A great introduction to extensive reading

Ooooh. I haven’t actually read those myself so I didn’t make the connection :sweat_smile:

Well I think I heard about the Let’s Read Japanese ones via another thread here somewhere, so they’re on at least two…! In fact, it might be worth digging up that thread if you’re interested in them, because I think there was some feedback from people who’d tried them.

Edit: here ya go

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I’m starting to think that repetition is only a part of what makes us memorize vocabulary items. Each repetition can be much different, and I think the ones that occur in particular contexts can stick better. And by context I mean not only the traditional sense of being placed in a meaningful sentence, but also things like personal interests and state of mind when encountering the word or phrase. When the great saxophone player Zoot Sims was asked how he played so well when he was drunk, he answered “it’s cause that’s how I practice, man!”

I’ve often thought about how the memorization process happened in my native language of English. For example, consider a word like “marooned”. I probably haven’t came across that word in over ten years in print or by hearing it spoken, but I’ll always know what it means. I guess I’ve burned that item? Then I wonder how many times I’ve ever heard it. Maybe twenty, and they probably came in clusters. A quick Google search tells me it’s the name of a Pink Floyd song, and there is a movie using it as a title - I’m not familiar with either of them, but they probably would have provided rich contexts for memorization.

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