Word-Meaning Recognition

Definition:

Word-Meaning Recognition is the second phase of listening comprehension. It’s the ability to instantly recognize familiar words and relate them directly to their meaning, without searching them in your vocabulary. At this stage, the bottleneck is often not your listening skill, but it’s the way your vocabulary is stored.

Signs:

You may still be developing Word-Meaning Recognition if…

• You can clearly hear the words, but you need to translate them or pause to think about the meaning of them in order to understand.

• You struggle to instantly understand words you already “know”.

How to Strengthen Word-Meaning Recognition:

• Try learning most of your vocabulary through context, rather than isolated word lists. Cramming is useful only at the very early stages of language learning.

• Do not use flashcards with only the word and the translation. If you are using flashcards, include an example sentence in which the meaning of the word is deducible enough for you.

• Whenever you learn a new word, practice pronouncing it repeatedly through Active Input.