The last month has been a big one! A lot has been going on--all of it good--but it's pulled me away from regular language study and writing in a big way. I'm getting back on the horse now, but coming back to the projects I was working on is pretty disorienting. Need to dig through my in-progress work, make a list of things that are close to finished so I can get get them wrapped up and posted. I think there's a few vocabulary handouts almost ready, and one or two new essays.
I've been really preoccupied with Sumo training, and I think I've learned something--the value of drilling. I've complained before about the difficulty of memorizing and acquiring vocabulary, and I've spent more time than I care to say trying to strategize an efficient way to memorize vocabulary (verb Stems in particular). But I think endlessly drilling Sumo movements has finally prepared me to emotionally accept the real truth: there's no way to do it but to buckle down and drill. I think trying to strategize and find some kind of fast-track "trick" to quickly learn vocabulary may be a fool's errand. Of course there are better ways to study vocabulary, and worse ways, but I've come to accept that there's simply no way to do it that does not involve repetitively drilling.
This has got me interested in the possibility of taking my Beginner Verb List and producing documents with both Stem Forms and longer lists of Index Forms--probably in 3rd and 1st Person only (at least at first). The idea would be to have documents that I can print, and keep on hand throughout the day to drill throughout the day. Just practice reading, pronouncing, seeing, getting familiar with the verbs using the blunt force of rote memorization and endless repetition.
Hell, I might even start tracking the number of repetitions I've done per day, as if it's a workout. I just need to make those drill documents--starting, I think, with the High Use verbs first. Then the Feeling and Condition verbs, probably. And then I need to follow through!
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