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Article: Students fall short on Vocabulary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 225 of 319 23 April 2014 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The Routledge Frequency Dictionary of French was built from a 23 million word corpus. The top word, "le" and it's various forms constitutes over 1% of those 23 million. In the 3300 word frequency range, those words make up only about .17% of the words in the corpus. Around the 5000 word range, they make up only about .087% An underlying question in this thread is, if one knows 3300 of the 5000 most frequent words, how does that translate into, say the 25,000 most frequent words? I would suspect one might know several thousand more of the 5001-25000 most frequent words. That is, if you know about 1/2 of the 4001-5000 most frequent words, you probably know only slightly less than 1/2 of the 5001-6000 most frequent words, etc. Are there any math geniuses here? I have the Resnick's Essential French Grammar handy. Of the French cognates in the book it says:
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| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 226 of 319 23 April 2014 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This certainly I'd agree with. I think I've already written elsewhere at HTLAL that when my daughter did her year in Siena she only had one fellow student with her. In addition, the chosen Italian host universities were mostly (or all, I forget) in areas considered to be not the English tourists' main destinations. So no Rome, Milan or Naples, for example.
Well, at least in the UK, the overwhelming majority of university students start out as teenagers (although an even higher majority presumably have left that group by the time they graduate). As for teenagers and species, I'm sure I've seen a paper somewhere that argues that, in some respects at least, they do differ quite significantly from us older folk; but that's so off topic I'm not going to go there ... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 227 of 319 23 April 2014 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Gosh, where did I go wrong? I know that my English is not always easy to follow, but I had no idea that I was so off the mark as to be offensive. I thought my English was at the C level; obviously, it's more likely a low B. I definitely need to hit that Anki deck more often. All facetiousness aside, I want to thank the other posters for clearing up the misunderstanding here. I don't know why all this weird stuff about age and gender entered into the discussion about a university year abroad. Many, if not most university language programs, at least in North America, have the option to spend a year - an academic year, mind you, (8 months) abroad - studying the language in it's native context. From what I have seen, most students benefit highly from this. That's all. I certainly did not want to imply that these students sit around picking their noses or partying all the time. Neither do I want to imply that other people can't benefit from in-country immersion. C'mon, folks, lighten up and read what I write. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 228 of 319 23 April 2014 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Also, the UK university situation sounds excessively commercialized to me. Nobody wants to pay for university and then fail to graduate. People want value for their money. Med schools make up for that by organizing pre-schooling for those who can't pass, but it can be harder to justify for other areas. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 229 of 319 23 April 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Although I believe this whole thing about measuring vocabulary is a rather useless exercise in academic navel- gazing, it's quite interesting to see this debate about what seems to be a shockingly small number for receptive or passive vocabulary of students majoring in French. I wonder what their productive vocabulary is like. Normally, I would take a contrarian position in this debate and say that this figure of 3300 words just confirms what I've always said, that is, you don't need a big vocabulary to speak French. But that is another debate, I'll leave it at that. What I find intriguing here is that four years of uni including an academic year in France produces such mediocre results. I would think that the French department, including professor Milton, should be ashamed. What are they teaching? What kind of French department does not require their students to read at least some books in French, or at least write something in French? Do they teach French in the department? Is this situation peculiar to Professor Milton's university? I took a look at the French department undergraduate program at the University of Cambridge. We all know that it is very difficult to get into this university. And that it costs a pretty penny to study there. I don't think many students waste their time. As a matter of fact, before even entering first year students are told: "It is vital that you do some preparatory work on the following two areas before you arrive in Cambridge to start the course: French language French literature, thought, film and linguistics. This preparation is likely to make your first year much more enjoyable and successful since the Cambridge workload is demanding." And the website goes to list a number of things that students should study before arriving at Cambridge. Nothing that I see leads me to believe that French instruction is being dumbed down. It seems quite demanding to me. It may not produce students at the level of an educated native that Professor Milton would like to see, but I really don't see students leaving with 3300 words of French, whatever that means. Edited by s_allard on 23 April 2014 at 9:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 230 of 319 23 April 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I generally agree with what you say, but I do not think that Milton's study is a
useless study in academic navel gazing (if that is indeed what you are saying). Whilst the discussion here has descended into navel gazing, the motive of Milton's study is aimed at curriculum change in the UK education system. Given that so much of secondary school language teaching in the UK is still about grammatical accuracy (as in filling in verb endings) rather than communicative competence (which is the foundation of CEFR), I rather think that what he is doing has deep importance for the future of language teaching in England and Wales. As to Cambridge (which as it happens doesn't cost any more to study at for a UK student than any other English university) - Until very recently, I taught (history) at that institution and, just before I moved on, I had a student who had done prelims and part one (i.e. the first two years) of her French degree, before being told that her French wasn't good enough and that she should do an English based subject for part 2. Now this student was not a dumb student with 3000 words, but had perfect bilingual French due to the fact that her mother had spoken French exclusively since birth and she had lived in Paris for 6 years of her life. What she lacked was the sufficient philological skills to progress to an academic degree in French. As you say, French at Cambridge (and I suspect Oxford, UCL and other UK 'Russell Group' universities) is a demanding course and you need more than colloquial skills to get through it. It also shows that the comments about arts vs science (nesciently put as 'serious' degrees) degrees expressed earlier is largely without foundation. Edited by Elexi on 23 April 2014 at 10:12pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4080 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 231 of 319 23 April 2014 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Isnt it three years, including the year abroad?
By making it seem more fun and requiring less intense solitary work than is actually the case in the real world? It is not an intentional stereotype, it is what it is. Edited by Gemuse on 23 April 2014 at 9:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5563 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 232 of 319 23 April 2014 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It is 4 years - a language degree includes an extra year.
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