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How many words you learn per year (avg) | ||
Tags: Poll | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4333 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 97 of 229 09 May 2015 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed, this is why we are talking about vocabulary size. If I'm the listener and have a vocabulary size of X > Y, then the probability of understanding my interlocutor is greater than with a vocabulary size of Y. If I use the language actively, I'm in control about what I'm saying, so the active vocabulary I need depends on what I want to say and how I want to say it. Depending on what you want to do and how well you can paraphrase your thoughts with a small vocabulary, you might not need to know many words. For understanding other people, you don't have this luxury as you don't have control about what they say (well, you might have limited control). Big passive vocabulary sizes are needed to increase your odds of comprehension in an unknown situation. On the other hand if all I want to do is to listen to lectures about diachronic linguistics of the north-germanic languages, I can prepare much more specifically and therefore would be good with a lower vocabulary size, I just need to choose carefully what to study and what not. But if that's all I want to do, learning the language is probably a waste of time, why not pay a translator instead to make the information available in my native tongue? Edited by daegga on 09 May 2015 at 6:58pm 4 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 98 of 229 09 May 2015 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a variation of - suppose-the-person-in-the-bakery-asks-me-about-quantum-physi cs argument. I need to learn 20000 words in French because I may be in a French bakery and the person behind the counter suddenly decides to ask me a complicated technical question. I only hope that the question is about a subject whose words I've studied. If I may again quote or paraphrase myself: "Vocabulary expands and contracts according to use and need." If you read a lot of articles on quantum physics, you will acquire the terminology of quantum physics. If you are interested in submarines, you will acquire the vocabulary to discuss submarines with other aficionados. Where's the problem? Do you read articles on quantum physics just in case you run into somebody who is interested in this topic? Do we know all the words about everything in our native languages? A skill that we have all acquired is how to use the vocabulary that we have to acquire more vocabulary. So, if I meet a neuroscientist at a dinner party, do I have to have an extensive vocabulary of neuroscience to be able to talk to this person? Of course not, if I show enough interest and intelligence, the person will adapt their language to my level of vocabulary. And I will pick up some vocabulary at the same time. As I explicitly said in my previous post, when I mention this idea of a small vocabulary nucleus, people immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm saying that you need not learn anything else. Learn what you need as you go along. Don't learn words just in case you might run into them. Edit: corrected raraphrase to paraphrase. Edited by s_allard on 10 May 2015 at 5:26am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4721 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 99 of 229 10 May 2015 at 12:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe if you spent less time buying baked goods and more time studying vocabulary you'd be ready.
[Edit: sorry but I've seen this exaggerated example of quantum-physics-in-a-bakery one time too many.] Edited by Jeffers on 10 May 2015 at 1:03am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5048 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 100 of 229 10 May 2015 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
That is a good idea, can you loan me your psychic-time-travel device so I can go forward and write down exactly what words I'll need to know? 5 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 101 of 229 10 May 2015 at 3:29am | IP Logged | |||||
I totally agree. Aren't we saying the same thing? Since we don't know what words we'll need to know, why try to learn them in advance? As I have said here many times, there is no doubt that more (passive) vocabulary is better than less. If you want to read a newspaper like the New York Times from cover to cover every day, you will need a huge vocabulary. The same for El Pais or El mundo every day. Considering that the biggest Spanish dictionary contains 94000 words, do you try to learn all 94000 words before opening El Pais? After all, you don't know what words will show up. I may be wrong, but I think it's a bad idea to try to learn let's say 40000 Spanish words just in case. There are still 54000 that you will have missed. I think a much more effective strategy is to learn that very small number of high-frequency words that are sure to be there, including of course a solid grounding in grammar. Then learn the new words as you encounter them. So, you build your vocabulary as you go along, seeing the words in context. The funny thing is that this is exactly what we do in our native languages. Nobody says" Uh, I should learn 8000 words a year before trying to read The Guardian". I keep saying: Vocabulary will expand or contract according to use and need. This doesn't seem hard to understand. Edited by s_allard on 10 May 2015 at 3:30am 1 person has 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 102 of 229 10 May 2015 at 3:37am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't want to sound muy raro while paraphrasing ;) It's great to be understood but even better to express yourself precisely. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4519 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 103 of 229 10 May 2015 at 4:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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It depends on the stage you're at. As a beginner, I'll settle for being understood. As an
intermediate learner, I'll settle for a phrase being grammatical (not necessarily idiomatical, hopefully, but grammatically correct). As an advanced learner I'll focus on the elegance. It doesn't make sense to fly if you can't run or even walk. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4450 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 104 of 229 10 May 2015 at 4:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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After the first few thousand words I don't think anyone learns vocabulary from word lists or flash cards.
"Vocabulary will expand or contract according to use" is correct in my opinion, s_allard says "use and need" but I'm not sure you can really learn a word via need. But it's not just a case of learning whatever words we encounter. We select for ourselves what we read and therefore which types of words are encountered. So if I think I might some day want to talk quantum mechanics with a German, I should read some quantum mechanics books in German. If I don't know many generic science terms I should read some sciencey stuff so I'm prepared for general conversations. This sort of planning ahead seems fairly reasonable to me. Edited by AlexTG on 10 May 2015 at 4:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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