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Vocabulary acquisition at advanced level | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5598 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes  | Message 25 of 39 12 November 2014 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cricket are two words by the way. If you are more into fables and biology you will only know one meaning, the same, when you are a sport fan and versed in British culture.
If non of both, you can really skip the word (or read Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland, and you have both). Edited by Cabaire on 12 November 2014 at 12:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 26 of 39 12 November 2014 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Actually you can check out the relative frequency of these words and a lot more here:
http://www.wordandphrase.info/frequencyList.asp Cricket and Spate are the only really somewhat common words. It's interesting how the words appear at very different frequencies in different media: 'spate' occurs a lot in newspaper (spate of bad economic news) whereas 'waddle' occurs mostly in fiction. I guess it shows you that depending on what you are using for input, you'll end up with differing vocabularies (esp. for the lower freqency words). Cricket: rank 2257; freq. 2257 Meaning: 1. leaping insect; 2. a game played with ball and bat with a team of 11 players Mostly occurs in Fiction, Magazine, Newspaper: (Spoken: 150; Fiction: 795; Magazine: 571; Newspaper: 491; Academic: 250) Spate: rank 15165; freq. 753 Meaning: (1) the occurance of water flow resulting from sudden rain or melting snow; (2) a sudden forceful flow; (3) (often followed by of) a large number or amount or extent. Mostly occurs in Magazine, Newspaper, Academic: (Spoken: 75; Fiction: 58; Magazine: 184; Newspaper: 278; Academic: 158) Waddle: rank 18645; freq 525 Meaning: Walk unsteadily, as of small children Mostly occurs in Fiction (Spoken: 19; Fiction: 347; Magazine: 103; Newspaper: 50; Academic: 6) Grout: rank 25043; freq. 283 Meaning: A thin mortar that can be poured and used to fill cracks in masonry or brickwork Mostly occurs in Fiction, Magazine: (Spoken: 10; Fiction: 69; Magazine: 108; Newspaper: 43; Academic: 53) Fatuous: rank 29564; freq. 160 Meaning: Complacently or inanely foolish Mostly occurs in Fiction, Magazine, Newspaper: (Spoken: 13; Fiction: 49; Magazine: 46; Newspaper: 33; Academic: 19) Grout: rank 41893; freq. 63 Meaning: Verb -- Bind with Grout Mostly occurs in Fiction, Magazine: (Spoken: ; Fiction: 19; Magazine: 22; Newspaper: 6; Academic: 11) Waddle: rank 44361; freq 179 Meaning: Walking with a waddling gait Mostly occurs in Spoken: (Spoken: 101; Fiction: 27; Magazine: 16; Newspaper: 34; Academic: 1) 1 person has 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 27 of 39 12 November 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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What this debate highlights is the vast difference between receptive and productive vocabulary. Even if we
recognize and claim to understand many words such as the ones here, most people, including native speakers, never have used them actively and never will. This is very striking when reading fiction. Right now I'm reading Harry Potter for a little study on vocabulary and I see on every page words that I have never used in my life. The fact of the matter is that an individual's productive vocabulary is made up of a very small set of shared common words and structures plus the specialized vocabulary of one's profession and interests. Edited by s_allard on 12 November 2014 at 3:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bjornbrekkukot Newbie United States Joined 4721 days ago 25 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 39 14 November 2014 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a lovely topic, and I have enjoyed everyone's contributions!
I will tell you what I do, if it matters. I use the Leitner system of flashcard memorization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system). Every single darn word I don't know, whether it be in Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Ukrainian, Icelandic, Spanish, French, Italian (all my languages) becomes a hand-written flashcard. I cut up regular flashcards into four little ones, since that's about the right amount of paper for one little word. I made a neat little box with several compartments to hold my flashcards, according to the principles of the Leitner system. And let me tell you… while it's a TON of work (I spend about 1.5 hours a day going through approximately 300 cards at different levels—I use five levels), it WORKS. I'll see some super rare word, which I happened to have looked up before, and I'll immediately read it as if I've known it all along. I should note that I never got along well with apps and whatnot for flashcards. I personally hate my iphone, and I would hate it even more if I were to pull it out every time I wanted to review my flashcards. Where I live, in Seattle, US, it rains a lot, and with flashcards I don't have to be worried about the rain ruining my dang phone or something. I carry them around in my pocket on the bus, while going for long walks, while taking a break between piano sessions at home, etc... Please note that I am only interested in learning languages to a very advanced level—i.e, to the point in which I can read the literary classics of that language. I used to be a believer in Arguelles's methods. He advocates the use of bilingual texts or reading novels with a translation/original, one in each hand. I did this. I read all of Doctor Zhivago like this, and several other novels in Icelandic, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian. But what happened? Well, it so happened that I remembered the English translations exceptionally well (duh! It's my native tongue!) but couldn't recall the original at all. This did nothing to improve my vocabulary. If anything, it created this super hazy zone in which I KINDA KINDA knew the meanings of the words, but not really. When you have the English version right there, you cheat. And obviously, you remember that with which you are most familiar—the English translation. So I don't do that anymore. Arguelles's method didn't work for me; it just led me to an over-reliance on my native English. So now, I do things the way he DOESN'T recommend; the way he did things as a college student (as he professed in his recent video from the Serbian polyglot conference). I look up every. single. dang. word. And I make a hand-written flashcard for every. single. dang. word, even if it's "cricket," "immutable," or "forecastle." And this, for whatever reason, has helped me tons more than the original/translation method, in which I just got into the habit of becoming over-reliant on the translation. If you are just trying to get by with everyday conversation, this might be overkill. But for those who truly want to know a language intimately, this is what works for me. As I mentioned in another post somewhere, I now have around 30,000 flashcards, all of which I can recognize and accurately define upon being seen in print. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 29 of 39 14 November 2014 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
Wow. That's amazing. I take it you would never consider a digital version of your cards? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bjornbrekkukot Newbie United States Joined 4721 days ago 25 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 39 14 November 2014 at 9:12am | IP Logged | ||
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It would be a lot of work to go back and digitize them. I have small boxes of the things. But as I mentioned in my
post, I find the little paper cards to be much more practical, for my own purposes. Anyway, once they graduate from the 5th stage of the Leitner system (which for me means I can define a word after not seeing it for 3-4 months), that word is pretty much permanently in my long-term memory (which I think is average), and I have no need to go back to the old cards. I also do this for words in my native English, and whatever random bits of information I want to know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 39 14 November 2014 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't do flashcards, but wordlists, and these are also handwritten because I remember things better when I have written them down. That may be different for younger people who have developed a symbiotic relationship with their smartphone.
As for the use of bilingual texts I use them a lot during the early phases, but first and foremost for intensive study, where I typically copy text passages verbatim to a sheet with a right column for unknown words. And there it is practical to have a translation which can replace dictionary lookups in those cases where the translation seems to be trustworthy. Those words will be transferred to a wordlist later, but if I'm in doubt I'll check them in a dictionary. And at that point I may add related words or words which might help me to remember the words from the text. When I have defined a reading session as extensive I use the translation to get throught the text with as few lookups as possible. And I don't really try to remember each and every word - that would slow me down, and I don't want to be slowed down in that situation. The words I do remember from such sessions are consequently mainly those which are defined in the text itself. And that's a trifle compared to the number of words I learn during my intensive studies. However the balance between intensive and extensive studies shifts as I get better. It is not a pleasure to read when you constantly are blocked by unknown words and expressions or arcane grammatical constructions. But from the moment it becomes a pleasurable activity I'm already so well versed in the language that I find it too bothersome to battle with two books, and therefore I rarely use translations when I do my extensive reading. And therefore the situation where you remember the translation better than the original never has been a problem for me. As far as I can see from other comments this sharp division between intensive and extensive study isn't typical for learners here - it seems that the trend is to mix them, but for me it is a fundamental distinction, and it's my conviction that basic/general vocabulary learning is best done by intensive activities, whereas the vocabulary I learn from extensive reading mostly is topic specific terminology. Edited by Iversen on 14 November 2014 at 10:36am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5344 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 32 of 39 14 November 2014 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I managed to teach myself English to a high level without employing any sort of technique, without even being aware that I was teaching myself English, simply by reading books in a way that was natural and befitting the act of reading itself. And now that I am finally reading books in French and German that I actually am keenly interested in as works of thought and literature -not as part of my language studies- I can feel the same process taking shape.
The only way to learn a language to a very high level is to forgo at some point the idea that you are learning a language, and transition to engaging its contents as living expression. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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