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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 57 of 210 19 August 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
This quote illustrates perfectly the misconception about this whole issue of the minimum size of vocabulary needed to speak. As I said in the initial post, we see all kinds of figures for passive and active vocabulary. Some people say 20,000. Others say 10,000. Maybe it's 5,000. My own viewpoint is that, ultimately, the question is not that important because you will learn the vocabulary you need, Choose the number that makes you happy. That said, as a teacher I see daily, on the one hand, people struggling with English and French despite many hours of study and, other the other hand, people who can speak quite fluently despite really little formal study but lots of contact with the language. I live in a country with two official languages. French is not spoken equally everywhere, but it is mandatory in the school system and is readily available in the media. I find it interesting to note that those Middle Eastern suq merchants who have never studied any language formally do not hesitate to use what they know whereas most English-speaking Canadians would resort to French only in the most dire circumstances. But let me attack this issue of minimum vocabulary size from a different angle. Learning a language involves learning the counting system and numerals. These include the cardinals (one, two, three, etc.), the ordinals (first, second, third, etc.) and fractions (one-half, one-quarter, one-third, etc.). There are many other aspects, of course, but we'll stick to these. The number system is used in many aspects of our lives such as temperature, telephone numbers, prices, speed, distance, salaries, etc. Most people at HTLAL claim to speak or study at least two, and often many more, languages. My question to everybody then is: what is minimum knowledge of the number system that you have to know in a given language? Obviously, as I have stated so many times, the fundamental question is: To do what? Are you a scientist? Do you work in a bank or in a store? Are you 15 years old? Are you retired? In other words, what is your relation to numbers? But let's simplify things. For non-technical and non-professional simple casual conversations--I emphasize the spoken language--what would be the minimum that would allow you to get by fluently? Some people here would undoubtedly claim that you need to be able to count to at least 10,000 and know all your fractions, percentages and ordinals because you never know what people are going say. OK, I'm being facetious here. In all seriousness, how do we answer the question? Do what any serious observer does, you study what people do. A long time ago, people like Pareto and Zipf pointed out that in matters of language, in most cases, a small portion of a language accounts for the bulk of the usage. I haven't seen exact studies on this question, but I would think that in everyday ordinary usage, the most common numbers would be 0 to 100 with the highest usage in the 0-20 range. Only a few fractions and the first three ordinals are used. Now, the interesting thing about many number systems is that starting with a core system, usually 1-10 or 1-20, most of the other numbers can be derived systematically. So, you don't have to use learn all the numbers by heart. In keeping with my position, I would state that a minimum required knowledge of the counting system is 0-100 and maybe even 0-20, but that may be pushing it. Then some fractions, maybe, and the first three ordinals. What can you do with this? I think that if you know how to use these numbers well, i.e. in various situations, you can have long and fluent conversations on all sorts of topics. What can you not do? You can not discuss statistics, you can not discuss financial statements, etc. As a matter of fact, I wonder how people here assess their ability to use numbers in their target languages. Could one feel comfortable speaking a language and not be able to count to more than ten? I actually think so, but that will have to be another debate. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 58 of 210 19 August 2012 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As a learner of Japanese, counting high is indeed important. Look at the Yen and you'll see all the real life implications.
And I also focus on spoken language. Listening comprehension is king IMHO, simply because that's what you'll do most, unless you live in an ivory tower. And here comes the problem: If you know a low amount of words, your comprehension will be bad. If you don't understand what you hear, how will you be able to have a conversation? Your wife collapsed, you try to contact the emergency, but can't answer their questions, because you don't know all the words they say. Sure, you can say in some limited way (let's be honest here and call it "primitive") what you want to say and then pray you're being understood. "My wife fell down. She looks sick. She can't speak" - that's fine. Now they ask you for the street and house number, your name and the name of your wife, and due to your low vocab, you get 50% of what's being asked (because, in this particular example, things like these are pretty basic - I picked this to demonstrate that even in such a case, 50% is never enough)... but when seconds may matter, stumbling and fumbling around will be your demise. Having a chat with natives on the street is a whole new can of worms. Background noise, all the complications listening comprehension already have ... plus you don't get most of the words. Not even Einstein could guess the meanings when his comprehension rate was 30% (and I'm being optimistic here). Now back to the Moroccan example. What exactly is it they can do "in several languages"? ^^ Think again. The more words, the better, and the quicker, the better. Every new word unlocks a new door, and the more open doors, the faster you will pick up new words, because languages are built systematically. There you have the core of the issue: learning broad or learning deep? I'd take broad first, then deep later, and focused on topic, dictated by interests and needs. Edited by atama warui on 19 August 2012 at 5:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 210 19 August 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sell, buy and bargain, I'd guess? The world is full of trade languages, market languages and home languages. Many of the people who speak these languages are fluent within a single domain, and have huge problems discussing other subjects. For example, when my French was in long-term hibernation, my overall skills were around A2. But my wife was speaking to our kids in French all that time, and after a year or two, I understood virtually everything she was saying in that specific context. Didn't help me much with the news radio, though. A huge fraction of the world's multilinguals have languages like that. If you only use a language for 2 things, you can get buy with surprisingly limited vocabulary, and half your "grammar" can consist of trivial variations on fixed phrases. And you can even see similar phenomena among advanced speakers: Lots of people in Montreal will appear to be fully native speakers, with flawless accents, until you get them onto a specialized topic. Others have C1-level fluency but will occasionally miss stupidly easy words like "commencer" that any second-year French student should know. I'm not the least bit surprised that Moroccan merchants can haggle proficiently in a large number of languages. They get tons of opportunity to practice, and it's clearly a profitable skill. And you could probably do it terrifically well with 1000 words, a couple of verb tenses, and a big stock of fixed phrases. Edited by emk on 19 August 2012 at 5:47pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 60 of 210 19 August 2012 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In other words, if you ask one of them about the weather or the best way to get to location X in your language they so beautifully speak, they'll answer with a huge, pulsating question mark above their heads?
I thought we'd talk about serious language learning here, not some niche-learning as base to the real studies. It won't work, because language is a tool for communication, and if you're unable to leave your little speech ability hole, you'll not encounter all the terms that make up the language, plain and simple. Take a specific topic to learn and perfect, ignore the rest, and you'll get nowhere. Unexpected questions will leave you clueless, even in your target niche. "You also got earrings" - "Huh?" You want to make natives continue with "You (know), (those) things you (hang) on your ears... accessories." (with the X'd out words in parentheses here). If you take the time and build a solid base, then build your knowledge block by block, the building will be much more stable. It may not be as pretty as the tower that Moroccan trader lives in, but it'll also not break down from too strong a wind. I also wonder if those guys hang around the market 24/7 without the physical need to do anything else than banter. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 61 of 210 19 August 2012 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, having worked in retail, I'd guess that weather, directions, public toilets, and the best place to buy lunch are all standard merchant topics. Anything beyond that, though, and you're probably going to get question marks. If somebody desperately needs medical care, for example, good luck with that.
Personally, I'm fascinated by multilingual societies, heritage learners and trade languages. There are places in India, Africa and Papua New Guinea where you need to speak 3–5 languages in the course of everyday life. There are people who understand their mother's language at C1+ but who never speak more than a few words. And there are major trade languages with few native speakers. Sometimes, these restricted abilities can develop rapidly, given the right stimulus. But more importantly, I guarantee you that no Moroccan merchant, Indian villager, or Papua New Guinean trader cares what I think. They speak the languages they need to speak, in the situations when they need to speak them, and if it's not enough, they do their best. And if their best isn't good enough, they suffer the consequences. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 62 of 210 19 August 2012 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I guess the Japanese yen has put my minimum number theory to bed. All Japanese learners have to know the entire number system as a minimum. Well, back to the drawing board. Now, if 300 is not enough, what is the minimum? Is it 1000 or 10,000 and why? The number 300, as used generally by French teachers, is based on a simple calculation. With that number all the most common parts of speech are covered: all the important prepositions, conjunctions, relatives, adjectives, some nouns, determiners and the key verbs. Most teachers believe that this constitutes a threshold from which a knowledgeable learner can start having useful conversations. I don't know how many times I have to say that it all depends on what you can do with these resources. If you have mastered the 70 most important verbs in French, you are way ahead of the people who can recognize 1000 verbs and yet fall flat on their face when they mix up the passé composé and the imparfait. And how many people ever really get a handle on the subjunctive despite a 10,000 word vocabulary? And that's the real problem. Vocabulary size does not always correlate with the ability to communicate effectively. The real test is what I hear when you open your mouth. Frankly, I prefer someone who can speak easily, smoothly, coherently, accurately and miss some words that I can fill in to someone who throws a lot of words at me and hurts my ears. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4701 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 63 of 210 19 August 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The thing is this, I made a test once to assess my vocabulary by taking a calculated, hence educated guess, for German and English vocab size.
I'm supposed to know about 60.000 words in German and 20.000 in English. Now, given that I'm fluent in English, and if one word escaped me, there are tons of synonyms or elegant workarounds, with a vocab size of _only_ 20.000, then look at my every day experiences with Japanese, which is currently at 8.000 (in the grand scheme, incorporating diminishing returns due to word frequency and such, it's not supposed to be "a bit less than 1/2"), there's something odd to be observed: I can do a almost everything I can do now minus a few things in English at 8.000 words (and a lot less elegantly and eloquently), but Japanese kicks me where the sun doesn't shine. Different languages use different amounts of words. I'd say, to achieve the same proficiency I have in English with 8.000 words, Japanese would make me learn 15.000. However, this is not some vague feeling or the result of less practice, a more shaky grammar knowledge or an untrained ear - it's really only a matter of vocabulary. As you say, the real test is what you hear when I open my mouth. I can be fluently and with a pleasant accent talk about the weather, my favourite hobby and my job at the market (and even give you directions to the toilet or the train station - but not help you out in cases of medical emergency), and all day long - until you ask me a simple question not falling into that niche. Then it'll pop up, the big, red, pulsating, dreaded question mark of do0o0om. And I'll wish I'd have taken the time and learn more words. 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 64 of 210 19 August 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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