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How long does it take you to learn words? | ||
Tags: Number of words | Memory | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5661 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 40 16 February 2011 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been keeping statistics on this, and can now state with conviction that my average
over the past year has been a mere 10 words per day. I am setting my bar quite high here - in that I only claim to "know" a word when it is part of my active vocabulary, and has been used by me several times (in real conversations) instinctively (i.e. without having to think at all about which word to use). In addition to "known" words, there are always thousands of partly familiar words buzzing around in my head - many of which are only known passively, some of which are on the tip of my tongue but somehow elude me and make me kick myself later, and others which I only have a fuzzy feeling for what they mean. For a single word to go through the whole process from fuzzy understanding to rolling off the tongue effortlessly seems to take my brain an average of about six months. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 10 of 40 16 February 2011 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
In other words, you're claiming that with a little over an hour a day, you can learn -- effortlessly, at that -- about 3,000 words a month, right? Is this the statement you are making? Since you said "a couple of months", I'm guessing you've learned a lot more words than that. Surely, you aren't going to answer anything like "I could have, but I didn't", because after all, you did say it would be effortless to do so. If you have an effortless method to learn 3,000 words a month -- basically all you need for daily conversation -- and you didn't, than that's just plain lazy. And if 100 words an hour is effortless, surely 300 words in a day can't be that hard. Why not give it a try? Edited by Arekkusu on 16 February 2011 at 4:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 11 of 40 16 February 2011 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Show me a list of 100 Italian cognates, and I'll learn them real fast. Test me the next day, I'll still know them. In fact, I'll know most of them before you show me them.
Show me 20 Mongolian words I've never seen before and watch me struggle to remember them even an hour later. You can't put a number on the amount of words you can learn in a given period of time because it depends on so many factors, such as how closely related the languages are, how close the words are, whether there is a different alphabet or obscure writing system, whether you are just starting the language or you have many years of passive exposure, whether you are comfortable with the sounds or if there are many sounds you can't distinguish, etc. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 12 of 40 16 February 2011 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Splog makes a good point here - it really depends on what you mean by "knowing a word".
It's certainly possible to learn 100-200 new words superficially in an hour with flashcards or wordlists, but i) keeping up this pace of study day after day, as well as ii) developing a well-rounded, deep active knowledge where words and phrases end up rolling effortlessly off the tongue, and of course iii) remembering it all in a year's time...now that's quite a different matter. I think it takes much longer to really "know" a word in this sense, that is, in the sense of it becoming more of an "automatic" response. And it takes lots of ongoing review and personal association, most likely over months or even years, for it to develop strong healthy roots and networks in the mind. Indeed, a lot of words have so many hidden depths and shades of meaning, as well special pragmatic significance within their social and cultural framework, that I often wonder how many words in other languages I really know properly at all. I'm far more interested in how long it's taken people here to develop a deeper and more personally intuitive knowledge of words. For me, I notice a definite change after a couple of months of study (as long as there's plenty of review), but I'd say that this is like words are starting to settle but still don't really feel at home. Sometimes words manage to secure a place more quickly in my memories because they accompany an emotional event, or maybe there's something about them that enables them to link very easily to pre-existing sounds, shapes, feelings or concepts. All the same, I wonder how long it usually takes before words lose much of their "fuzziness" and start to effortlessly trip off the tongue, as Splog so aptly put it? 6 months sounds like a good number; so does a year. Perhaps there's a neurological basis for all this, or perhaps it just depends on how much effort and joy you invest into making these words an active and personal part of your life. Edited by Teango on 16 February 2011 at 5:44pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tozick Diglot Groupie Poland Joined 6354 days ago 44 posts - 69 votes Speaks: Polish*, English | Message 13 of 40 16 February 2011 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Well that's more or less what I claim. It's obvious that it depends a lot on one's defitinition of learning a word. I gave the numbers for a passive knowledge, obviously. If you want a number of words I've learnt this way it's 7000-ish. If you want to know the language - Spanish. If you want the kind of words - lamp post, rice, broom, arrive and towel. It was 1 group of words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 14 of 40 16 February 2011 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd venture that an average English speaker probably already has a passive knowledge of that many words in Spanish without even studying it. If not that much, then pretty darn close.
How about active knowledge of words? How many Spanish words an hour can you learn well enough that you can use them actively in a conversation? My recent experience as a 30-something man learning a very remote language like Japanese is that I probably learned to use between 2,000 and 3,000 words in a 2 to 3 year period, for a general average of about 1,000 words a year, or 3 a day. This is while learning all the knowledge that allows me to actually use the words. Edited by Arekkusu on 16 February 2011 at 8:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tozick Diglot Groupie Poland Joined 6354 days ago 44 posts - 69 votes Speaks: Polish*, English | Message 15 of 40 16 February 2011 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Well definitely there was a bunch of words that I could recognise already thanks to English. No doubt about that. I would say about 10% of them. As to active knowledge I can't really tell because I haven't really tried. I've been trying to learn Spanish relying on input and all that, just to see how it works. I'm obviously able to say simple stuff, but I'm far from being conversational since it's not what i aim for atm. All i can say about active knowledge is that once someone else wanted to test my knowledge of words i studied the day before and I was able to recall about 80% of 200 words. If i wanted to learn all of these words actively it would surely take a lot of more time. I think that it's actually pretty interesting so I might try it with a language i have no knowledge of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alois M. Heptaglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5206 days ago 10 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Dutch Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Hindi, Greek, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Arabic (classical), Swedish, Turkish | Message 16 of 40 18 February 2011 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
I don't believe in learning words out of context, i.e., by memorizing wordlists, dictionaries, etc. I learn only in context and, therefore, I'm already satisfied with my daily, diminute dose of 15-20 words of new vocabulary...
If this is true, it basically means he should be learning a new different language, to native-like level, in every single month of his life.... Edited by Alois M. on 18 February 2011 at 3:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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