Converting 'Memrised' words to actual practical use

Community-Created Courses General Language Chat
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Hi,

I’ve been working with my own custom-made French course based on words I encounter through conversations, books and films. The course has quite quickly accumulated 1000+ words and as it grows, I feel the effectiveness of it slowly fading. I’m wondering if any of you have any tactics you use to convert ‘memrised’ words, words you manage to answer correctly in the course, to words which you actually manage to use in practical situations.

I have a few tactics, like creative writing which employs those words, but I thought maybe I’d reach out to see how other people do about it.

Thanks in advance

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I would agree - simply learning loads of words does not in itself make you use them actively. I find myself more and more move towards expressions, or sentence fragments, to try and aid this

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I very much like the approach that sort of shines through in the official Memrise courses: there are quite a few words that are first being introduced in a level and are then used within a sentence in the same level. I do think that these tend to stick way better!

Not quite as good, but still helpful: some community courses show one or more sentences in which the word is being shown. Here’s two examples in which sentences are shown during sessions:

Another one including sentences, sadly only after clicking the “+” symbol:

Last but not least: audio is key! When learning, I usually speak everything out loud, but that’s more of a personal approach resp. strategy rather than a course-related thing. :slight_smile:

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I recommend just absorbing the language.

Your most effective strategy to making language learning more fun is to use it "Actively."
This is largely just, finding a friend or someone French to have an organised ‘French-talking’ session with you. Maybe say you want to discuss a particular topic you learnt words about, then talk about that, which directly applies those words. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, take criticism well and remember, the goal is not to be ‘grammatically correct’ but to be understood.

Alternatively, this could include joining an ‘out-in-the-community language group,’ which many may struggle with due to social anxiety, but it would be really helpful.

Creative writing is also a great way to use it actively.

Personally, cause I don’t have much access to the first two, so I opt for the more “passive” use.
One way involves selecting a favourite show on Disney Plus, Netflix etc., and putting on french audio, English subtitles, but you seem to already be doing that.

Another, just reading, although again, you seem to be doing that. For me, I am learning a lot of Christian German words on memrise, and then reading the Bible, purely to find these words and see if I can grasp a basic understanding of the text. That has been an easy way to apply practically those words.

Often once you have learnt 2000+ words, you begin to feel like your progress is becoming slower and slower. That is natural, so finding as many ways to practically use it is super important.

I hope even a little of this helped!

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