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Is counting your vocabulary size useless? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 169 of 210 23 August 2012 at 6:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I think that this wait-till-I'm-ready approach is a totally wrong way of going about it. And of course this is founded on the idea that I need at least a thousand words before I can do anything in the language. What this usually means is that for the vast majority of people it never happens, period. What is my approach? Well, I don't want to say for the umpteenth time that you can do a lot with a few words, but I really want to take exception with this idea that with the odds and ends of 300 words, you can't do anything. How many times do I have to say that for example given that 38 words make up 50% and 278 words 80% of all the words of spoken French, then with a small number of word families you could at least make a lot of grammatical French phrases. The real problem is that the vast majority of people do not master the very basics of the language. Take, for example, French verbs. As I have mentioned many times, four verbs, être, avoir, faire and aller account for about 60% of all verbs in spoken French or more than all the other verbs combined. If you think about it a minute, this means that if you know how to use these verbs well, 60% of the verbs coming out of your mouth are covered. If you know that the French prepositions de, à in various forms account for half of all the prepositions in French, again it means that when you open your mouth half of the pronouns coming out will be one form of de and à. If you look at verb conjugations, you notice that the nous forms have been nearly totally replaced by on and that certain conditionals like "j'aimerais" and "je voudrais" totally eclipse all the others and that you could use only the present tense form as a replacement for all the others. What does all this mean? It means that you can say meaningful things if you know what you are doing. And that is the huge if. This is the problem. For most learners, "faire" means "to make" and "the weather" as in "il fait beau." But in fact, this just scratches the surface, and if you dig a bit you realize that this verbs has very many uses. But I've said this many times before. How does this translate into actually speaking the language? First of all, you can start using the language immediately in public with the basic greetings and pleasantries. Now, the problem here is accent which in the beginning can be difficult and can make you incomprehensible. Part of the problem is that people are trying to read aloud from the written word. This is very confusing in the beginning. But most people can imitate very well. So, instead of trying to figure out all the complexities of French liaison on the printed page, just imitate the sounds. With your limited French vocabulary you can still do most of your shopping. You have to avoid certain complications but I don't see why you have to learn a thousand verbs before being able to buy a loaf of bread or some vegetables in the market. The problem is that people are not taught how to shop for real. So they are intimidated. The way to get around this is to have a native language buddy who can accompany you in these activities. The point of doing all these little things in French is twofold. For starters, it's great for self-esteem. Just being able to get on the bus and say "bonjour" with a great accent and have people respond to you likewise without remarking anything is a great accomplishment because you are speaking the language for real. I remember when I was in Cuba and learned that with so many lineups for most stores it was common practice for a person arriving to ask "último" to see where the line ended. With a bit of practice I could say it pretty well and would take great pleasure it using it when going out with my Cuban friends or even by myself. After observing how Cubans shopped and the kinds of interactions, I was able to do the same. It made me fit right in. Some readers will jump up and say that I couldn't have a philosophical discussion with the vegetable saleperson and that my limited Spanish meant that all I could do was get in line, parrot some tourist phrase book phrases and buy a few vegetables. Well, that may be the case but it certainly felt great The second reason for doing this is that you are actually using the language, as limited as it is. You are actually practicing while you are studying. You are associating sounds with actions by observing what people do. You see how people ask for things and see how they respond. So, you just do likewise. How complicated is this? I really don't understand this idea of sequestering yourself and learning 1000 or 2500 words before bursting out of the closet or cave to start learning "usage" or attempting to speak. Why not start using one word and work up from there to 300 and then to 1000 and beyond? I know that there is this idea of a silent period where you absorb the language before speaking. I have nothing against that, but I believe in speaking from day 1, if that is at all feasible. Why not incorporate actual practice into the learning experience? Edited by s_allard on 23 August 2012 at 2:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 170 of 210 23 August 2012 at 9:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with s_allard.
If speaking is the priority, or as equally important as the other skills, then we should speak earlier than later. Sure, it's nice to have lots of vocabulary with which to eloquently express ourselves but we can say a heck of lot with 300. And if we master those 300 so that we can form statements, questions, negatives, plurals, past-present-future tenses etc. then we gain: 1.Confidence 2.A nice collection of simple syntatic constructions on which to base our ever-expanding vocabulary in the future. Yes, an INITIAL few hundred words limits the RANGE of conversation but used well they can increase the ACCURACY + FLUENCY of our conversation in preparation for greater vocabulary aquistion later. Rather than ask 'How many words do you know?' perhaps we should ask ourselves 'How many constructs do you know ?' And well enough to use practically and at short notice in two-way conversation?. Edited by Mooby on 23 August 2012 at 9:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4889 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 171 of 210 23 August 2012 at 9:26am | IP Logged | |||||
I think you're ignoring the context here. I agree with most of your arguments, though I don't believe that they can be applied as universally as is implied here. One can do a lot with 300 words when one can use them fluidly (or fluently, as you will). I think this fluidity can only happen when one is immersed, or has daily contact with the living language We don't learn this kind of fluidity in school, nor from all the books and podcasts in the world. We learn proper grammar, or maybe some idioms and slang, but no more. Or at least, not at the beginning. Some of the most useless drills we did in school were the 'conversations' we had to have using our limited French. We weren't really speaking French; we were speaking English with French words. And I think this hindered our learning. Edited by kanewai on 23 August 2012 at 1:35pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 172 of 210 23 August 2012 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 173 of 210 23 August 2012 at 10:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Emk won't start speaking before he has the A2 level, and s_allard characterizes this as a "wait-till-I'm-ready" approach (another way to say "silent period"). He then proceeds to repeat two arguments, namely that a very limited amount of vocabulary covers a very large percentage of normal communication and that you can deal with a number of practical situations with a very limited vocabulary. I have already stated that both claims are correct - actually I have visited countries where I couldn't communicate at all in words with local vendors, and if communicating with zero words is doable then communicating with three hundred words must be better.
As stated on the previous page s_allard's goal is "to speak as quickly as possible with native speakers." And if that means communicating with 300 words then so be it. Emk on the other hand supports a limited version of the "silent period" approach where you want to be sure you can speak at least at a rock-bottom A2 level before involving others in his project. The big problem is whether this actually leads to a situation where some persons learn to speak fluently but with little content, while others will be stuttering away even though they potentially should be able to communicate about everything from dirty napkins to electronics with all their many words. I noticed s_allard's description of my goal as "to be able to read a text written for native speakers. That says it all. To be able to do this you need a passive vocabulary comparable to that of a native speaker. There is no doubt about that. Speaking is a by-product that may or may not happen.". As a characterization of my methods this correct, but I don't see speaking as a mere byproduct - I see it as one of several endproducts, and for most of my languages I will get there at some point. If I lived in a place where I was surrounded by a certain language all day long I would achieve it faster and and I become more fluent, but that's not the situation. The situation is that I have very limited opportunities to speak other languages at home to native speakers, and participating in standard courses is not really an option - I share Kanawai's disgust with "the 'conversations' we had to have using our limited French. We weren't really speaking French; we were speaking English with French words. And I think this hindered our learning.". So what is left then? Well, in the main two things. I can train my active skills through writing and thinking, and I can take short 'booster' holidays where I activate the passive skills I have acquired - which implies that I actually have some passive skills to activate. And if I really take a language seriously then the goal is to be able to discuss about the same subjects as I would cover at home in my own language (or here at HTLAL in my log). But that can only be done with a fairly comprehensive vocabulary. The criterion for me to put a language on the 'speaks' list to the left is that I have had one or more monolingual holidays where I only have spoken the local languages, and where I have had conversations with local people about more than just bread and butter (although to be true I have only spent a few days speaking Dutch in the Netherlands, I have alternatively spoken Danish and Swedish in Sweden and I simply couldn't avoid speaking English in Ireland outside the Esperanto congress I attended there). But the list should at least prove that I take speaking very seriously. Speaking is just not the only goal for me, and it is normally not the goal I have to reach first. Being able to read and understand in principle all written and spoken sources intended for native speakers is more relevant for me than being able to buy a bread in Polish - I could do that with less than 300 words if need be. Edited by Iversen on 23 August 2012 at 11:17am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 174 of 210 23 August 2012 at 11:26am | IP Logged | |||||
The vast majority of the vast majority that don't speak after years of study are a product of various school systems, while this forum is geared towards self-motivated self-learners, many of whom do end up speaking to a greater or lesser degree, and among those that do, it is likely that a sizable fraction neither seek out native speakers early on nor have a tutor. The question then becomes, in what way is their approach wrong, i.e., what are the detrimental effects of the way they go about it for it to be called wrong? The truth is, this question may be hard to answer. We'd need to line up the eager early speakers in this forum and those who delay speech, and compare their speaking skills, correcting for certain biases in the selection. This type of experiment does not appear feasible, so we can only ask people to report their learning experiences. So, are there any among us who delayed speaking, yet had always intended to speak well eventually, who can report achieving good speaking skills? Or are the good speakers among us all of the school that one ought to start speaking to the natives very early in the process? Edited by frenkeld on 23 August 2012 at 11:29am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 175 of 210 23 August 2012 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I did tons of LR in Polish, a lot of reading and quite a bit of shadowing. I seriously doubt my conversations in Poland could've been better if I had taken a few conversation classes with a non-native tutor, and my pronunciation might've been worse. I really loved it the way it was: I spoke easily and understood practically everything. The only things I need for basic fluency are grammatical accuracy and a "steady" vocabulary, by that I mean being more sure whether I'm using a Polish word or a Russian one (and almost never needing to fill in the gaps using Russian words). In fact, if/when I try the same with Croatian, I'll be sure to have a more "steady" vocabulary than I did in Polish.
Also, in Poland and in Finland I got some unexpected opportunities to speak Italian. I was surprised I could speak it at all, given that previously my only active output had been some tweets. I have a larger active vocabulary than I thought I did, and I attribute that to the fact that I do way more listening than reading nowadays. It's easier to use a word in your speech if you've heard it, rather than just seen it in writing. Ask me again next year;) Edited by Serpent on 23 August 2012 at 1:11pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 176 of 210 23 August 2012 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
That would be interesting, but as I wrote a couple of days ago:
Edited by Iversen on 23 August 2012 at 2:14pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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