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Disappointed about English vocab test | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5651 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 1 of 69 14 October 2011 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have just completed the test recommended by Professor Arguelles in his "Extensive
Reading and Vocabulary Range", in order to find out my English vocabulary size. I only know 9200 word families and I am very disappointed and angry with the result. The main reason for my disappointment and anger is that despite learning English for 20+ years since kindergarten as the first language (i.e. as though you are a native speaker), I have far fewer knowledge of word families than a native speaker (20,000 word families). The requirement of learning English as a L1 is compulsory in Singapore and everyone here should, by definition, have a L1 standard of English. All the other subjects are taught in English, with the exception of Mother tongue (Chinese in my case). I learn Chinese as a 2nd language in school, despite the fact that it is my better language. As my parents can only speak Mandarin and growing up without any English, learning English as L1 caused me a lot of problems. I am much slower in learning new English vocabulary and I cannot assimilate the grammar. I can only overcome English only some years ago in the university, where the English tutors there applied 2nd language teaching techniques that boost my ability of English. If you are wondering of the status of my "native" language Mandarin, I can say that my standard is lower than that of someone who comes from China. As I am learning Mandarin (Chinese) as a 2nd language, I actually learn much less vocabulary than with English. i did not learn any specialized terms in Chinese, as these terms are taught through other subjects in English. In addition, the secondary school syllabus of Chinese in Singapore is barely equal to the primary school syllabus of Chinese in China. Furthermore, the method to teach Chinese is very mechanical and outdated: forcing the students to memorize long wordlists of literal vocabulary which one rarely use in conversion. If my parents did not speak to me in Mandarin, my Chinese could have been a disaster! One of the most nonsensical things that anger me is that I am not allowed to study Chinese literature because of my English results! During my schooldays, the education system emphasized the important of English, that if you did not do well for English, a lot of doors were closed to you. I did badly for my English language and English literature and hence I wanted to study Chinese literature instead. But the school replied that I need to polish my English in order to study Chinese literature as this is a directory from the ministry of Education. Years after I left, the ministry decided to change this rule and allowed anyone with strong Chinese to study Chinese literature, regardless of their English results. This incident caused me to hate English literature and unable to appreciate Chinese literature. In short, I do not have literacy in my best languages! This is a big blow to me as a language lover. I do not have a native language in the strictest sense an I wonder how I should learn other languages? Personally, I would like to have Russian or French to take the role of my "native" language, but I think I should brush up my Chinese or English instead. Edited by Fasulye on 15 October 2011 at 11:07am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4852 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 69 14 October 2011 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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You know the most spread languages as a native speaker. You can always make some effort
and learn some Mandarin terms and anything else. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5052 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 3 of 69 14 October 2011 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Could you give a link to this test? I'm very curious about it. And don't be angry with the results. Nobody can possibly know as much words as a native speaker does unless he has lived in a country where the language is spoken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| balou67 Triglot Newbie France Joined 5028 days ago 15 posts - 31 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese | Message 4 of 69 14 October 2011 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel so sad for you… I hope someday people will be allowed to choose language for
pleasure instead of undergoing humiliations like almost denying one's own culture and silly drills to ease the path for the whites and still not feeling respected and rewarded in any way. To master a mother language has nothing to do with "knowing the most spread languages". Asians should understand that English mustn't be allowed to rule the world as well as their lives, as westerners should see that in no way can our children learn chinese efficiently at school. Frustrating so many kids, even torturing them, just for the sake of fulfilling their parent’s dream they’ll one day all have "good job" and "money" makes me wanna p***! Well… forget what I just said… I have difficulties with that kind of facts. It’s beyond my understanding. Edited by balou67 on 14 October 2011 at 9:21pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4862 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 5 of 69 14 October 2011 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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What is the test that Professor Arguelles recommended?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6705 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 69 14 October 2011 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here it is:
http://my.vocabularysize.com/ 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5562 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 69 14 October 2011 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm curious what result you get with http://testyourvocab.com/.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5901 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 69 14 October 2011 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I scored a vocabulary of 23,800 word families out of a maximum 25,000.
I'm a native English speaker so this isn't surprising, but some of the words were tough nevertheless. Of the words used in the test I'm guessing that I know only 15% in my target language (Polish). A lot of the words are uncommon, so anyone with a low score should not be too discouraged. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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