buying a book and CD. However, I'm reluctant to do so as I find that method of learning is too passive. I've used flashcards in past for learning some Norwegian and Swedish and had fairly good progress. Fortunately, the internet has a solution.
After some Googling and coming across /learnIcelandic on Reddit I found a site called Memrise which specialises in flash cards. The site offers flashcard learning for many different topics but languages seem like a popular choice and fortunately they have Icelandic. Now that I've started to use it I've come to appreciate another important aspect of the site: gamefication. Having leaderboards gives users the chance to compete against others which helps to encourage us to learn faster and earn "rewards" (new titles). As simple as this may sound I've found that gamefication works; hence why MMOs sell so well but often have boring mechanics. ;-)
At the bottom of the article I have a copy and paste of my "diary" which provides an overview of what I achieved each day. Icelandic turned out to be harder than expected due to the cases, it is more complicated than either Norwegian or Swedish. This means that I have to learn the same word three times for each of the genders (m., f., n.) and therefore progress is a bit slower than hoped for. That said, there is a pattern to the endings in many cases so that offers some predictability.
The plus side there are more similarities with Swedish than first anticipated (modern Norwegian is more similar to Danish which has had more continental influence).
Diary
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Overall target: 3000 words (/phrases).
Daily target: 30 per day. -- seems achievable although ended up being ahead of this target while I have extra time. Target time: 100 days.
Memrise has two main "functions": (1) learning new words and (2) reviewing words you learnt before. This will be obvious from the diary. The details contained here are only a sketch of my activities.
You can find my Memrise profile: here.
Updated: 24th January 2016
- 2nd July
- Circa 35 words done
- 5th July
- Rested for a few days (not a good start!). Should be 120 by end of today.
- At 169 at time of writing.
- Forgetting some words and making mistakes. Not all words are sticking 100%. Some are, some are part staying, others not at all.
- 210 done.
- 6th July
- Starting with a review of words I'm supposed to know.
- Reviewing words can give more points (if the word are officially ready for review).
- Thought about how to "game" points system by taking easy points (easy words).
- Colours a bit of a problem. Different genders but not properly "explained" / tagged in this class.
- Tried another class, to see if there was differences. Can re-learn some words without affecting score in other place. Some new words too.
- Finished at 282
- 7th July
- Did mostly reviewing.
- Finished at 313
- 8th
- 25 reviewed.
- Finished at 321
- 9th (one week in)
- Reviewing.
- Finished at 411
- 10th
- Reviewing (over 100).
- 11th
- Reviewed 25.
- Finish at 447?
- 12th
- Reviewed 50 ish
- 13th
- Reviewed 25
- Finished at: 451
- 14th
- Finished at: 512
- 15th
- Finished at: 516
- GAP
- 27th
- Finished at: 526
- 29th
- Finished at: 529
- 30th
- Finished at: 531
- 3rd
- Finished at: 567
- 4th
- Finished at: 602
- 5th
- Finished at: 606
- 8th
- Finished at: 641
- 9th
- Finished at: 690
- 11th
- Finished at: 724
- 12th
- Finished at: 728
- 13th
- Finished at: 729
- 15th
- Finished at: 759
- 19th
- Finished at: 828
- 20th
- Finished at: 859
- 29th
- Finished at: 903
At time of update (24th January 2016): I've learnt 1274 words. That's quite far short of my target, which is unfortunate but is the effects of burn out plus competing priorities in life. Learning was easier in the summer when life was quieter.
Icelandic is far harder language than I naively thought. The sentence structure is similar to the Scandinavian languages but the conjugation is far more advanced. Many of the words I've learnt have been conjugations around the root word: three genders, plus singular / plural. I'm still planning to hit my target, but it may take longer than expected. The Memrise course that I'm studying stops at ~1600 which is only half-way. The app also includes phrases in that word count rather than single words.