Words and phrases

First of all,  let me say that to learn English,or any langauge, it is important to review new words and phrases. I know it works for me. It is less fun than listening and reading, and so I always prefer to spend more time on listening and reading. I know that I cannot remember all the words and phrases when I review them. Yet reviewing and studying lists of words is, to me, a necessary part of the process of learning words and phrases, and therefore of learning the language. I find I need to focus on the individual components, the words and phrases. This makes me more observant of these and other words when I see them. I start to look for connections between different words, and that helps me guess the meaning of new words.

I know that our REVIEW section is not ideal. We will make it better in the next version. However, there is a lot of useful functionality there.

First I recommend you try to study less than 20 words at a time. You can select one content item and only review the words and phrases from that item. You can input prefixes and suffixes or roots in order to see only the words that contain them. You can input single words and only see the phrases that contain these words. You can select words or phrases and create lists.

So please try to work with smaller lists. If you learn 20 words a day, 3 times a week, you will have 3,000 new words for the year. Of course you will forget many of these, but you will also pick up some free words that are related to the words you learn.

You can copy and paste these shorter lists from the REVIEW section and post them on the blog here, and we will do some podcasts talking about these words and phrases and how to use them.

Your lists posted here will look like this.

hardware	After all, China has become the workshop of the world, recently overtaking Japan as the second largest producer of electronics and IT hardware. check for examples
patience	On the subject of China's currency, Eldon said that patience was required on behalf of the Chinese and resistance to external pressure to float their currency on the world market. check for examples
worldwide	India is known worldwide as the optimal destination for software development and service outsourcing, and Japan is experiencing a powerful economic awakening of its own. check for examples
conditions	"There are those who maintain that the right time is now," said Eldon, citing the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which presently believes conditions are "near ideal" to liberalize its currency. check for examples
world	After all, China has become the workshop of the world, recently overtaking Japan as the second largest producer of electronics and IT hardware. check for examples
float	On the subject of China's currency, Eldon said that patience was required on behalf of the Chinese and resistance to external pressure to float their currency on the world market. check for examples
pressure	On the subject of China's currency, Eldon said that patience was required on behalf of the Chinese and resistance to external pressure to float their currency on the world market. check for examples
workshop	After all, China has become the workshop of the world, recently overtaking Japan as the second largest producer of electronics and IT hardware. check for examples
outsourcing

If you do this, Jill and I will start talking about your words and phrases in a blog, to help you remember them or to learn to pronounce them better, or simply to give you a better sense of how they are used.

We will identify every podcast as  Beginner , Intermediate or Advanced. I have received one such list from Sumiko and Jill and I will start with that next week when I get back from my hockey tournament.

Please submit your lists bu copying and pasting from your REVIEW section.