Here’s a comment I recently made in a forum on how-to-learn-any-language.com. The thread was about whether or not it would be beneficial to try and memorize the 4000 most frequently used words in a language as a strategy for learning it.
I think what Parasitius was saying is that if you hope to learn a language through pure flashcards of important vocabulary, you will bore yourself to death, but if you combine it with reading enjoyable native materials, then it can be extremely helpful.
This has been my experience for sure. At different times I vary the percentages, but I like Parasitius’ estimates of 20% SRS and 80% reading. Also, Iverson has given some good advice on this too, saying that his wordlists are for giving him just a general sense of a word’s meaning, but it’s really reading that gives him all the multiple meanings and real usages of the words. Flashcards or wordlists will never teach you all the subtleties of usage.
Also, I recommend avoiding the idea that you can “scientifically” learn vocabulary “in order”, focusing on “completeness”. Although those things appeal to me, having a background in math and computers, I feel that this mindset is a bit of a dead end for language learning. Instead, I tell myself that I will need to experience each word multiple times in its “natural environment” before I’ll really understand it, and my flashcard work is merely “prep time” that will get me ready for the real thing.
In my mind there are several stages of “knowing” a word. At first, I might see a word a few times in books and I sort of recognize it in the sense of “hey, I’ve seen that before somewhere”. Next, I might look it up once, and get a general sense of the meaning, but I tend to forget it again soon unless I add it to Anki (my SRS of choice). As I keep reading my novels and seeing these new words several times, the word evolves from “huh?” to “oh ya, I recognize that”, to “I know the translation for that” to “I know the meaning without translating” and then to “I can use it with ease in speech”.
I’ve found that the key to moving along this path is just repeated exposure. If you’re really worried at the start that you need to collect 4000 common words and become an expert at all of them, I think you’re going in the wrong direction. Just consistently investigate words as you encounter them, and your vocabulary will grow over time. Curiousity and diligence, that’s all.
When reading, you don’t need to highlight EVERY word on the page that you don’t know. Just pick the two that are most interesting. You’ll see the other ones again eventually; you won’t “lose” them or anything, they’ll still be around later in another book or magazine or movie. As long as you’re somehow improving every day, then that’s enough.