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How much time studying vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4477 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 233 of 350 20 May 2015 at 1:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I found learning the ~2000 "daily use" kanji early on to be pretty helpful for Japanese, so I can imagine that doing the equivalent for Mandarin would be useful too. For Japanese, it meant that I knew how to find a specific kanji and throw it and its companions into an electronic dictionary and find the word I was looking at in the text I was reading. Doing this by plucking kanji out of a wikipedia list sorted by stroke count was painful to say the least. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4477 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 234 of 350 20 May 2015 at 1:25am | IP Logged | |||||
Having had a modest success with Anki for vocabulary, I tried to find a way to do the same for grammar. I tried clozed deletion and that was OK, but I was remembering which word to put in which sentence (I seem to be really good at that!) rather than learning how a given construct works and also when that construct cannot be used (which seems to be a really important thing for Japanese). Then I tried to put together a deck that had the "name" of the construct, the formation and connection rules and an example sentence for each. That didn't work well, which is probably just as well as it would have taken me an age to get all that information together for the N3 and N2 textbooks that I've been using. So I've gone back to: - read the grammar - read the examples - do something else for a few days - try the exercises - track the results - repeat ... An efficient Anki for grammar would be great. ("efficient" not just in using it but also in entering the data). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 235 of 350 20 May 2015 at 7:25am | IP Logged | |||||
I do believe that I have a fairly comprehensive English vocabulary, but these items are not part of it, and if I decided to do English wordlists from a dictionary I doubt very much that I would spend time on them. I might learn them if I was reading up on some specific topic and they where used and explained there, but not just for fun. But even with fairly wellknown languages there will be lots of hitherto unknown (or at least unmemorized) words that might come in handy. I did a dictionary based wordlist campaign for Spanish earlier this year, and I would like to mention some of the items I did include: .. tromba (whirlwind - but apparently not any musical instrument except in combinations like tromba marina) trompeta (trumpet - included to reinforce the lesson learned about tromba) trompetilla (ear trumpet - as the one used by Beethoven) turbio (muddy, unclear) ... turbante (turban, MEX: squash) tul (tulle) .. The last couple of items actually look like their English (or Danish) translations, but the Spaniards might have used totally different words, so even if "turbante" and "tul" are easy to learn they do merit some special attention. And I certainly didn't know about the special Mexican use of the word for a turban. Could I have learned those words from reading? Yes of course, but it would have taken longer time, and now I'll recognize them if I actually do hit upon them later. And I don't see why it would be more efficient finding them in a book - I would probably just skip them in order not to disturb my reading. Well, maybe I actually have skipped them several times, but now I decided to learn them - and that's a big difference. Btw: 'tulle' is 'tyl' in Danish, but I actually didn't remember the English word even though I must have seen it times and again in Anglophone texts about ballet. And if that can happen in English, then it is even more likely to happen in weaker languages. As for learning grammar: I make concise summaries of morphological tables etc. on green paper both for reference and to single out the things I definitely MUST learn at an early stage. But there is no space for examples on those pages because they are supposed to be used while reading or writing, not really for simple cramming. If I should make something similar for memorization of gramamtical points as I have done for vocabulary it would be in the form of clearly formulated rules immediately followed by a series of clear and simple examples - rather than the complicated quotes from famous authors which you find in many grammars (especially slightly older ones). Linguists doing field work have to quote real examples - otherwise they lull themselves into a belief that they already know everything there is to know. But learners first and foremost should learn through examples, and the rules are mainly there to tell them what to look for in the examples - and in some cases also what to avoid. Edited by Iversen on 20 May 2015 at 7:51am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 236 of 350 20 May 2015 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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While we're at it, I started a wikia article about the alternatives to traditional grammar study.
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5242 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 237 of 350 20 May 2015 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
A funny thing about this debate here is that, in my opinion, nobody is really against wordlists. In some shape or form, wordlists are an integral part of any language learning strategy. A dictionary is really a wordlist. A list of words at the end of a chapter in a textbook is a wordlist. And the notebooks or flashcards that most of us use are also wordlists. Neither is there probably much disagreement about the value of having lots of vocabulary. Even though I've been much maligned as the 300-word maniac, I certainly believe that the more words you know the better. That is a fundamental element of knowing a language and certainly is key to understanding and speaking. So, if we agree on so much, where's the problem? The fundamental difference between many of us, I believe, is how we view the role of words. For many people, since words are separable and countable units they are the fundamental building blocks of language. Therefore it is important to learn as many as quickly as possible. Everything will becomes easier afterwards. For other people, like myself, words may be countable, but the fundamental unit of communication is the phrase, the sentence or maybe even the paragraph. There could be one-word phrases but most of the time, communication is based on streams of words. In this perspective, it's the relationships between words that are important. A word by itself has no real meaning. We can give them labels in L1 but these can be very misleading and are of limited value beyond an aid to memorization. Therefore there is greater emphasis on learning the grammar that binds words and working with entire phrases or sentences than on counting words. Let's take an example from a recent edition of the New York Times: … when Ms. Sturgeon became the party leader, she stepped not only out of the shadow of her mentor, Alex Salmond, the party’s former leader, but also out of her former subdued trouser suits, donning a de facto mantle of power: not a red ermine-rimmed cloak but a neat red pencil-skirt dress. As well as a lightened Angela Merkel- style blond bob. We can see this text as a collection of countable individual words: when, step, the, shadow, trouser, not, etc. Since we know these words beforehand, reading this text is straightforward. Well, it's not that straightforward. To really understand this text, you need a very good command of the semantic relationships and plays between the words. For example," Ms. Sturgeon…stepped not only out of the shadow…but also out of her former subdued trouser suits." I should also point out that there is a typo in the original text: "ermine-rimmed cloak" should be "ermine- trimmed cloak". How could I tell that this was a mistake? "ermine-rimmed" seemed a bit odd in this context and I also knew that ermine trimming is often used on symbols of power in Britain. These questions come to the fore when we have to explain a text like this to a person learning English. There's a lot more here than just a number of words. Edited by s_allard on 20 May 2015 at 4:25pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4161 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 238 of 350 20 May 2015 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Quite the opposite. A word in a context usually has just one meaning (save for puns, innuendos, etc.), while a word on its own can have literally dozens of meanings. And if you memorize more than one meaning of a word, such passages shouldn't pose much of a problem. An example: A card such as: 調和-tiáohé-mediate Can cause confusion (although it is a good start nevertheless). However the card I use is: 調和-tiáohé-mediate, reconcile, mix, blend, temper Edited by Ezy Ryder on 20 May 2015 at 5:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 239 of 350 20 May 2015 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
See Bakunin's methods. I'm not as extreme but I generally use dictionaries only when producing language, to double-check what I've previously learned through input. I might also use them when I'm already quite advanced, like in Portuguese and Spanish.
For me they are the fundamental blocks of comprehension, while sentences are fundamental blocks of communication. So I don't aim to learn them as quickly as possible, but I don't ignore or frown upon word counting either. I just don't stress about reaching vocabulary targets, and if I'm not satisfied with my vocabulary I will just get more input. (Although in Swedish I've tried a more creative method, namely, browsing through a dictionary of Finnish slang) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5242 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 240 of 350 21 May 2015 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think there is some misunderstanding here. A word in a certain context has a certain meaning or contributes to a certain meaning. It can have and often does have multiple meanings in multiple contexts. In an earlier post, we were given a list of English words including IN 在. We all know that IN is used in many contexts such as: The doctor isn't IN today. The money is IN the pocket Bright colours are IN this year. I'm not IN to classical music. The apartment is IN move IN condition. You are IN for a good time. The ball was IN and the player received the point. The company gave IN to the workers' demands. Etc. I'm pretty sure that the Chinese character given above doesn't apply to all the above contexts. The obvious solution would be add all the necessary characters to cover the other contexts. But this doesn't really solve the problem because we are not giving any contexts. What dictionaries do is number the meanings, give definitions or translations and examples. This whole question of meaning and usage comes to the forefront when one has to actually write or speak in the target language. Whereas in reading and listening one is given the contexts, in active usage, the learner is faced with the enormous challenge of actually putting the right forms of the right words in the right context. And hopefully all this in a manner that approximates what a native speaker would do. As all of us know only too well, this is not easy. The problem usually isn't lack of vocabulary, although this is often the excuse given. The problem most of the time is simply the lack of mastery of the overall skills required to put the words together properly. A simple informal conversation on the telephone or in person can be very challenging. In the elevator I meet a neighbour and her daughter that I haven't seen in a while. My, how the daughter has grown. It seemed only like yesterday that she was a little girl. How do I interact naturally in Spanish with them? How many words of my 8K Spanish vocabulary do I need to do this? The unfortunate reality is that I can read a complex article in the newspaper and talk with my tutor about Spanish linguistics but I can't say that I'm comfortable with small talk in Spanish. The problem isn't the lack of words. When I see or hear two Spanish-speakers chatting away on the bus, I don't perceive anything really complicated. No fancy grammatical constructions or rare words. In fact, the vocabulary used is quite small. But there are lots of popular expressions and just the sheer skill of being able to say the right things the right way. I know that some people will say that they are not interested in petty small talk and are interested only in lofty serious subjects. That's fine too but I've always observed that talking with all people, including great scientists and thinkers, usually involves a lot of chit-chat. It's basically the same with writing well in the target language. To have a bunch of words swimming around in one's brain is one thing, to be able to put 400 words down correctly on a piece of paper and sound anything like a native speaker is very difficult. This is why I consider so much of this debate about vocabulary size rather academic if not downright useless for language learners. What really matters is what you can do with the language. I would go even further and say that what matters even more is what have you done with the language. I see people claim to know so many words and to be at a certain CEFR level. I'm not insinuating that people are dishonest but I'm curious as to what they have actually done in their target language and how at ease are they using the language for real. Edited by s_allard on 21 May 2015 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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