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Is counting your vocabulary size useless? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 65 of 210 20 August 2012 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Do you teach French? How old are your students? 300 words is very low as a stopping point for vocabulary acquisition, however, I think it is also helpful to distinuguish between languages with lots of cognates like French/English, and those that have few. E.G, knowing 2500-5000 of the most frequently used words French words puts an English speaker in a good position. In a language with few cognates, the same number of words doesn't take one as far as a dedicated student is likely to want to go. Edited by luke on 20 August 2012 at 2:03am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 66 of 210 20 August 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Really, I can't let this go by. I never said that 300 words is a stopping point for vocabulary acquisition. Please, I said explicitly in my last post that 300 more or less is considered a threshold for being able to conduct a conversation. I think that one of the reasons many people are so skeptical about the number of words needed to conduct a conversation is that they have never studied real conversations or looked at a transcript of a real conversation. Here is a snippet taken from the site: http://www.englishforums.com/English/TranscriptLightHeartedC onversation/dwnbp/post.htm. It lasts about a minute. No big vocabulary here. Look at the number of times the words "do, the, think, you, should, love, I" are repeated. Pretty simple stuff, but how many learners of English can have this sort of conversation? And for all the people with large vocabularies in other languages, how many of you could have a similar dialogue at real speed in those languages? SM: You can see these pictures online if you care. As a Radio One DJ, eh, do you think that I should have a better car. And if so, what would you suggest? JK: Well, I think, seeing as you’ve been playing my single, I think that you should have a better car and more money. In fact, I think that you should have more money… SM: What, do I get some of the royalties? JK: …and the BBC should - Don’t worry, even I don’t get those, I owe them so much down there, but, ehm, - video cost, dear boy, video cost - …but I’ll tell you what, ehm, I think you should, ehm, I think you should have a company car. SM: Yeah, they don’t do them. JK: But why don’t you get one of these little electric bubble things everyone is driving around… SM: What, a Smart car? JK: No, not the Smart car, you know the really tiny little that you plug it in. Other: Oh, I’d love to, I’d just love to see one of those. SM: Like, like, like when you charge your phone, one of them. JK: Yeah, exactly, yeah. It’s only like, I don’t know, three quid a month to run it, or something. SM: What, and you’d drive one of those, would you? JK: I would drive one, yeah, if I lived in London. D’you know, when I go into London, ‘cause I drive around a scooter, yeah. Drive a little Vespa. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 67 of 210 20 August 2012 at 4:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Despite the popularity of Assimil, there are still those who advise mastering all 3 Pimsleur levels before moving on to other materials. The idea is to master the basics very well on a small range of vocabulary (600+) and limited topics. Doing all three levels of Pimsleur is often rejected as slow and/or boring, but never as crazy.
s_allard's idea for assuring solid conversation basics shares some of the spirit with Pimsleur, which proves that it is not crazy, even though the way it was presented originally may have made it look that way to a degree. Whether one has to start with conversational basics of this sort or can pursue them later, say, after acquiring significant passive skills, has not been addressed. Edited by frenkeld on 20 August 2012 at 4:16am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4492 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 68 of 210 20 August 2012 at 4:21am | IP Logged | |||||
And how many people who know only the first 300 words in frequency, plus whatever extras you have there over that threshold, plus any necessary proper nouns (personal and city names etc.), would be able to do so? I mean spontaneously. Even if someone memorized every Pimsleur/LSLC/Synergy dialogue, and took one of the two roles in that dialogue of yours, would they have the exact phrases needed, or at least one close enough? I suspect not, but since you are implicitly making the assertion that it is possible, then I think the burden is on you to prove same, or admit it still remains an unproven hypothesis. I don't mean to be rude, but there is proof that comprehensible input courses plus learning the grammar plus getting to around 2-3K words plus a LOT of additional input at that level does allow one to understand "usage", part of which is being able to accept and use non-literal constructions and to know which ones can be modified and be able to do so. We are not talking the difference between 2500 words and 25,000. But rather, between 300 and 2500. A far smaller gap, but one that makes all the difference as far as usage not related to literary type of idioms. Let me note again, that I agree with you in stopping at a certain point to intensively study usage via phrases and sentences for conversational purposes, but we don't agree on the point. As far as Spanish courses go, the ones I am most familiar with, I would say LSLC and Synergy, and maybe especially Synergy which uses FSI type of pattern drills but over a much more restricted vocabulary range, do a better job than Pimsleur and survival phrase type of courses. And the smaller amount of knowledge that they impart even allows learning from context albeit at a much much slower rate. I admit however that there really are not any good "usage" courses out there that I have seen, and hence why I myself am mining a dictionary for example phrases and sentences to boost my conversational ability, despite my having a vocabulary in the thousands (and ability to recognize cognates and their derivatives which boosts it even more in Spanish). So unfortunately we do not have an easy method by which to test your hypothesis via taking someone with no knowledge and then having them do a Pimsleur type of course plus such a usage one. But I can say for myself that without the much greater vocabulary and grammar knowledge I have, that I would not be able to both fruitfully use those mined sentences and recognize others from context in reading/listening. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4492 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 69 of 210 20 August 2012 at 4:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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frenkeld,
You make a good point, and one that I agree with. If Pimsleur in fact were MUCH longer, as including every possible prepositional phrase found for a preposition, plus discourse markers, then that alone would make it highly useful for conversation and be close to the type of usage course (that does not exist), that I talked about in my previous post. But it still remains that without a much larger vocabulary, especially verbs, one could be the very best survival type tourist speaker on the planet, and still not really be able to talk about much topic-wise. Not medical stuff past "my head hurts", not jobs past "I work at so-and-so company or am a X", not family matters past names and numbers of nearest relatives, not *details* of why one likes a movie, etc., etc., etc. The point of learning usage is to be able to converse fluidly/with ease, over such a wider range of topics (which you know). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 70 of 210 20 August 2012 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||
Really. I try to be clear, but obviously it's not working. For some reason that escapes me, some readers have come to believe that 300 words is all one needs to speak a language fluently. Where have I failed? I totally agree that the wider the range of topics the larger the vocabulary. I can't think of another way to say that the low minimum that I suggest is essentially a toolbox that equips you to build nearly all the phrases you need to converse. Then you pump it up with vocabulary. It's as simple as that. I can't wrap my head around this idea that you somehow have to study a bunch of words and grammar rules before you can study usage. Frankly, I've never heard of this idea before in the literature. Again, I think much of problem is that people have not really looked at conversations. I highly recommend the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English to get a sense of how spoken (and written) English really works. I don't know of anything similar in French, but I do know that there is a lot of corpus-based work going on right now, and we are beginning to get a better understanding of spoken language. Nearly all language teaching materials including Pimsleur, Learn Spanish Like Crazy, Michel Thomas and all university textbooks take the written language as the starting point, regardless of what they say about teaching to speak like a native. I may be wrong about this, but has anybody here ever heard Michel Thomas or Dr Pimsleur actually having a conversation in any of the languages they teach. Or where is the video of Patrick Jackson, the inventor of Learn Spanish like Crazy, having a conversation in Spanish? The little I heard of Michel Thomas from one of his recordings in French was rather mediocre in my opinion. Not that he was a bad teacher. It's just that his own speaking skills in French, including that strong Polish accent, did not impress me. What about Paul Noble and his Language Institute that will teach you French in two days? Has anybody heard Paul Noble speak French? With all the material for learning languages available and the glowing testimonials, why are there so few videos of people who can say, "I bought product X six months ago and let me show you what I can do."? The reason we don't see much of this materials is simply that most of the results are mediocre, in terms of actual ability to converse in the language. And it's not because the products are necessarily bad. Much of the problem lies with the user. But that's another story. When I work one-on-one with students in French or English, we spend a lot of time reviewing and solidifying the basics because they are the foundation for everything else. If you are having a problem with the passé composé and the imparfait in French, learning more verbs is not going to do much. As for demonstrating the scientific validity of my position, I think it is everywhere around us. I see it every day. The people who are able to speak easily and correctly are not the ones with the biggest vocabulary. They are the ones who have learned to actually speak. When I see people who perform really well in other languages, most of the time they have experienced some form of immersion or they have had a lot of contact with native speakers. I've met people who learned Spanish working in a kitchen with Latin American immigrants or French driving a taxi. With limitations, of course, but they spoke with an ease that would put many students to shame. At the end of the day, it's all about end results. If what you do corresponds to your learning style and gives you the best results, stick with it. I'm very happy with the outcomes of my students and with my own language studies. I don't intend to start counting words soon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4671 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 71 of 210 20 August 2012 at 6:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I wish you wouldn't use the word "fluently" like this. If what you mean is something like "fluidly", then why couldn't you speak that way about limited subjects with less vocabulary? Regarding this "conversation threshold", please state a level (CEFR, etc). Personally, I wouldn't consider myself A1 with only 300 words. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 72 of 210 20 August 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged | |||||
I see above you did say "minimum", and explicitly mentioned cognate lanugages. I'm of the school, having learned between 1000 and 10,000 words in French and Spanish to think 10,000 still is still insufficient for my goal, which isn't the minimum necessary to say I "speak" the language. I asked if you're a French Teacher in Canada to find out if you have a particular axe to grind there and that for some law in Canada you would like to set the threshold as low as you've said so that students can claim bilingualism or something like along those lines to satisfy such a law. That's an important question because that's speaks to a very different goal than the typical member of the HTLAL community who wants to "speak" or be highly functional in a foreign language. Edited by luke on 20 August 2012 at 10:15am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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