Vocabulary Organization

[marcscz]

I am just curious about the listing of the 49 word lists in each week's section of the Handout Booklet. I noticed they are a mix of "essential" and "advanced" words. I can't figure out if there is a theme among the grouping of words. I'm just curious as to how the lists were developed. Are they based on difficulty level?

What are some good organizational groupings or methods to sort my flash cards into in order to help me learn the words?

[tommywallach]

Hey Marc,

Yes, they are indeed totally random (aside from the fact that what we see as "essential" words are slightly easier/more likely to show up)! I've always been of two minds about this: personally, I don't find themed lists helpful. In fact, I like to have words with similar meetings separated, so that I don't confuse them. But I know that lots of students DO prefer themed lists.

If you want to organize your own lists by meaning theme, you are certainly welcome to. And certainly the very construction of themed lists like that would be helpful for your studying/memorization. Some possible themes:

Words related to speech
Feeling words
Negative adjectives
Positive adjectives
Words relating to time
Words relating to space

Again, I just made those up on the fly, but I'm sure you could come up with plenty of your own. : )

Good luck!

-t