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How many words do we actually need? | ||
Tags: Number of words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 81 of 115 31 January 2013 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Need I say more? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 82 of 115 31 January 2013 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||
I wouldn't do this on an exam, but otherwise it's a perfect strategy to learn more. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 83 of 115 31 January 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
This is another example of a common myth. Many people can surely learn 2000 words in four months. But can they use them properly? That's the question. Here is some text for a website that claims you can learn 200 words of French or Spanish a day" 200 Words a Day! Learn French the easy way! Would you like to learn French rapidly, effortlessly with effective retention? Snapshot French words and phrases to your brain for amazing easy recall ... at superfast speeds ... while you learn to avoid the most common French language learning errors. Have you tried learning 200 words a day with your French language course? No? Well you can boost your learning rate with our easy-to-use courses incorporating memory techniques. You can easily achieve this. Just try this ... " Imagine, why wait four months when you could learn 2000 words in 10 days. Whether it's ten days or four months, how much French will you be able to speak? The vast majority of people can barely carry on a conversation after four months a French and those 2000 words. What's the problem? It's that learning to speak a language is a lot more than learning a list of 2000 words. Why does it take years to learn to speak a language fluently? Does it take 2 years to learn 5000 words in French? Of course not. It's how you use them. It will take you years to really master the French verb system and even the four key verbs because they can be used in so many ways. If learning a language were as simple as learning a list of 3000 words, HTLAL wouldn't exist. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 84 of 115 31 January 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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My active Italian vocabulary is limited because many times I'm afraid that I might make a mistake due to interference with Portuguese and Spanish...So, I use only words I'm 100% sure I won't say in a Portuguese/Spanish way.
By having to settle on this tactic, my Italian is very indirect, descriptive, as in ''beating around the bush''. It is exactly this what makes my Italian unnatural, and Italians told me this kind of Italian sounded VERY FORMAL. So, when you try to limit your vocabulary to 2K words and use ''beating about the bush'' tactics, you end up sounding unnatural and therefore, formal. It's a paradox (how can you sound formal using 2K words), but it's true. Limited vocabulary forces you into long THAT/relative sentences (which if overused don't not sound right at all in Italian since CHE [=that] cannot be omitted unlike in English). Edited by Medulin on 31 January 2013 at 4:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4934 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 85 of 115 31 January 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Active vocabulary is not a set of recently used words. Let me give an example. The English words that I have not said or written for at least a decade or never before are bold. Those words still came instantly to my mind. I played tennis when I was at High School. My backhand used to be good and my forehand pretty awesome but my serve worked pretty weakly. My other hobby was horseback riding, I still remember how exciting it was to hop in the saddle and gallop through the forest. Active vocabulary is the collection of words a person has potential to use. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 86 of 115 31 January 2013 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Take a random article from any paper, and you'll see that the words used are in the 30K league, and not from the 2K-only group:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2270687/Ke-ha-t ouches-Tokyo-bizarre-printed-suit-revealed-shes-star-MTV-rea lity-show.html ''She's never been one to shy away from outlandish outfits and eccentric ensembles. And Ke$ha certainly ensured she made her mark as she touched down in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, wearing a typically over-the-top suit. Leaving little to the imagination with her extremely tight-fitting pants, the Die Young hitmaker showed off her slim pins in the quirky garment. Kooky: The eccentric star wore a black button-down shirt underneath her unusual suit, and accessorised her look with a black wide-brimmed hat, black patent tassle-detail brogues and Ray Ban aviator sunglasses. Despite having just stepped off a long-haul flight, Ke$ha looked preened to perfection with her peroxide blonde locks flowing in loose waves around her shoulders. Style queen: Ke$ha left little to the imagination with her form-fitting suit as she was ushered through the airport by a burly security guard, '' This description is accurate and precise enough for everyone to visualize how the singer looked. Furthermore, synonyms are preferred to overused words (that's why BURLY and not STRONG). Edited by Medulin on 31 January 2013 at 5:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4624 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 87 of 115 31 January 2013 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even the most poorly-educated manual worker has many thousands of words that can be instantly drawn upon.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 88 of 115 31 January 2013 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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The more I read some of these posts the more I come to the conclusion that people understand what they want they want to understand not what they hear or read. Here is what I wrote:
"I stand by my statement that most native speakers regularly USE a vocabulary of around 2000 words regardless of the number of words that they may recognize," I'm not talking about what people could potentially or maybe or might recognize or believe they can use. I'm not talking about what you read in a magazine. I'm talking about what came out of your mouth yesterday, last week, last month, etc. My question to @Medulin is "When how often in the past month did you speak the words burly, preened, wide-brimmed, tassle-detailed brogues, slim pins, quirky garment, etc.?" 1 person has voted this message useful |
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