Build vocabulary retention with spaced repetition

Plan vocabulary acquisition and retention using spaced repetition science

Building efficient vocabulary progressions for any language by frequency-banding the 2,000-5,000 core word families that unlock independent reading

• · target language word frequency list or corpus
• · learner current vocabulary size
• · available review time per day

• · daily vocabulary targets (10-20 words optimal)
• · spaced repetition schedule (Leitner or SM-2)
• · cognate exploitation list (language-pair specific)
• · word family network (morphological relationships)

• · Anki or equivalent SRS software (optional but recommended)
• · word frequency lists (corpus-based)

Target language identified; learner able to commit 15-30 min daily to review; access to comprehensible input for contextual encoding

Learning >20 words/day creates unsustainable review backlog; massed cramming instead of spaced repetition yields rapid forgetting; decontextualized list memorization (no meaning attachment)

• · Nation (2001, 2006) research on vocabulary thresholds for reading comprehension (78-98% coverage mapped to word counts)
• · Ebbinghaus (1885) forgetting curve and 60% 24-hour loss quantified; spacing effect empirically demonstrated
• · Leitner and SM-2 algorithms with pseudocode; Anki's popularity documented (most-used SRS)
• · Cognate density by language pair with examples (English-French 27%, Spanish-Italian 82%)