I can see that there are at least two 5000 word vocabulary courses for German:5000 German Words (top 87%) and 5000 Words (top 87%) sorted by frequency.
If you are familiar with these courses, do you think one is better than another? What are differences between them that are worth knowing about before starting?
Vielen Dank for any advice!
I’ve done a bit of Paul_Wilson’s course since his other courses on verb declension and prepositions were so helpful. It’s a pretty good course but I think I just got a bit lazy doing it since I wasn’t really concentrating on learning the plurals as much. I’ve not done the other course so I can’t comment.
The one that I really like (as well as it totally annoys me sometimes) is: 5000 German Words strict typing … it really forces you to know the words, the der / die / das and plurals which has been really helpful for my in writing exercises in class.
I haven’t actually used either of these courses you reference, but frequency list courses are REALLY NOT very helpful and will not help you build the vocabulary you desire. One course is by frequency, the other alphabetical - kind of like reading the dictionary. I’m betting you’d be bored silly with either one. No one ever learned a language by memorizing a long list of words, you need the context, the grammar, etc. to put it together.
Better to find courses that give you real context for the words and phrases you’re learning, that’s how you’ll actually remember them. This has been my experience over many years of study as well as some teaching. Sadly the topic keeps coming up over and over again. I’ve also discussed this with other language learners and teachers and most experienced people will tell you the same thing. Also look for courses that have audio, a VERY important aspect. I have tried many courses in Memrise and those without audio I quickly abandon.
I don’t have any experience with the course by @Paul_Wilson, but I see that it’s in alphabetical order. I once tried a Spanish course that was alphabetical and hated it…
I’m currently working my way through the one that’s sorted by frequency (by @ponchoosh), and enjoying it. It has at least two active contributors who have either completed the course or will soon. Very few words lack audio. I’m about 2600 words into it, and I’ve seen very few errors.
There is one small quirk, though. Earlier this year, a few words in the database were replaced, and they’re still connected to the mems and audio for the previous word. Once the contributors realized the problem, they changed the way they were editing the course, and now they’re replacing the audio for the new words. It’s a very minor problem, however, since it effects fewer than 1% of the words in the course.
I believe there’s worth in learning the top 2000-5000 words of the language you’re studying. Yes, you need to see those words in context, and you need grammar, practice speaking & listening, and experience reading & writing, but you also need vocabulary. If you don’t know the words, it’s very difficult to understand what you’re hearing or reading.
Memrise is the best tool I’ve found for learning vocabulary. The mems and SRS work really well. With a course sorted by frequency, you can work as far as you like, for as long as the vocab is relevant to you. If it gets boring 1/2 or 3/4 of the way through, than it’s time to drop it and focus on learning vocabulary that’s relevant to you.
As you’re working your way through the course, find ways to use those words in context. Read blog posts, listen to podcasts, read books for children and teens, watch movies and television, do a language exchange, take a lesson over Skype, and write.
Viel GlĂĽck!
Memorizing words works maybe for nouns, but for the rest you need context, as others advised.
Thanks so much for the comments on my question – that has been very helpful for me.
I am certainly aware that vocabulary list courses have their limitations, but I have felt some benefit from the 1000 words course I am doing at the moment and this discussion has helped me to think about what I might do next.
I would really appreciate if someone explained me why some names have (A_) or (D_) written after it. Is it an abreviation for accusativ and dativ? Thx
The course creator/contributors have added letters in parenthesis to help you avoid entering a synonym and getting the question wrong unfairly. For example, both “zahlen” and “bezahlen” mean “to pay/to pay for”. The English clue for bezahlen might read, “to pay (b_)” or “to pay (not z_)”
I started using the one from Paul and it was good.
But since it contains to many errors and outdated words I’ve made my own based on that:
http://www.memrise.com/course/738003/intermediate-german-top-6300-words/
Check it if you like it.
Since I’ve added many new words and sentences it has now 6300, but 80% of the course is still the one from Paul (but with all the corrections).
I think these courses are great. You learn a lot of vocab and that helps a lot when you read and try to speak.
It makes a lot of difference in the long term
I am also going to German classes and have found the 5000 word /frequency course very useful – I was not able to keep up with the other students who had more experience than I did, because I just did not have enough vocabulary. This course has been very very helpful – simply learning more words has helped me to keep up.
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Hello @mikatu, I am picking up this forum thread from a few months ago and I was interested to see your “intermediate-german-top-6300-words” course.
I have taken a quick glance at this course, and I have a couple of questions:
If you get a moment to answer me, that would be great, but in any case thanks for contributing to the Memrise courses. At the moment, I’m studying the “5000 words sorted by frequency” course, but I’m certainly interested in the alternatives.
Incidentally, if you don’t want to enforce plurals, you are probably aware that commas now no longer work as separators…
Hello @misxifRM,
I’ve used an existent course and worked it a little bit.
The words have not really an order. I just tried to group most words by theme, but afterwards I keep adding more words, so not all of them will be together
The plurals are optional. But now with the problems with Memrise they will appear as mandatory. I hope they solve that problem for good. That is just a memrise bug, they will have to solve it soon. Makes no sense to enforce commas for something else.
I don’t use audio. Sometimes it appears because Memrises adds it automatically to some words, but it should be only for a few cases.
neal, I think that’s a very personal thing - for me, some words do need to be learned in a grammatical/semantic context, whereas others are very much suitable for rote-learning, and in that latter case it makes sense to focus first on the words you’re most likely to see, though I’ll add the caveat that the 100 or 200 most common words in any language you’re bound to learn pretty quickly no matter how you study.