vocabulary acquisition | Dive into Language

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Don’t Forget What You Just Learned – The Role of Memory in Vocabulary Acquisition

June 17, 2013

The previous article laid out the complex nature of vocabulary acquisition: new words are not learned instantly, but through a multi-stage, incremental process which normally proceeds from receptive to productive vocabulary knowledge. The first stages of this process are essential: learning the correct spelling and pronunciation and the precise meaning(s) of a word builds a solid foundation for your language skills as a whole. But the next step can be defined as critical: if a learner is not able to…

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Articles

Learning a New Word – How Does It Actually Happen?

April 10, 2013

Vocabulary acquisition is crucial for second and foreign language learning, as emphasized in our last article. We need to grow and cultivate our vocabulary to progress in our language studies, but how does it actually happen? When can you say you have successfully learned a new word? This article will examine these questions, which are worthy of consideration – not just in a theoretical sense, but because a basic understanding of the vocabulary acquisition process is highly important for establishing…

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Words Will Get You Far: Why Is Vocabulary Acquisition So Important in Second and Foreign Language Learning?

February 25, 2013

As discussed in the first post, vocabulary was for long an overlooked aspect of learning a new language. During the last decades, however, the vocabulary has moved from the periphery into a central position. Even a quick look at the recent linguistic research (1) reveals that more and more attention has been given to this disregarded “Cinderella of foreign language learning” (2). We find this attention truly well-deserved, as we are confident that vocabulary, including not just words but also…

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