WordieVocabulary & Language Learning Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the memory science, linguistics and study-method terms every language learner runs into, from active recall to the zone of proximal development.
A
- Academic Word List (AWL)A list of 570 word families, compiled by Averil Coxhead (2000), that occur frequently across academic texts in many subjects but are not among the mos…
- Active Recalla study technique in which you deliberately retrieve information from memory, for example saying a word's meaning before flipping the card, instead of…
- Affective Filtera hypothesized mental barrier, raised by anxiety, low motivation or low self-confidence, that prevents a learner from fully acquiring language from in…
C
- CEFRthe Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, a Council of Europe standard published in 2001 that describes language ability on six levels…
- Cloze Deletiona fill-in-the-blank exercise in which one or more words are removed from a sentence or passage and the learner must supply them using the surrounding …
- CognateA word that shares its origin with a word in another language and usually still looks and means something similar, such as English night, German Nacht…
- CollocationA combination of words that occur together more often than chance would predict and sound natural to native speakers, such as heavy rain, make a decis…
- Comprehensible Inputlanguage that a learner can understand, mostly from context and prior knowledge, even though it contains some words or structures they do not yet know…
- ConnotationThe emotional tone, attitude or associations a word carries in addition to its literal meaning, which is why slim sounds positive, thin neutral and sc…
- Context CluesHints in the words, sentences and situation around an unfamiliar word that help a reader infer its meaning, such as a definition, synonym, contrast or…
D
- Desirable Difficultieslearning conditions that slow down or complicate practice in the short term, such as spacing, testing or interleaving, but lead to better long-term re…
- Dual Codingthe idea, from psychologist Allan Paivio's 1971 theory, that information stored both as words and as mental images is remembered better than informati…
E
- Encodingthe first stage of memory, in which perceived information is transformed into a form that can be stored; how deeply and richly something is encoded st…
- EtymologyThe origin and history of a word, including the language it came from, its earlier forms and how its meaning has changed over time; also the branch of…
- Extensive Readingan approach to language learning in which you read large amounts of easy, self-chosen material quickly and for enjoyment, focusing on overall meaning …
F
- False FriendA word in one language that looks or sounds like a word in another but has a different meaning, such as Spanish embarazada (pregnant) and English emba…
- Flesch–Kincaid Readabilitya pair of formulas, the Flesch Reading Ease score and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level, that estimate how difficult an English text is to read from its …
- Forgetting Curvea graph of how memory for newly learned material declines over time: steeply in the first hours and days, then more slowly, first measured by Hermann …
- Fossilizationthe process by which certain errors or non-native features in a learner's second language stop changing and persist, even with continued exposure, pra…
- FSRSan open-source spaced repetition algorithm (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler) that predicts the probability you will recall each card, using a model o…
G
H
I
- IdiomA fixed expression whose overall meaning cannot be worked out from the meanings of its individual words, such as spill the beans (reveal a secret) or …
- Incidental Vocabulary Learningthe learning of new words as a by-product of doing something else, such as reading, listening or watching for meaning, without deliberately setting ou…
- Input HypothesisStephen Krashen's theory that people acquire a language by understanding messages slightly beyond their current level (i+1), and that speaking ability…
- Intensive Readinga careful, slow way of reading a short and relatively difficult text in which you study its vocabulary, grammar and meaning in detail, often with a di…
- Interleavinga practice schedule that mixes different topics, skills or problem types within a session (ABCABC) instead of finishing one before starting the next (…
K
L
- Language Immersionlearning a language by being surrounded by it and using it for real purposes, such as school subjects, work, media or daily life, rather than only stu…
- Language Interferencethe influence of a learner's first language (or another known language) on a new one that leads to errors, such as using a native word order, a false …
- Leitner Systema paper flashcard method in which cards move through a series of boxes: a correct answer promotes a card to a box reviewed less often, while a wrong a…
- LemmaThe base or dictionary form of a word together with its inflected forms within one part of speech, so that run, runs, ran and running all count as the…
- Lexical ChunkA group of words that speakers store and retrieve as a single prefabricated unit, such as by the way, as far as I know or I was wondering if you could…
- Lexical CoverageThe percentage of the running words (tokens) in a text that a particular reader knows. At 98 percent coverage, about one word in fifty is unfamiliar.
- Lexical DensityThe proportion of content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives and most adverbs) among all the words in a text, used as a measure of how informational…
- Lexile Measurea number followed by L (such as 850L), from the Lexile Framework by MetaMetrics, that places a reader's ability or a text's difficulty on one shared s…
M
- Massed Practicestudying or practicing the same material in one concentrated block with little or no gap between repetitions, as in cramming the night before a test; …
- Memory Consolidationthe process by which a newly formed, fragile memory is gradually stabilized and integrated with existing knowledge, over hours (synaptic consolidation…
- Method of Locia mnemonic technique in which you imagine placing items to be remembered at specific locations along a familiar route, then mentally walk the route to…
- Mnemonica memory aid, such as an acronym, rhyme, image or story, that links new information to something already familiar or easy to picture so that it can be…
- MorphemeThe smallest unit of language that carries meaning or grammatical function. The word unbelievable has three: un- (not), believe and -able (can be).
P
- Phrasal VerbA verb combined with one or two particles (adverbs or prepositions such as up, out, off or on) that together work as a single unit of meaning, often d…
- PolysemyThe situation in which a single word has two or more related meanings, such as head (part of the body, leader of a group, front of a line) or run (mov…
- Productive VocabularyThe words a person can retrieve from memory and use correctly in their own speaking and writing, with the right form, meaning, grammar and collocation…
R
- Receptive VocabularyThe words a person can recognize and understand when reading or listening, whether or not they can produce those words in their own speech or writing.
- RegisterThe variety of language a speaker chooses for a particular situation, audience and purpose, especially its level of formality, as in kids (informal), …
- Retrieval Practicea learning strategy in which you practice bringing information back to mind, through quizzes, flashcards or free recall, because the act of retrieving…
S
- Sentence Mininga vocabulary method in which you collect real sentences from things you read, watch or hear, each containing one new word or structure, and review the…
- Shadowinga speaking and listening exercise in which you repeat recorded speech aloud almost simultaneously, a fraction of a second behind the speaker, copying …
- SM-2 Algorithma spaced repetition algorithm created by Piotr Woźniak in 1987 for SuperMemo, which schedules each flashcard using a per-card ease factor that grows o…
- Spaced RepetitionA study method in which you review information at gradually increasing intervals (for example 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month) so that each review happ…
- Spacing Effectthe finding that information studied in several sessions spread out over time is remembered far better than the same amount of study packed into one s…
T
- Testing Effectthe research finding that taking a test on material, even with no grade or feedback, improves long-term retention more than spending the same time res…
- Type-Token Ratio (TTR)A measure of lexical diversity calculated by dividing the number of different words (types) in a text by the total number of words (tokens). Higher va…
V
- Vocabulary SizeThe number of words a person knows, usually measured in word families or lemmas and usually referring to receptive knowledge, meaning words recognized…
- Vocabulary Size Testan assessment that estimates the total number of words a person knows, usually by testing a sample of words from each frequency band and multiplying t…
W
- Word FamilyA base word together with its inflected forms and its common derived forms, treated as one unit when counting vocabulary, for example develop, develop…
- Working Memorythe limited-capacity system that holds a few pieces of information in mind for seconds while you use them, for example keeping a new word's sound in m…
Z
- Zipf's LawThe observation that in a large body of text, a word's frequency is roughly inversely proportional to its frequency rank, so the second most common wo…
- Zone of Proximal Developmentthe gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with guidance from a teacher or more capable peer; Vygotsky saw learning in t…