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Do you struggle to memorize new words?

Gold list methods can help you to improve your vocabulary without much effort.

According to the Gold list method you need to write down the lists of new words or expressions you would like to learn in a notebook. You need to do it every day for two weeks. In two weeks you rewrite them excluding the expressions you already remember. Sounds a bit fantastic but this method is quite popular among many polyglots so I also decided to give it a shot.

Our long-term memory works subconsciously, and every time rewriting these words you’ll find you that you’ve already known at least 30% of them. This is what the author, David James, says about this method.

So, let’s start. We need:

– a notebook. An author insists that this must be a notebook you really like. The process of the learning process should be pleasant.

– some color pens

– source of new words: you can choose new words or a vocabulary list you’ve already covered before

– free time

Step 1. Open your new notebook (the first double-paged spread), write the date in the left upper corner, and the number of the list.

To make things easy we divide the double-paged spread into 4 zones:

In Zone 1  write down 20-25 words and their translation in your native language. Now read the words aloud, just read, you don’t need to learn them now, and that’s all, you’ve just made your first gold list

Step 2. The next day you write 26-50 words on the next double-page spread. Please, don’t look into the first list. Let magic (you consciousness) workJ))

Step 3. You do the same things with your new words every day for the next 12 days without looking at the previous lists.

Why 2 weeks? Because your short-term memory stores information for 14 weeks. If you can remember these words in 2 weeks, be sure, they’re in your long-term memory.

Distillations

On the 15th day, it’s time for the first distillation.

Take the first list (the first page), cover the foreign translation, and translate them into your native language.

Copy the words you don’t remember into the second section, and don’t forget to mark a date to keep track of your distillations. After completing the first distillation you create a new list in section #1 (day 15-th). Apart from making distillations of the headlists (1-14) you create new headlists (15-29). And this is what you need to do for the next 2 weeks.

In a month you need to make a second distillation: go back to the first double-page spread and test yourself on how many words you remember: cover the foreign words of your first distillation list and translate them into your native language. Write the words you don’t know in the third section. This is your second distillation.

Don’t forget make the first distillation in the list #15.

In two weeks it’s time for the last distillation. You take the first list again and… well, I think you know what to doJ check yourself and write the unknown words into the 4th section. And, of course, you’re keeping making distillation of other lists. Distill them at least after two weeks and create new headlists with 20-25 expressions at the same time.

What to do with the words from section 4? You can make a new headlist and keep distilling them until you remember all the words.

Would do you think about this method? Can it work for you? I decided to try this method on my own.

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