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Bookworm’s adventures-TAC15
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rdearman
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

Message 129 of 217

27 May 2015 at 6:43pm | IP Logged

Cavesa wrote:

Via Diva, have I already confessed my feelings towards you? It is not just gratefulness for your offer of links to what-must-not-be-named. You've been one of the constant inspirations and one of those I admire! And I don't recommend books about self-discipline and stuff, they make far too convenient procrastination excuses :-D

Speaking of procrastination. I went through a few pages of the newest vocabulary thread. I really liked the first few pages, where I could read about routines of other people that are food for thought. The rest turned into the usual battle full of strawmen with the same combatants on each side and same arguments. I don't feel like participating for a dozenth time, especially as I feel like just my person is becoming more oil to the fire. So, inspired by the thread, I thought of summing up my thoughts on the matter. Even if noone else is interested in my opinion, I can sort my thoughts up.

-while knowing a few hundred words is certainly enough to get you started, even get you started with speaking, only a fool can believe knowing really well a few hundred words suffices for most kinds of conversations, unless you want to bore the natives to sleep. And remember that most languages are very different from English where you can basically substitute most verbs by one of the most common ones with a preposition. And the more different is the new language from your old ones, the more vocabulary learning awaits you.
-CEFR exams, both those I have passed and others I have only informed myself about, DO usualy evaluate your vocabulary. No, the examinator doesn't count words. But they certainly pay attention whether you use appropriate words, whether you aren't repeating yourself too much and so on. A practical example: I was warned by an examinator I had spoken with before my CAE, that repeated use of words like "good" and "interesting" is a serious red flag.
-frequency lists and such tools cannot predict what words are YOU gonna need. A frequency list based on newspaper vocabulary won't cover your needs in many other areas.
-however, vocabulary sources (like Vocabulaire Progressif) can give you base for a wide range of situations. For everyday vocabulary, I can as well recommend tv series and books of the "lower" genres.
-sure, you can always use a dictionary and ask the native for a word. But if you do it too much, you'll bore and annoy yourself and (which is worse) the native. You can make your life much more comfortable by learning a few thousand words you are likely to need before the necessity actually arises.
-sure, you can learn a lot from input and should choose input of appropriate level for you. But sometimes, the graded readers are just so boring... and yes, you can learn most of the commonly learnt words from books and movies but there are words you are gonna need and that happen to be in your input once or twice per 10000 pages. And they might be vital for some situations.
-about srs decks: noone forces you to use a premade one without any changes. delete words you don't see yourself using. add words from your studies
-of course you cannot learn a language just by hoarding words, just by learning a 5000 core words list on memrise without anything else. Of course. And the htlalers usualy know that perfectly fine. But vocabulary learning, whether you use more immersion tools or lists and srs, needs to be part of the learning process. All the grammar and accent in the world won't save you if your vocabulary is smaller than that of three year old.
-learning a list doesn't necessarily mean learning without context. the other pillars of learning usually provide that and you can always google more. I've correctly actively used words I had only encountered in a premade srs deck a few times already. So, I wouldn't doom those decks either.

A practical example:
1.One of the posters (I think rdearman?) found a great book about the Bombai city, which is above his current level. But it makes him much more interested and passionate than some graded book or kids' stories. Therefore there is no reason to switch for something else.
2.A common vocabulary poster claims there are two approaches: just diving in with a dictionary no matter how much work it is going to be (intensive reading is about that but not everyone can be an intensive reader. i surely cannot). The other is just memorising a 10000 words list and hoping the words are gonna be there. That is one of the common strawmen, in my opinion. Of course there are gonna be many differen words.
3.My approach is a third one: no general/newspaper frequency list but learning a few lists of words commonly associated with description of city layout, architecture, history. And then dive in and get lost much less often and enjoy the reading much more right away.

Really, you cannot predict future and every new situation is likely to teach you a few more words. But refusing to learn too much beforehand, in fear of learning some useless words, that is stupid and may cost you, from my experience. There are situations that make you wish you had learnt more vocabulary.

So, if someone was asking me: "Cavesa, how the hell am I gonna learn all that vocabulary? There is so much of it!" I'd say:
"No worries, you don't need to learn it all at once. You don't need to guess your future needs. Start with vocabulary builders for beginners and intermediates, use the vocabulary lists in your course. Continue with lots of native input, that will teach you lots of vocabulary in context, even though not everything you are likely to need. Use any kind of dictionary you find comfortable whenever you feel the need. Use SRS if you like, or write lists, try mnemonics or whatever else that might be helpful. Don't worry about not knowing all the meanings of a word at once. Learn the most common few and acquire the rest on the go. And above all, don't freak out, there is no reason to. At any time, look up words YOU are likely to need no matter their overall frequency. Find out examples, google is your friend. And don't forget you'll need a much larger passive than active vocabulary as the natives don't usually go through lobotomy before speaking to learners."

Thanks for either reading or skipping this. Now that it's writen down, I no longer feel any temptation to respond to the vocab threads of doom.

Well the more recent pages of that thread have become more factual. I do agree with all you've written here. Although I've defended the use of vocabulary lists and SRS, I'm actually to lazy to do them consistently. :) I too generally tend to use reading for vocabulary. I apologise for that particular thread.

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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6589 days ago
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Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 130 of 217

27 May 2015 at 10:58pm | IP Logged

I've actually written a wikia article:
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/S_allard's kernel method
From now on I'll never make these points i've already made a dozen times (although I might add to the wikia if I remember more points).
OMG, the link list really shows how much time we've wasted on this :D Kudos for wasting less time than I did :DDD
And I really recommend reading the vocab thread until maybe the 25th page or so. it was mostly about smallwhite's method and claims.

Edited by Serpent on 27 May 2015 at 11:03pm
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5001 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 131 of 217

28 May 2015 at 1:04am | IP Logged

Thanks, Serpent! You put it together in the best way possible, in my opinion.
You are right the method might be great for that particular set of circumstances.

So, I've listened to the whole eurovision list on youtube. And:

1.So bad many choose English instead of their own language. Not only it makes the
songs even more one like the other but, very often, the English sounds weird, the
artists would probably sound better in their native languages. In one case, it would
have hidden the horrible, stupid and boring text.
2.Some songs are actually quite good and I'm gonna youtube the artists. Especially as
I know, from previous experience, that they tend to have songs I like more than the
eurovision one.
3.I am under the impression Eurovision 2015 was more fun than the previous one. Song-
wise of course, I haven't seen the show. Obviously, many internet people disagree with
me. Ok then.
4.I totally disagree with the voters but that is probably quite common :-D Sure, it
was much more influenced by history and politics than those songs but still.

Short overview for people no tinterested in long posts about eurovision:
My top5 recomendations: Estonia, UK, Belgium, Portugal, Slovenia

The songs (in wikipedia order):
(caution: no attempt on objectivity, just my view. and no intelectual snobism, I
watched the songs and I am not gonna throw ashamed and shocked faces)

Moldova, Armenia: Not bad. Moldova was a mediocre pop but no tragedy. Armenia was
quite interesting, even though there were so many slow balads this one is quite
confuseable with others, in my opinion. Ok, on second listen, it is better. Moldava
worse.

Belgium! Now this got me interested while reading another chrome panel! A different
genre than my usual ones, very different from the rest of the eurovision, good stuff.
That's what eurovision should be like, giving people reasons to get out of the music
comfort zones.

Netherlands: Not bad pop song, good singer etc. But completely confusable with others.
And as it came quite late in the youtube mix, I was already fed up with this style.

Finland! Again a reason to learn Finnish. A nation that is not afraid to send in metal
in their native language is only to be respected. While I have other more beloved
metal artists, which I consider much better, this was not bad and the song was quite
refreshing in all that sweetness.

Greece: So sad, sweet and average to make my teeth hurt, eyes fill with tears and
finger tremble to the "next" button long before the 3 minutes were up.

Estonia!!!: I really liked the song! Good music, pop but different from the rest,
alive, melody, good text. However, one of those songs where artists would have been
probably a bit better in their language than English.

Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary: Macedonia wasn't that much of a slow song yet it nearly
bored me to sleep. Serbia: awesome voice. One of the voices I loved the most in the
selection. Lyrics horrible, the case I already mentioned (she should have covered it
in Serbian so that most people would be spared), not bad melody. In half, I was hoping
the two repeated pieces would finally get some more change. But that 80's disco wasn't
exactly what I had had on mind. Hungary wasn't bad. It was different from the rest,
quite good music, lyrics with a message. I understand some people might take the last
point as a cheap way to draw attention but I don't think it was so. The song was quite
refreshing.

Belarus, Russia, Denmark!: Belarus was a pleasant surprise, especially the violin. It
wasn't putting me to sleep that much. But it was nothing to remember after the song
ends. Russia was a disappointment. Huge disappointment, especially as I have read it
got quite large support from voters. Russian is such a melodical language and the girl
used English. And the music. Not bad, sure. She sings well. But does such a huuuuuge
country has nothing more interesting and original to offer? Denmark was quite good.
Catchy, not awesome, but good.

Albania, Romania, Georgia: Albania was totally confusable with many others. Romania
wasn't bad, they had the courage to use their beautiful language. I don't like voices
like that of this singer though. Georgia was a bit more alive than some other
countries. But I didn't like the song much. Too bad the gothic looking girl hasn't put
a bit of the gothic into the music as well. And it's bad luck to have two songs named
"warrior" in a competition where most songs already are easy to confuse :-D

Lithuania,Ireland,San Marino: nothing that awesome to remember. San Marino wasn't bad
and the singers are really young, they might turn into something really good in a few
years. Again, I think English wasn't the best choice, Italian would have made the song
much better.

Montenegro,Malta,Norway: Montenegro song wouldn't be that bad with another singer, I
didn't like him. At least it was in their language. Malta: the other "Warrior" and
another interchangeable song with many others. Norway. Such high expectations, so many
votes and I was a bit disappointed. The song isn't bad. No. Just again the regular
eurovision toothache.

Portugal!!! I was pretty excited. Beautiful language, awesome voice, good song, some
life in there, even if it was still in the most common genre of slower balads. But
trully, how comes Portugal was 14th? Considering most of the final songs, I liked this
one much better.

The Czech Republic: I was really surprised. YOu know, everyone around here expected a
disaster when one of the televisions here (not sure which one) decided to participate
again. And it wasn't! The song wasn't bad, there were many worse. 13th place isn't
that bad. But English was the weak point! Jandová used to live and sing in Germany and
German is like her other native language, if I am not mistaken, Bárta isn't a bad
singer in Czech. But their English sometimes hurts, especially his. The song was
exactly the Eurovision style, it was composed for the occassion. Really, much better
than what I had expected. If only Bárta could distinguish must from mustn't at least.

Israel! Now that was fun. Stupid lyrics but you don't need something intelectual for
such a disco song. And there were the oriental elements to it. Sure, geography nerds
question Israel's and Australia's participation. I think we can forgive them the
mediteranean sea (or in Australia's case a few oceans) in exchange for not trying to
overcharge our lacrimal apparati ;-) And Israel made me wanna dance, that is a good
thing, no? Most of the disco songs on the list left me sitting calmly, this one not!

Latvia, Azerbaijan, Iceland: One word about Latvia: Horrible. Azerbaijan got for some
reasons many points from the Czech Republic and one of the theories in the media were
the immigrants. Really? I don't think we have that many immigrants from there here.
How about another theory? People just liked the song, it isn't bad. One of the good
songs of the eurovision main stream, in my opinion. Nothing to win the competition but
as well nothing the country should be ashamed of. I would have enjoyed it a bit more
had I not heard that many similar songs right before. Island was a disappointment
after the last year. The guy last year was awesome, this girl was mediocre. Not bad,
the eurovision style, her English was surely better than that of our singers. But
nothing to listen to for too long.

Sweden won the competition. One question. Why? It is a good song, the lyrics are ok, I
could party to that. But what is so special about it? No clue at all.

Switzerland, Cyprus, Slovenia: Actually not bad songs either of these. I quite liked
Switzerland. Good voice, different sounds than the more mediocre songs, quite
enjoyable with some drive. I think I'll look up the artist and try her other songs.
Cyprus wasn't exactly bad or stupid, just another toothache-level-sweet song.
Slovenia: I liked it. Perhaps because it was the first song in the youtube list so the
eurovision sounded still quite fresh. But I still like it. In this case, a good result
(5th) is something I totally agree with.

Poland: last on the wikipedia list left, not interesting. Why are the other four
countries not on the list of semifinals? No idea.

Australia: I already commented on that in the israel bit. The song was quite fresh,
good. Not my favourite but fun to listen to once. It reminded me of something, cannot
remember what.

France! I liked the song, especially the lyrics. Not only because French was used but
the lyrics were different from the rest, a story with some meaning. The music wasn't
awesome but still good. Overall, I liked it.

Spain: Disappointment as I had expected more. The music was quite good but nothing
that impressive, in my opinion. I didn't like the Lyrics much. The largest part was
"iiieeeeiiiieee!!!" Perhaps to compensate for daring to sing in Spanish. And even the
rest of lyrics was unimpressive to me.

UK:!!!! Awesome! Electroswing with great lyrics! Fun, made me wanna dance and laugh!

Italy: Sand in their beautiful language. It had Italian characteristics. But the style
I don't like that much, especially as I think this is a copy of a few other and older
Italian artists.

I almost forgot Germany. Such a good language yet the lady chooses English and the
song was quite mediocre and boring.

3 persons have voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6589 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

Message 132 of 217

28 May 2015 at 1:43am | IP Logged

You know that the Finnish guys have Down's syndrome, right? Apart from the singer who has learning disabilities and other problems. The song is about the daily struggles of someone with a mental/cognitive disability. But sadly, human rights have to be glamorous like Conchita.

Thanks for the nice words. Now he actually claims that his views are represented incorrectly, and he changed s_allard to originator all over the article, but I can't be bothered to headdesk :P
2 persons have voted this message useful

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5001 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 133 of 217

28 May 2015 at 1:58am | IP Logged

I've notices some of the guys had Down's syndroms, haven't tried to look how many, I
just kept listening. The more awesome they are! And the more tempted I am to learn
Finnish one day. To understand the lyrics and to get to know better country that
chooses such representants.

Serpent, perhaps we should somehow divide the article like "author's views" and
"opposition" but I understand your desperation and not wanting to waste more time like
that if one poor person decides to turn his opinion into htlal+wiki wars to annoy all
the people who are dumb enough not to wholeheartedly agree with him about the only
thing he ever discusses, and this way cure his broken ego. Really, going that far just
proves he could do with professional help, I can't help but say it as it is true. I'm
not gonna participate in any Doom threads (or likely to get Doomed threads) at all
anymore.

No need to waste time, I have a paper to write and grammar to review tonight (while
listening to the eurovision playlist with occassional classics brought in) :-)
1 person has voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6589 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

Message 134 of 217

28 May 2015 at 2:20am | IP Logged

I thought the article is already like that?
Yeah at least he's been civil enough not to remove any statements. I told him he's welcome to edit the beginning, just as long as he doesn't remove the criticism. I guess it's kinda relieving that these are the only edits he made and he doesn't seem interested in making more. (lol, the flip side of his refusal to read any actual logs...)

Good luck with your paper!

edit:

s_allard wrote:

Please, I don't think we should waste any more time of this thread on a piece of doggerel written in a brazen and
shameless attempt at self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. Let's get back on track.

lolwtf.

Edited by Serpent on 28 May 2015 at 4:29am
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garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

Message 135 of 217

28 May 2015 at 11:03am | IP Logged

I just had a look at the Wikia article and it seems like a great summary of the idea, the claims, and the criticisms.

I didn't catch Eurovision this year, as I was at a concert enjoying better music ;) Some friends watched it and by most accounts it was more boring and less fun than it has been in previous years. And indeed the amount of English is sad. So I'm not too upset I missed it, but I hope next year's is a bit more exciting musically and linguistically.
2 persons have voted this message useful

patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4525 days ago
1546 posts - 3200 votes

Studies: German

Message 136 of 217

28 May 2015 at 11:14am | IP Logged

garyb wrote:

That's just my "boring moderate view",

Are there really any moderate views when learning languages? ;) I just think we all have views and some are a little less standard than others. Once someone becomes "moderate" everyone else is extreme...

I enjoyed Eurovision, but the Austrian hosting this year was boring. I didn't get all the plunging dresses of the moderators and some of the other contestants. My favorite was Belgium. No offence to Serpent, but I didn't get the high support for either Russia, which won the popular vote. I have to admit I did wonder if they voting was somehow being rigged with false phone ins as I just couldn't see how the song was so much more special than every other song (and the fact that they were using automatic booing technology in the auditorium to silence the audience everytime Russia got points made me think that it was odd that even Germany would award top points to them).

Edited by patrickwilken on 28 May 2015 at 11:20am

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