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How important is the cognate discount? | ||
Tags: False friends | Language Interference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 64 28 December 2014 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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When learning a related language or language with a long history of contact with one's native language,
e.g. French and English, we hear that the presence of many cognates makes learning the vocabulary much easier. Similarly, languages that are similar grammatically are certainly easier to learn. All of this is true, but recently when studying the word tabla in Spanish, I came to the conclusion that the presence of cognates can be also a hindrance and a source of confusion, particularly because of the so-called false friends. I suspect that this may be more important at an advanced level where nuances and subtleties are more important. So maybe this cognate discount may not be as valuable as we sometimes think it is. I wonder other people have run into this problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 64 28 December 2014 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I definitely wouldn't go as far as to say that cognates are a "hindrance" because they don't always mean exactly what you think they mean at first glance. You may be confused for a few seconds because the sentence doesn't add up, or you may even misunderstand. That happens whether you run into a false friend (or even a false cognate) or not. That's just business as usual.
If you're studying at an advanced level and "subtleties are more important", as you say, then you've kind of got yourself to blame if you assume that cognates have exactly the same weight and cultural implications. They're not the "hindrance" there. As for the value of the cognate discount, I think you're probably right in that it's not as much of a boost when you're looking to learn advanced subtleties... but I don't think I've ever heard anyone claiming that the cognate discount is an advanced learners' discount. Edited by eyðimörk on 28 December 2014 at 3:22pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 3 of 64 28 December 2014 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a native English speaker who has studied both Japanese and French for a number of years, I can say quite confidently that the presence of large numbers of cognates and borrowings makes a massive difference to the ease at which you can learn and retain words in your target language.
Putting issues of script aside and considering vocabulary problems alone, I have worked much harder at Japanese over the years, but I can still pick up and read a contemporary novel in French with a level of comfort I am still only dreaming of in Japanese. Maybe a larger number of cognates might lead to a tendency for carelessness, which could hinder your progress to more advanced levels in the language, but I would say it would be easier to tackle this carelessness than to tackle the burden of learning so many extra words, which you essentially get "for free" in a related language. In any case, subtleties and nuance can cause you issues whether the problem word resembles one you know in your own language or not. Furthermore, despite the fact that the proportion of borrowings in unrelated languages are miniscule compared to cognates and borrowings between related languages, there are still plenty of false friends out there ready and waiting to trip you up. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 64 28 December 2014 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Focussing on cognates certainly demystifies the whole language learning business for those who are
attempting it for the first time. There are tons of cognates between German and English and I'm sure that gave me an easier ride. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 5 of 64 28 December 2014 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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In addition to everything already having been said, whether the vocabulary boost is
going to help with regards to more advanced material and subtleties is also dependent on whether the cognates are found in more advanced, complex or academic registers. I can give a fairly good example using the Dutch language: - English loanwords are commonplace in technology and IT but also for many common items. English words permeate all walks of life. Add to the fact that Dutch and English are sister languages and it means you have a ton of words for free at both the beginner level (he is vs hij is) but also at the advanced level, because English usage is a big inspiration for complex Dutch topics. There are even social expressions that permeate the Dutch language - "not done" is very common, for example. - French loanwords are also common but fairly often belong to a higher or posh register. French people share less in common in the way of basic vocabulary but once you get to complex themes the languages converge like crazy. About a quarter of the language's vocabulary is Romance. Using French or Latin words at the right time can make your speech sound very elegant and posh. - German cognates are often not loanwords but simply sister words that are the same but have a different spelling/pronunciation. Germans usually understand the basics, but struggle with particular ideas for which Dutch uses a different wordstock (Romance vs Germanic most often, but Dutch has loanwords from everywhere), or with complex ideas that are expressed slightly differently in Dutch. Knowing any of these three languages will help your study of Dutch immensely, but for whom is it the most in terms of cognate discount? They all have it, but the French are much more likely to struggle initially and then find out that their more erudite thoughts have better translations, whereas a German or an Englishman will pick up the basics quicker but may struggle with more complex vocabulary in certain cases. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 64 28 December 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
In the broadest sense, the presence of cognates has been a net benefit for me to a greater or lesser degree when learning languages. I noted here how it took me relatively longer to retain the Turkish numerals compared to what I went through with other languages. Even learning numerals in Hungarian (my first Uralic language) wasn't this bad since the numbers reoccur in a certain way (e.g. harminc, negyven, ötven "thirty, forty, fifty" cf. három, négy, öt "three, four, five"). In Turkish, the words for "20", "30", "40" and "50" are unrelated to "2", "3", "4" and "5" respectively. Cognates or borrowings though often give rise to false friends especially when comparing derivatives of the same root expressed in related languages. It's still up to me to learn how to use the word grammatically or understandably no matter how much of a discount I get when trying to recall it because of the shared elements. --- On a related note, I've been thinking about this topic a bit more lately while studying Russian and putting together offline my impressions of what makes Russian strange with my background in other Slavonic languages. At some point I'll put 'em up since I've long been convinced that excepting personal interest, necessity or quantity of resources/native speakers, Slovak is the best choice as one's first Slavonic language as a foreign one by a hair. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 64 28 December 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with most of the observations so far. The presence of cognates makes learning easier. It's not a
question of whether cognates are good or bad. There is no doubt that learning a related language is easier than learning an unrelated language. The only reason I brought this whole topic up is the observation that cognates can create problems because of differences in use between the two languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 8 of 64 28 December 2014 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well yes, what a genius observation. They can. They don't usually, though, and when they
do, it's good to look at what's causing the rub, but I think that's a pretty minor issue. Cognates have always been more helpful than a hindrance. Edited by tarvos on 28 December 2014 at 11:11pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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