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How many L2 words when starting out? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5559 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 2 of 18 23 February 2011 at 2:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't start out by memorizing lists of hundreds of words. I prefer a more organic approach, where I learn words as I encounter them in context. I find I remember them and remember how to use them better that way.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5758 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 18 23 February 2011 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I ... don't count them. It doesn't make sense to put a number to it. For example, I could say that I want to learn to count items with the numbers from 1-100 within the first month. Of course I would also want to learn how to use the numbers in a sentence.
Well, in English that would mean to memorize the numbers 1-12, the rule for 13-19 (with pronunciation for 13 and 15) and all multiples of ten, plus the rule that higher numbers are made from the multiple of ten + single digit number. Then a couple of ordinal numbers - 1st-3rd are irregular, the pronunciation of 5th as well, all others follow the pattern number+th. If then I just know the word and its plural form, then I can count almost any object. In German, the effort is about the same. It takes a bit to get used to forming two digit numbers like two-and-forty, but the system itself is fairly regular. We have only two irregular ordinal numbers, too. The plural forms for words are a bit more difficult to learn. French is a bit more tricky. Memorize 1-16, rule for 17-19, rule for forming two digit numbers - 70-99 take some time to get used to, though. Ordinal numbers are okay, if I learn the plural forms of the words I can count. Then take Japanese. From 1-10 it has two numeric systems, a native Japanese one and a Sinojapanese one. Not too difficult to memorize, because the Sinojapanese system is very regular, to memorize are only two sets of 1-10, two rules to form two-digit numbers plus some regular pronunciation changes. Not that difficult either. And then you have to learn which counters to use for which word. Only a handful of irregular forms, thankfully. Once you've got used to the system it's no more difficult than learning a plural form in French or probably German, but getting there takes some effort. So, the effort for what seems to be the same goal is quite different in those languages! Edited by Bao on 23 February 2011 at 11:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yawn Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5418 days ago 141 posts - 209 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, FrenchC2, SpanishC2 Studies: GermanB1 | Message 4 of 18 23 February 2011 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really keep track of how many new vocabulary words I learn. I sort of just pick them up as I go along...
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| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5122 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 18 23 February 2011 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
Who are these people that say you need to learn a specific number of words when starting out? R. == 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 18 23 February 2011 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Don't confuse "result" with "target".
If you learn to a conversational level, you will learn the words you need. Those words may be 750, 1000 or 2000 -- it's not important to me, so I have never counted. (Could I count anyway? I couldn't count my English vocabulary, certainly.) But the converse is not true -- if you learn 750, 1000, 2000 words, this alone will not bring you to a conversational level. Your goal is ability in the language, so aim for that. In the process you will learn the vocabulary you need, which will presumably be in the region of 750-1000 words. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6097 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 8 of 18 23 February 2011 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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In their book, 'The Art and Science of Learning Languages'
Gethin and Gunnemarke make two important points: 1) Only a small number of words are needed to cover a large part of the spoken vocabulary, about 200 words cover as much as 80% of the spoken vocabulary. To cover the written vocabulary, more words are required. In my experience these figures are are a little exaggerated, but I agree with the basic principle. 2) Learn the most common words at an early stage. They proposed the following vocabularies for different needs: 400-500 words Active vocabulary for 'survival' speaking. 800-1,000 words 'Mini' speak for slow speech, and basic reading. 2,000 words 'Midi' speak enough for serious discussions and everyday conversations. 4,000 words Sufficient for fluent reading of newspapers and non-fiction. 8,000 words Complete communication system for average needs and reading fiction. > 20,000 words Active vocabulary in native tongue, half used very seldom. > 100,000 words Passive vocabulary in native tongue for cultivated Europeans. To begin with there can be a temptation to learn lots of interesting nouns, but everyday adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions are more useful to know early on. For example: 'Already' 'That' 'Although' 'As' 'By' 'Every' According to my Anki decks I actively 'know' 917 Polish words, but my passive vocabulary is probably twice that. With so many declensions in Polish, words I know in their nominative (dictionary) form look less recognisable in their declined forms. I'm currently getting to grips identifying verb conjugates. There are 53 conjugates for verbs like 'to wait' and that's just the imperfective aspect! Constant exposure to the words in all their forms is of course crucial. So I read Polish books (mainly fiction aimed at 12 year olds) for an hour a day if possible. Edited by Mooby on 23 February 2011 at 10:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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