北外文秋芳教授：碰到新词6做法_北外网院

如果有人说 you have an elephant's memory，你是该高兴还是生气呢？如果有人说 your memory is like a sieve，你又该是笑还是哭呢？当你打中一头大象的时候，疼痛的大象会记恨你一辈子，所以说大象的记性很好。So in English, we say someone has an elephant’s memory, that means your memory is excellent. 相反，筛子上面有好多洞，稍微一晃荡东西就漏出去了。所以你的记性被别人比作筛子的话，实在是大大的讽刺。

记性好坏人人有别，但学习语言，尤其是学习单词，偏偏需要好记性。怎么办？北外文秋芳教授关于词汇的讲座，会弥补我们记性方面的不足。

How do we deal with new words in reading? 如何对待阅读中出现的生词？

Options for dealing with new words.

1 ignore it 完全忽略
2 guess it from the context 根据上下文猜测词义
3 consult a dictionary 查字典
4 guess it first and then consult a dictionary 先猜再查字典
5 look for clues to meaning in the word itself 根据词的前后缀等特征推断词义
6 ask the teacher or a friend for assistance 直接问人

Options. When you come across a new word, you may ignore it. Skip it over. You won't do anything with that. So ignore it. That is the first option.

The second option is you guess the meaning of the word from the context. Guess it. Right? The second option.

The third option is to consult the dictionary. This is more common.

And then guess it first. And then consult the dictionary. That’s the fourth option.

The fifth option is to look for clues to meaning in the word itself. Just now we did, word analysis, right? So you just analyze the word, see its parts, meaning of each part. Put them together. See that what does the word mean.

And the last one is ask the teacher or friend for assistance. If I (you) don't know the meaning of this word, you may ask your friend. You see what does the word mean. If your friend can help you, this is a short-cut. Right? You do not need think anything. But you might forget easily.

And for all these options, we might do it on different occasions. But the most important thing is I would like to warn you when do you use which. （无论选择哪种方法，我们首要的目标是选取最合适的方法。）

When do you ignore it? When do you ignore it? If that particular word is not important for you to understand the text, you may decide to ignore it. Don't waste your time to consult the dictionary. Don't waste your time guessing it. Just skip it over. If the word is very technical, is about a sort of medicine, is a sort of special disease, maybe you can skip it over. You know that this is a disease. So we can skip it over. （时间紧，任务重，不关键，又专业，你就可以当没看到这个生词。）

Now guess it from the context. This is rather common. If you want to learn the word as a receptive word, particularly as a reading word, just guess it from the context. You might not consult the dictionary. You might not write it down and try to remember its spelling.（如果生词的地位被你划归为仅供阅读等级，那就尽管猜测它的含义吧。）

And consult dictionary. When you consult dictionary, try to learn it carefully. Usually you learn the first 3,000 words. You'll consult the dictionary, because you want to see its use. You want to see examples. You want to see the warnings the dictionary compiler gives you. So for the first 3,000 words, very often you need consult the dictionary.（对待你生命里的头三千个单词，你需要认真翻阅字典。）

Guess it first. Then consult the dictionary. I would like to encourage you to do this because when you guess it, you try to use your brain. You work very hard. If you guess it first, even your guess is not right, then you consult the dictionary, you'll find your guess is wrong, then you can remember the correct one better. Then without guessing, you see. This I will recommend you to do it. Then look for clues to meaning in the word itself for low-frequency words, for low-frequency words.（绿色显示文教授最中意方法。猜测+认证=牢固记忆生词）

And finally ask teacher or your friend for assistance. I don't know when you should use it. Do you know that? Do you want to get help from a teacher or a friend when you come across a new word? Most of time, maybe you would like to rely on yourselves. Right? So unless you haven’t got a dictionary, you haven’t anything at hand, so no other choice, maybe you can get help from other people. So this is the last resort.（生词问人很简单。问题不是每次都有人能告诉你答案。你有这个好运气吗？求人不如求己。）

此外，文教授还交给我们避免遗忘生词的好方法。

Suggestions
1 Learn words repeatedly, with increasing intervals between learning sessions. 反复记忆生词，并且科学地选择记忆间隔时间。

科学研究显示，许多头次碰到的生词，在20分钟之内就被我们忘得一干二净了，真是不幸。

接下来的1个小时，我们又忘掉一些；8小时之后，再忘掉一些，此后，我们的遗忘速度将会趋于稳定。

所以，我们要抓住和利用这些容易遗忘的时间点，进行反复地强化记忆。

2 Have the words you want to learn with you whenever you go.抓住一切时间记单词。
在路上，坐公车或者睡觉前，你一般无法做重要的事情，因此文教授把这些时间称为"dead time"。而背单词恰巧可以充分利用这些“死”时间，是不是可以把这看成“变废为宝”呢？

3 Set aside a regular time for vocabulary learning. 定出学单词计划。

抓紧“死”时间的同时，你最好也能专门为单词记忆腾出些时间来。建议最少一天10分钟，一周或者一个月60分钟。

4 Spend more time on the words you find difficult.重点攻关有难度的词汇。
许多学习者喜欢把不认识的生词列在一张纸上，然后有时间就拿出来温习一遍。问题出现了：排在前面的单词总是记得更牢；不少时间都浪费在了已经记住的单词上。

所以文教授给出的建议就是：制定3份生词表——日表、周表和月表。一旦某个单词你连着几天都记住了，那就赶快把它“请”到周表上去，你只需1周去“探望”一次。如果你仍旧没有将它们遗忘，那就让它们“住”到月表里去吧。这样做，我们可以永远把精力放在我们没学会的词汇上面。