Engaging Ways to Learn Vocabulary

if you struggle with the following learning new vocabulary remembering new words staying motivated to learn new vocabulary then this video is for [Music] you hello this is Keith from english- speaking success and the website the Keith speaking Academy here to help you develop your speaking skills in a and professional way um so today I think you're going to enjoy today's video it's an interview with Petra heresi who is the CEO of Duo cards that is a flashcard app that well it makes language lear

ning effective and engaging as well as enjoyable and it's an app that has been developed by Petra and his team in this interview we're going to talk about engaging ways to learn vocabulary we'll be discussing our own personal experience of language learning and learning vocabulary and how we've kind of both developed our own methods to learn vocabulary effectively and how those ideas can be extended to other people I think you'll enjoy this interview let's jump straight in and find out more abou

t Petra or Peter as he says I can call him in English here we go great hello um Petra nice to see you here how are you hello great I'm I'm fine thank you for inviting me to this interview Keith it's really great to see you here be with you and uh so I'm founder of dual cards and I'm very excited to talk about my the topic which I really love which is learning languages and especially learning vocabulary and let's jump straight to in let's let's go jump straight in great learning language and voc

abulary I mean I think for a lot of students they think learning vocabulary is very important why do you think vocabulary is so important for students yeah well uh like it's a the learning vocabul learning languages is a complex topic and learning vocabulary is a big part of it definitely and like important in learning languages is all of these areas and vocabulary is the big uh big thing where you need to basically start with some vocabulary if you want to make some sentences so I would say lik

e U we always we always need to learn vocabulary step by step when we start with the language and start with some small budget of vocabulary and then we can have some meaningful conversation ation right and the conversation is everything for practicing of languages so abolutely like the vocabulary like uh when you are when you're are improving in in your language so you need to still be adding more and more and especially in if you want to go to real life and start speaking with someone which is

the best practicing of all so there will be the vocabulary needed because it's like the kickstarter of all conversations and we don't want to really ask for every word which we don't know except if you want to practice your your acting right using your hands but yeah but definitely if if you if you know about the area where you are going it's great to know the vocabulary so you can talk about this right for particular topics as well to talk about the vocabulary in that area I I agree entirely w

ith with you I think it's it's it's hugely important and it's kind of a lifelong thing you never stop learning vocabulary right it goes on and on and on I'm curious about your your personal experience of learning language because you're you're from Czech yeah your your mother tongue is my mother tongue is Czech and yeah and my experience I was learning on my uh primary school was learning English and German and I kind of forgot all of German because I was not really good student in languages hon

estly from the beginning of my life because I think I was lacking the motivation so I was not I didn't see the motivation in learning German because I wasn't there I was more traveling to English speaking countries right and so what what br bring me to learning languages was Portuguese because I was traveling to Brazil and I really wanted to speak to people in Brazil because I was learning dancing there and learning dancing yeah kind what you went to Brazil to learn dancing what kind of dancing

I was learning Brazilian zook wow and yeah and when I when I came to Brazil I really figured out the there's plenty of people which are not speaking English and the Portuguese is important to know and here I was really struggling with vocabulary so for a next for my next trip I was practicing more and more and discovering better methods how to learn vocabulary properly and the language in complex right let me let me pick your let me pick your brain a bit then so you said you're struggling with l

earning vocabulary what were the kind of struggles and difficulties you were facing well it was about starting conversations and I was pretty shy when I wanted to talk because usually I was just asking how to say this and how to say that and uh and because because I I I had some really basic phrases I I was able to go to restaurant or hotel or I I was able to introduce myself but then when I was wanted to ask for something specific so I was lost kind of so it was it was about more and more pract

icing of each topic which I wanted to talk about and yeah kind of it was It was kind of looking for for some tools for some methods which will which will teach me long term vocabulary long term language did you I mean that did you discover new methods of doing it did you discover different ways of doing it did you invent your own methods how did you move forward to improve your Portuguese like mostly I was using pen and paper it was my biggest old fashioned way yeah and it's kind of f still so I

wouldn't say there is one exact method which which is working great and I think like writing down and getting familiar with the vocabulary in many of ways is important and also practicing again and again so finding something to which will help me with practicing what what about you ke what is your experience with learning languages very good question yeah so I at school I learned um French and German as well I did two years of German um I was not great at languages at school I struggled and I k

ind of half blame my teachers because everything was translation it was just direct translation and I remember at uh University I wanted to do French and my teacher said don't do French you're not very good at French don't do it um but in the end I did and I studied French at University and I went to live in France and it was when I lived in France that I everything changed I suddenly understood what language was about it was about communication it wasn't about translation and grammar rules and

and I just yeah I kind of flourished and I I really enjoyed learning the language um but I similar you when I learned Spanish in my 20s years later I I kind of was pen and paper very oldfashioned I used to listen to cassettes do you remember cassettes and I would record myself on a cassette um and then repeat it back and I found speaking for me I'm a very audio learner so I I used to for new words I would record myself self saying the word um and then say a short phrase and then play that back t

o myself so I'd be listening to myself I had a what did you call them a walkietalkie or something I can't remember a Walkman I had a Walkman and I would listen to the language again and again and again and it slowly kind of seeped in and that kind of worked for me really so you had some super difficult word and you were just listening it again and again yeah very basic right very very basic um and and and then I I would as I was kind of starting to pick up the word I would try and use it I would

try and use it in a either talking to myself or if I had a chance if I was in Spain talking to Spanish people um I also found this videos on YouTube where you when you play like thousand of words and you play it during your sleep crazy did you try this something like that but when when when I was learning there was no YouTube there was no Facebook no social media there was no I iPhone it was literally pen and paper and little cassettes that we we could use and we could buy cassettes from compan

ies like burlet and Rosetta Stone and you could listen to the words on cassettes but there was nothing nothing fancy there was no um gamification there was no there was nothing it was just very very basic very simple um but for me it was persistence as you said it was continuing continuing and practice and practice and practice but yeah it's a challenge it's interesting so I mean as people like ourselves we kind of find our own ways as well to learn vocabulary I mean what what are some for you w

hat do you think are in engaging ways or interesting ways of learning vocabulary how how can we make it more engaging yeah it's all it's all about finding the right Source where where I will be learning the vocabulary from because like just uh downloading some set of 1,000 words isn't really working I would say like it it can be connected with some if it's really connected to some lessons from the language schools so all right they probably used it but it should be it should be used Words which

we already have if in a context so I for example love watching movies or watching language lessons on you directly on YouTube it's very very easy uh and here here I see the words how they were used I can stop the video save the new word and put it on the paper and write write another sentence with this word so I will save not just the word but also the sentence where I used it and this way I I I like like saving not not too many words but just few of them a day like let's say 10 10 a day is a it

's great amount for me and and it's all about getting familiar with these words so once once I write it down I trying to say it out loud I try to find out uh for example uh similar words to this one for like today today chpt can help me with that and what are what are similar words and how how else would you say it and sometimes I just throw throw the word out because I in the end I figure out okay it's very difficult and I can supplement it with these easier words so so this is the strategy of

saving new words and you are asking from where so it can be video it can be book it can be just uh just basic conversation and I just I just write it down right right that that's really interesting I I I totally agree that kind of the context is so important that and also because then if you're watching something you enjoy you're more motivated I mean you talked about like at school not not being motivated but if you're watching a nowadays a YouTube video you enjoy or a film you enjoy and you ca

n pick out words you're more motivated and more likely to remember them I think that's the interest factor is there also also likea using these words is very important so sometimes I was I was like pretending I'm chatting with someone and WR it down or I was pretending I'm talking with someone and trying to put these words together because this is this is exactly the area where I will struggle in the real life when when it really happened in the right so so in those situations you're kind of pra

cticing on your own preparing for that real life conversation ation yeah kind of that's nice that's brilliant that's good really that's really effective I think that that the context is so important and the repetition and the practice I mean lots of students ask you know can I practice on my own do I have to practice with native speakers I don't know your experience but my my experience is that you don't have to practice with native speakers you you can practice on your own or with other non-nat

ive speakers I mean I practice I used to practice Spanish with American an Australians we would just practice together and it was fine so yeah so so this these are the methods how I'm writing the words down and where I pick them this is really important but one once I pick the words and I once I write the sentences to it and for example pick pick images it's great to have some tool which will be which will be repeating which will help me repeating these words right and because because I was alwa

ys uh forgetting all the words which I learned like one month ago for example when I when I go back and check out again the words so probably 70% of them are gone and that's that's when I realize like okay I'm I have these books I have my notepad but let's let's find methods how to how to learn them longterm term and this is where where I started to looking for applications this is where I started looking for some systems and and it really helped me to find a method called Golden list which is w

hich is used where you are just writing down the words and repeating them again in with the like another days and but basically it's all about the space repetition Sy system which which will help you to remembering the words in long term yeah absolutely um space the space repetition system well there's a lot of research behind behind it and it's it's very much um yeah that I think based on the idea that within 24 hours we forget 70% of what we've learned so needs to be repeated and repeated um t

ell us a bit more about space repetition system yeah well I was maybe too too big topic to explain exactly the steps but it's basically if I learn something I have the word and I I say okay I I I know that word I send it to to another box for example where I will be remembering I will repeating this words one after one day and if I don't know the word I put it to the box where I'll will repeat it in 10 minutes for example and this is the way how I'm putting in the boxes so I can return to these

uh words and phrases which I saved for myself and like definitely for that is great to have some some online tool if you if you are storing your words uh on your phone or computer so there are already tools developed for example doal cards which I made and uh it will it will help you with that yeah fantastic I I love how humble you are you very quickly said Doo cards which I made I mean I am in all I mean I mean full of admiration for you because you you've had a struggle you've taken an idea fo

und a solution and then you've taken technology and you've created a way for you to learn vocabulary and and now you have an app I mean you've created Duo cards which is an amazing app that helps people if I'm right right not just learn English but different languages yeah yeah it's it's it's for all languages because it's connected to API so basically you can you can save any any language you want and if you learn language of Spanish there is plenty of materials prepared for you and if it's mor

e exotic uh if it's more exotic language you'll probably have to say your own word only few sources so this is yeah how it works it's it's nice I mean I to be honest I have been learning some Chinese vocabulary through your app through Duo cards um and it's been awesome because they I've been watching the videos of Americans and Chinese people speaking together conversations and I've been capturing words and saving them and and practicing them um and it's great I I think it's just it is very ver

y motivating to be able to capture words from things you're reading or listening to or watching and then to be immediately putting them in a system of learning um do do you think enjoyment and fun is is important then is that an important part of what you've designed yeah like definitely if you if you if you find your topic so it's great to to for fun I would say it's it will it will come if you are learning the topic which you like so so it's it's kind of fun to to learn learn exactly the topic

which you're interested in and watching the videos you're interested in and if you have something to yeah something like this it's if it's fun if it's easy and if it's if it's coming to you like a game and it's engaging so then it can be fun you can come back every day and learn for 10 minutes definitely yeah it's the motivation again students often ask me they say you know I I try and learn new words and then I forget them and I'm always forgetting words do you have that difficulty or is there

how do you overcome that challenge it will it will always come to the come to this frustration from words and this is where I recommend if it if the words is too it's it's too difficult for me and I'm not frequently using it so let's just put it into the folder or somewhere where I will come back in a half a year for example and let's find synonyms which are easier so this is this is for example method how to avoid this frustration yeah oh that's really that's a really good point actually a ver

y good point because I think a lot I I know a lot of students expect to be able to use every single word that they learn and that this happens on my courses as well students say I've been learning the words you're teaching but I can't use all of them but I think as you said it's important to realize you will never use all of the language that you learn um a large part of it is what we call passive language you know you can recognize it you'll understand it but you can't use it um and it just sit

s in that as you said in the box and it's it's language that is passive and there's a much smaller percent which is language we can actively use we can not only recognize it but I can use it in a conversation so maybe it's about expectations as well for for students to think I'm not gonna use every single word I learn um but I like your your idea of it goes in a box and you maybe come back to it years later and maybe in the future you will activate it but you don't need to activate everything ju

st don't don't be afraid to use use eraser and put it put it somewhere out the the word definitely exactly you brought up another important point which is around building up vocabulary synonyms or similar words um you know I could add word families when you have a word and you look at the noun and the adjective and the verb around that word building all that up really helps um because I don't know I don't know if in czechia students are obsessed with numbers of words in a lot of Asian countries

students say I know 1,500 words in English and they know how many words they've learned do do students in Che you do that I don't I don't think so I never I never counted it this way right and I I would even say like less is sometimes more yes so yeah I'm or definitely for me this is not this is not about counting right and you you are talking about about the similarities and the context of the words so I think for this is great uh today's Technologies because we can always use some diction onli

ne dictionaries we can use AI to ask for for some like like hey AI help me to remember this word give me some text about it about it and it usually it usually works it's not perfect but it will help me to give me some ideas around I can always ask for synonyms like I said so like there's plenty of tools which will help with these and ideally combine all these tools in one in one application would be great right right yes well technology is is driving many many things and it's driving business it

's driving education language learning obviously as you said chat GPT I I agree I think it can be a tool to help you I think a lot of people are worried about it taking all of our jobs I i' very much doubt that will happen it's kind of working with us I mean you're you have a strong background in tech technology um do you do you think that I don't know that with all the technology that in the future maybe we don't need to learn languages I don't think so we will always be we will always be human

s and we want to talk so I think I think they will definitely help us with learning uh and maybe maybe there will be no like not much motivation to learn more languages like if I'm I learn English and Spanish for example so maybe there will be less polyglots yeah exactly but definitely we will need always to speak fluently in our work meetings or with our colleagues and with our friends so yeah I agree and and for hobbies like your case of the uh we don't want to we don't want to speak to some p

hones all the time and I think I think they will be really good assistance these Technologies and Ai and stuff yeah I trust this yeah I I I agree and obviously I mean you're I I've not heard your Portuguese but your English is fantastic you've done a great job in learning English really really good so I think we we'll come come to the end W winding up if if students are interested in finding more finding out more about you and Duo cards where where can they go well just download the doo cards ap

p and try it on your own it would be great don't forget to click on the link under this video If you will be downloading to give a credit to ke thank you ke very much my pleasure and for for all all of you are doing it's great it's great great well listen thank thank you so much as well thank you for for joining us today sharing your ideas about you know vocabulary learning and your personal journey I think that's really really interesting as well and um that's it we'll we'll stay in touch thank

you so much thank you ke goodbye take care bye bye goodbye fantastic I hope you enjoyed the interview I hope you learned something new something interesting if you are interested in developing your vocabulary well and you like flashcard apps you can check out Duo cards there's a link down below you can download the app um for free there is also a paid version if you go through the link below then they give credit to me at no extra cost to you go and check it out if you find that it's for you th

en fantastic listen thank you for watching thank you to p ra for doing the interview and to all of you for watching us if you've liked it remember to like it um subscribe and turn on notifications that's it listen thank you so much I will see you in the next video take care my friend [Music] bye-bye