Xenops Senior Member United States thexenops.deviantart Joined 3770 days ago 112 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 17 of 26 28 September 2014 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
The real problem is however learning large groups of semantically related words, like seven berries or twelwe different occupations or two hundred small brown birds from Africa, and it is here that it really pays to learn them dripwise - preferably from a source with pictures and explanations.
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I agree that learning from native texts prevents this unfortunate grouping. Another trick I started to use is to just open up a dictionary and commit to memory any odd word that looks interesting.
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gordafarin Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4043 days ago 12 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Persian, Spanish, Mandarin
| Message 18 of 26 30 October 2014 at 10:15am | IP Logged |
I have had a lot of trouble with opposites learned at the same time; maybe I am unusually susceptible to this kind of interference. Hot and cold, left and right, cheap and expensive... I've mixed up numbers as well.
For myself, I now make a point not to learn them together, and for the ones which the damage has already been done, I learn set phrases to remind me which is which: "No, it is too expensive!"
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6527 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 19 of 26 30 October 2014 at 11:06am | IP Logged |
gordafarin wrote:
I've mixed up numbers as well. |
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I've done this, too. I mix up six and four in Spanish, because "seis" sounds like "sei"
(Cantonese for 4), and in Cantonese I've mixed up ten and twelve, because 22 o'clock is
10 PM (so I say 12 o'clock when I want to say 10 o'clock). These are annoying little
trip-ups that have happened several times, but fortunately I know the differences well
and always catch myself, but it's interesting how mistakes like these can fossilize.
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Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5080 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian*
| Message 20 of 26 18 March 2015 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
Ari wrote:
gordafarin wrote:
I've mixed up numbers as well. |
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I've done this, too. I mix up six and four in Spanish, because "seis" sounds like "sei"
(Cantonese for 4), and in Cantonese I've mixed up ten and twelve, because 22 o'clock is
10 PM (so I say 12 o'clock when I want to say 10 o'clock). These are annoying little
trip-ups that have happened several times, but fortunately I know the differences well
and always catch myself, but it's interesting how mistakes like these can fossilize. |
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Well, even in English I still mix up Thursday and Tuesday. Also, sometimes the definition in my brain got switched regarding frog and toad.
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Yrek Pentaglot Newbie Poland Joined 3532 days ago 34 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Polish*, Japanese, Korean, English, Mandarin Studies: Vietnamese Studies: Hungarian, Mongolian
| Message 21 of 26 03 July 2015 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
I'd never confuse the opposite pairs like 'hot' and 'cold' with each other.
Maybe I could confuse arbitrary thins like numbers, months, days of the week etc, but not
the opposites.
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mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5171 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese
| Message 22 of 26 03 July 2015 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
Oh, one of those interesting threads I forgot about... So, basically, what Iversan said back here.
If I had to put my finger on something I would say that --false friends and misleading sounds aside-- learning opposites together makes sense only when you make a point of telling one from the other, i.e. actually learning them. Otherwise, it seems likely to me that you'll do the mental equivalent of putting them in some 'theme' drawer but without truly knowing which is which.
Kind of like we all know the names of many trees, flowers, surgical instruments, or whatever. Do we really know one if we see one? My guess is most people don't unless the terms in a particular category actually represent something to them that they'd better be able to tell apart.
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nikolic993 Diglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 3725 days ago 106 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian
| Message 23 of 26 04 July 2015 at 4:56am | IP Logged |
I also sometimes mix up opposites and numbers, especially when it comes to Italian.
Caldo(hot, warm) sounds like the English (cold), both start with a /k/.
Sessanta (60) - settanta (70)
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Renaçido Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 5029 days ago 34 posts - 60 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Latin
| Message 24 of 26 14 August 2015 at 12:39am | IP Logged |
I've always made sure to make lists of common opposite adjectives whenever I've started to learn a language, and it hasn't been a problem at all...
Edited by Renaçido on 14 August 2015 at 12:39am
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