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We, who manage to focus on ONE language

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casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4260 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 57 of 142
22 August 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle. Iversen may not know all the intricacies, but he can get a lot for free
even with relatively little effort. And that's worth having.


To some, but not to all. I don't care to have an intermediate level in, say, French, Romanian, and Italian because it doesn't add much social and economic value to me and I don't derive pleasure from learning a bunch of languages. But to others it may be a useful exercise.

I prefer just trying to do a few tasks in life very well because I'm a perfectionist, for example. But the whole premise of this thread, if I'm interpreting the OP well, is to say that there is nothing wrong with specializing in fewer languages just as there is nothing wrong with being a generalist. But don't go around telling people that you have a higher or equivalent level in more languages when you have devoted the same amount of time to languages. (if the two people have indeed devoted the same number of hours. If somebody learned 5 languages and spent 5,000 on each of them, obviously, then they would be pretty good at each)


2 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
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Joined 4705 days ago
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Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 58 of 142
22 August 2013 at 7:59pm | IP Logged 
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle.


Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't
that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna),
you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but
no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to
understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know
but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as
an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in
absolute terms) than your 80%.

For example, If I were 25% faster at running, I would easily break the world record in
distance events (like the 5K). But since I am not 25% better, it is just a competitive
hobby.




Complex word = some kind of disease, guessed. It's easy to get to partial
understanding, from there you plow through with informed guessing.

But that is why I am a PolyNot, I guess...\

It's worth having to Iversen. And to me, come to think of it.

Edited by tarvos on 22 August 2013 at 8:00pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4260 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 59 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:00pm | IP Logged 
mike245 wrote:
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle.


Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna), you're not gonna understand anything at all.


I'm a highly educated native speaker of English, and I have no idea what "thrombophlebitis" means. That said, I assume it's some sort of medical condition. By the way, how do you take a dip in a sauna? Do you mean a hot tub?


Most cats don't know what thrombophlebitis is, true. Just inflammation of your veins due to a blood clot. But with the other example with less specialized vocabulary, it would be hard to understand the sentence with 80% word comprehension.
1 person has voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4260 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 60 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:01pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle.


Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't
that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna),
you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but
no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to
understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know
but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as
an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in
absolute terms) than your 80%.

For example, If I were 25% faster at running, I would easily break the world record in
distance events (like the 5K). But since I am not 25% better, it is just a competitive
hobby.




Complex word = some kind of disease, guessed. It's easy to get to partial
understanding, from there you plow through with informed guessing.

But that is why I am a PolyNot, I guess...\

It's worth having to Iversen. And to me, come to think of it.


So you don't think it is worthwhile to know exactly what somebody is saying and not just guessing by the context? I shudder to think that people think that knowledge is bad to acquire.

Edit: I'm not saying it is worthless to have an intermediate knowledge of a language at all. I'm just saying that:

1. If you spend the same amount of time practicing languages as another person but you just specialize in one or a few languages you will probably be better in those few languages, all other factors being constant.

2. Everybody has a different value system that is equally valid. Some value breadth, some value depth. Nothing wrong with either. But no hating on specialists and no hating on generalists. Just hating on people that say they know everything and learn languages to a near-native level three times faster than accomplished language learners.

Edited by casamata on 22 August 2013 at 8:04pm
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4705 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 61 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:04pm | IP Logged 
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle.


Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't
that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna),
you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but
no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to
understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know
but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as
an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in
absolute terms) than your 80%.

For example, If I were 25% faster at running, I would easily break the world record in
distance events (like the 5K). But since I am not 25% better, it is just a competitive
hobby.




Complex word = some kind of disease, guessed. It's easy to get to partial
understanding, from there you plow through with informed guessing.

But that is why I am a PolyNot, I guess...\

It's worth having to Iversen. And to me, come to think of it.


So you don't think it is worthwhile to know exactly what somebody is saying and not
just guessing by the context? I shudder to think that people think that knowledge is
bad to acquire.


It is, but you don't start out there. Enough guessing gets you far enough that at some
point you can understand many things exactly. A good learner is someone who is really
good at informed guessing.

I could learn all the necessary vocab in French to describe the preservation of insects
and butterflies in formaldehyde, or stamp collectors, but, frankly, I don't care. Yeah,
it's knowledge, you can acquire it.

But then I'd rather just read about the geological strata in Breton, because in that
case, I'd care.
2 persons have voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4260 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 62 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:06pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
casamata wrote:
tarvos wrote:
Pareto principle.


Yes, but the idea that you learn 80% of the words with 20% of the effort actually isn't
that helpful. Your level of understanding with 80% word knowledge is pretty poor.

"The woman suffered thrombophlebitis after taking a dip into the sauna."

Here we have 11 words and if you don't know two of them (thrombophlebitis and sauna),
you're not gonna understand anything at all.

Here is a bbc article that I randomly clicked on. "Sirens sounded across the area, but
no casualties were reported. Footage showed some minor damage."

15 words. If you don't know 3 words (sirens, casualties, footage), you're not going to
understand much. The other words are ones that most intermediate learners would know
but without the advanced terms you're not gettin' far.

Also, that 20% of knowledge is really important. Good luck trying to make a living as
an engineer, an athlete, or anything if people are 25% better (and 20% better in
absolute terms) than your 80%.

For example, If I were 25% faster at running, I would easily break the world record in
distance events (like the 5K). But since I am not 25% better, it is just a competitive
hobby.




Complex word = some kind of disease, guessed. It's easy to get to partial
understanding, from there you plow through with informed guessing.

But that is why I am a PolyNot, I guess...\

It's worth having to Iversen. And to me, come to think of it.


So you don't think it is worthwhile to know exactly what somebody is saying and not
just guessing by the context? I shudder to think that people think that knowledge is
bad to acquire.


It is, but you don't start out there. Enough guessing gets you far enough that at some
point you can understand many things exactly. A good learner is someone who is really
good at informed guessing.

I could learn all the necessary vocab in French to describe the preservation of insects
and butterflies in formaldehyde, or stamp collectors, but, frankly, I don't care. Yeah,
it's knowledge, you can acquire it.

But then I'd rather just read about the geological strata in Breton, because in that
case, I'd care.


Yes, but I'm not referring to the nitty gritty of languages. I'm talking about knowing words like, "wheelbarrow, sleep aid, sledgehammer, butterfly, beaver, sprinklers." Words that are *relatively* rare but all natives will know.

Edit: I'm not talking about rare words that only PhDs know in their specific field but words that are in the newspaper. Here is a sentence from the top story of bbc.com.

"On Thursday, the medical helicopter arrived at Tora, as dozens of Mubarak supporters - some waving flags - gathered outside the prison.

Egyptian TV then showed the helicopter transferring Mr Mubarak to a military hospital in the capital. The ex-leader was seen being transferred from the aircraft into an ambulance outside the hospital, amid heavy security. "

Words like "waving" or "amid" are words that most *relatively* educated natives should know in English.

Even more so than vocab is knowledge of connotation, word use, and the right combination of words. In the hours that I spend trying to approximate my target language ever more slightly to that of native speakers in terms of the above, I could probably have easily learned French to a C1 level. But I don't care for that; I would prefer spending my time listening to music and getting lost into the vast forest of that one language. But other people like exploring several forests. Different strokes for different folks. However, in the future I will eventually try a second language after getting out of debt and finally finishing schooling.

Edited by casamata on 22 August 2013 at 8:12pm
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4705 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 63 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged 
I don't use wheelbarrows or sledgehammers often, I don't own any sprinklers, and I rarely
encounter beavers. These are all words I could infer from context as "oh, it's an animal"
or "oh, it's that object" when someone uses it. I don't know the word in French for
"shoelace" off the top of my head, but it's not a word I use daily.

Butterfly is the only word out of those I'd use regularly, sleep aid I can see some
context for.
3 persons have voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4260 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 64 of 142
22 August 2013 at 8:15pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
I don't use wheelbarrows or sledgehammers often, I don't own any sprinklers, and I rarely
encounter beavers. These are all words I could infer from context as "oh, it's an animal"
or "oh, it's that object" when someone uses it. I don't know the word in French for
"shoelace" off the top of my head, but it's not a word I use daily.

Butterfly is the only word out of those I'd use regularly, sleep aid I can see some
context for.


Yes, but those are all words that natives will know. And they aren't "weird" erudite words that nobody knows. I have never used a sledgehammer and have only used a wheelbarrow on a few occasions in my life. But I know what people are talking about when they tell me about them. I like learning that stuff because I feel like a dummy not knowing them and because I find learning the intricacies of a language fun.

Beavers, FYI, suck because they are carriers for Giardia, and people that go hiking and drink the water from the stream get massive watery diarrhea.

Edit: shoelaces is a bad example for word knowledge in the first world because everybody uses them and knows what they are. That is a word that most people, I presume, would expect any intermediate or advanced learner to know.

Edited by casamata on 22 August 2013 at 8:18pm


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