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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 |  | |
| 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 121 of 229 11 May 2015 at 4:22am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course there is individual variation, and that is exactly my point; as much as we can say that using SRS is something people generally do (I use it much less for example, as I find this technique utterly boring), the lack of uniformity means you need to describe the procedure in terms of an approach, not just generally state that it is used. Doing things like this leads to magic bullet associations with people: "expert Serpent told me to use SRS, so I will". This is a heinous mistake for a beginner to make because it makes them reliant on expert guidance, when they need to be able to learn to fish themselves! Moreover, saying "use" SRS doesn't say anything about how effectively you are using SRS. And even if you describe one particularly common SRS setting, that doesn't mean that you should actually use it; SRS needs to adapt to you, you do not need to adapt to the SRS. It's a tool and you need to make it work for you, and that's not clear from your posting.
Well it rather should! I'm not going to do "que tal" over and over again in Spanish. I know what the hell that means. The point is that it's a tool like any other. I see all these techniques and tools as tools in a toolbox, to be pulled out when I need to use them. I'm not using hammers to dig things up and I'm not using spades to slam nails into walls. Edited by tarvos on 11 May 2015 at 4:25am 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 122 of 229 11 May 2015 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think this pretty much summarizes the differences between our use of the term "learn" a word. Let me nuance the statement "s_allard apparently is only interested in #5". What I'm really interested in is: I want to be able to express myself using the target language like my native language. To be specific, this means, among other things, the ability to: 1. write blog posts 2. write personal and professional e-mails 3. draft an academic paper 4. give a 15-minute presentation on the concept of the language nucleus for efficient language performance acquisition and answer questions 5. give a 2-minute speech thanking the organizers of a conference, briefly presenting the topic, mentioning sponsors, acknowledging important guests in the audience 6. participate in a round-table discussion 7. have a job interview 8. give an interview in the media 9. narrate stories or events and participate in informal conversations with native speakers 10. explain to a native speaker how to use a feature in MS Word 2010 My question isn't how many words do I need to do this; it's what words do I need and how to use them well. I don't worry about all the potential words people may speak to me or about running into nuclear physicists in the bakery. If I can get through half of the above list in this lifetime, I'll be very happy. 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 123 of 229 11 May 2015 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@tarvos
Definitely didn't mean to say SRS is a magic bullet! My whole point was exactly that you shouldn't make assumptions about how others are learning, especially of the "nobody does that" kind (apart from relying on Rosetta Stone :D). I also don't SRS much, I currently have a bit over 1500 cards, including the suspended ones. I mostly add special sentences, that's not boring for me :) So to clarify, I definitely agree that everyone should decide for themselves whether to use SRS or not, and that if you do, it's not all you need and generally shouldn't take the bulk of your learning time (although subs2srs can be an exception to that maybe). Edited by Serpent on 11 May 2015 at 2:14pm 1 person has 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 124 of 229 11 May 2015 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is an impressive set of goals, and you would no doubt agree that it will require a very large vocabulary. So the question is, how do you go from being a beginner to being able to handle all those topics? My approach has been to begin with a list of vocabulary used commonly across a wide range of topics and genres. I have a French frequency dictionary, and I have done my own analysis of Hindi. Taking a list like this, I work on learning the most common 2500-3000 words, which enables me to begin to read about the topics that interest me. Others go for a larger core of 5000-8000. Either way the goal is similar, learn a core of vocabulary which is used commonly across genres. I don't know about word 4999, but I can tell you that in my watching and reading, there has been no word in the list from 1-2400 which I have not come across more than once. So the frequency list has certainly served me well. I think I would be wasting my time if I did nothing but study high frequency words, but studying them along with a steady diet of the language makes sense. The vocabulary study enables whatever else you want to do. S_allard, you have mentioned Paul Nation a couple of times, but you haven't really mentioned why he is concerned with vocabulary size. His concern is that you need a core vocabulary in order to read adult texts pleasurably. So vocabulary is a means to an end, and the end of reading is what he believes is key to learning the language to a high level. I think following a plan like his is the perfect start to getting to grips on your list. So how do you plan to learn all of the words you need to eventually learn for your list? 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 125 of 229 11 May 2015 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let me answer @jeffers questions by first saying that I don't agree that the goals mentioned require a very large vocabulary. There is no reference to vocabulary size. What is required is the NECESSARY vocabulary. This is the crux of the discussion here. I believe in learning the vocabulary according to the requirements of the task instead of learning bits of vocabulary of a range of tasks just in case. Jeffers knows very well that I have argued here at HTLAL in favour of an approach that emphasizes mastering a small core of high-frequency words and essential grammar and from there expanding the vocabulary as needed. I don't think that using a frequency dictionary is a bad idea. The Routledge series is very well done. It's just that I wouldn't start studying Spanish by learning the 5000 most common words. How do I go about learning e-mail writing skills in Spanish? First of all, I analyze good models to learn the techniques in terms of style, voice, writing conventions, etc. Then I trying writing my own e-mails using the vocabulary I need. I even have a list of idioms I try to squeeze in. I then go over the end results with my tutor and we discuss the corrections. I repeat this exercise every week. In the 45 e-mails that I've written so far in this manner, how many different words have I used? I didn't count but I'd be surprised if I used more than 300. But let's say 500 just in case. That's very far from 5000 words of the frequency dictionary. But what is important is the end results. Now I do feel that I can now quickly write a short personal or professional e-mail with confidence knowing that I won't be making any egregious mistakes. This is how I am working on all the tasks that I have mentioned in my list. I don't start my learning the vocabulary. I learn the vocabulary by doing the tasks. As for why Paul Nation is concerned with vocabulary size, I agree that it is for the purpose of being able to read material in the target language. All of this in the context of language teaching. For example, a legitimate question is how much passive vocabulary does a student need to read the typical texts at university level? Paul Nation has provided valid answers to that question. But the real question is how do you get there. As I have said so many times, learn as you go along. Vocabulary expands according to need and use. Edited by s_allard on 11 May 2015 at 3:43pm 1 person has 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 126 of 229 11 May 2015 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have seen the thread rather late, but I'm one of the few learners who actually have spent valuable time measuring my vocabulary size in different languages. And my immediate reaction is that it is possible to say with some certainty what my number of known passive headwords were at certain times when measured with the help of dictionaries of differing size, but it is hard to say how long time it took to get the numbers to where they are now.
I won't go into details with my wordcounts here, but mostly I just divide the words on a number of test pages into known, not known and dubious words. From that basis I calculate total estimates AND percentages (to check the effect of varying dictionary sizes). In some cases I have afterwards run through the lists to check that I still understand the words classified known words even without a translation, and mostly the differences aren't excessive - in other words: it IS possible to train yourself only to look for words in bold or blue or whatever each dictionary uses to mark its headwords. And my conclusion is that ease in reading and to some extent listening actually IS closely tied to the percentage of known head words. It is not easy to judge 'reading prowess', but I only feel really comfortable in languages where my passive vocabulary according to my tests is above 20.000 headwords. In languages with less, like 10.000 headwords, I still prefer having a dictionary within reach. But actually the statistics of Nation et al. mostly deal with a very different question, namely how big a coverage of typical sources you obtain with growing vocabulary sizes, and because there are so big differences in the frequency of different words that makes the relationship between theoretically known words and practical reading capability somewhat more complicated. The 98% you often see quoted in the literaturę is a result of the frightening rarity of most words in any language, but it can't be taken to mean that you need 98% coverage of the words in an average novel to ask for breakfast in a hotel. There it is more a question of knowing 98% of the words which are relevant for asking for breakfast in a hotel. Back to the question about speed: how many words do I learn in a year in any given language? No idea. Words enter in one end of the bag and drip steadily out at the other end. The most relevant figure I can give stems from my studies of the efficiency of wordlist last year, where I used words from a new language, namely Serbian. OK, I had looked briefly at it several years ago, but never really got anywhere at that time. So whatever words I knew after the exercise (which took a couple of months) would have been learned during that period. Unless of course they just were guessable, like "проблем" for 'problem'. I used a dictionary with roughly 15.000 words, and at the end of the exercise I had been through some 4-5.000 words on my lists and afterwards I could translate about 60% of the words in that dictionary (quoted from memory). How can that be possible? Well, the more words you know, the better you can guess the meaning of related words (including composita), and you will also have seen un-included dictionary words and words in the wild outside the dictionary, and they bump the number. But how many words that didn't look like something else did I manage to memorize? No idea - I didn't make calculations for that. Could I then translate 60% of the Serbian words today? Probably not. I have looked at my old wordlists, and I can see that I have forgotten the meaning of many of the words on them, but I haven't made a real word count since last year. But I can definitely feel the effect. This evening I have been reading Polish and Serbian using resp. a trilingual Polish-Russian-Danish printout and a Serbian printout with translations into a number of languages. And I could speed through the Serbian text almost without help, whereas I had to check my understanding of a lot of Polish words with the help of the translations. My grammar is somewhat shaky in both, but my vocabulary is definitely better in Serbian. And apart from the short period several years ago I mentioned above, I hadn't studied Serbian or Croatian before around April last year so I must have added some 10.000 words to my passive Serbain vocabulary in 2014. But did I learn them or did most of them just become comprehensible because I had learned a few thousand words the hard way, that's the big question. I do feel the effect of having been surrounded by Polish for some days now (after fleeing Berlin and the impending rail strike), but I have no idea about the gain in vocabulary it has led to. The biggest improvement is probably that I now sometimes understand what people say, and I don't feel it as exotic to see the words Plik, Edicja, Widok, Ulubione, Narzędzia and Pomoc at the top of my screen as I did earlier this week. So I must have learnt a few relevant terms. PS: my vocabularies in the languages I claim to speak are much more stable. Once I can read everything I want to read there is not the same incentive to do an effort to boost the numbers. I do still learn names of new zoo critters, pizzas and other interesting items in for instance Italian or German, but not enough to move the numbers significantly upwards. I did a round in Spanish earlier this year, and it brought me maybe a thousand or so new words, but right now it is more relevant to learn enough words in my weak languages to get to the stage where I can read freely in them. And maybe some day speak them. Edited by Iversen on 12 May 2015 at 12:07am 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4871 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 127 of 229 12 May 2015 at 2:41am | IP Logged | |||||
There it is! On a more serious note, you mention you start to feel comfortable reading at 20,000 words. Then you say you estimated your Serbian with a dictionary of 15,000 words. Obviously, you're talking about two very different things here. About how many words are in the dictionary that you use to arrive at 20,000 for comfortable reading? And which is more useful, an estimate of your coverage of a 15,000 word pocket dictionary, or an estimate of your total vocabulary from a 150,000 word unabridged dictionary? Perhaps the former is a good measure for vocabulary coverage of ordinary texts, while the latter measures in large part your comprehension of jargon and obscure words--which might help you understand jargon-filled, obscure, or some literary texts, but says little about how complete your knowledge is of the core words in the language. Edited by robarb on 12 May 2015 at 2:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5120 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 128 of 229 12 May 2015 at 5:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Then it's very simple. You will need a L2 active vocabulary equal to your L1 active vocabulary, then. Or, if you move to Spain now and live your life in Spanish, doing all those things you listed, your L2/Spanish active vocabulary will be equal to your L1 active vocabulary. Very simple. What do you think the size of your L1 active vocabulary is? This link says, "according to Susie Dent, lexicographer and expert in dictionaries, the average active vocabulary of an adult English speaker is of around 20,000 words, with a passive one of around 40,000 words". If you do 20,000 flashcards over 3 years at 4 seconds per rep, your reps will take you 23 minutes a day :D 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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