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What about unknown words in a book ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5959 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 38 02 November 2010 at 2:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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This happened to me just the other night. I had a long wait at the airport and decided to spend the time testing my Spanish comprehension with Harry Potter. It's an easy read and even though I've forgotton many specifics, I didn't miss many words and those I just marked with a pencil and looked up later - except for one.
One word was really bothering me: "lechuza." It was clear from the context that this was a bird (owl) but I did not know the exact kind. I had to look it up because every time the word appeared I thought "lechuga" or lettuce, even though I knew that was incorrect. "Ninguno vio la gran lechuza parda que pasaba volando por la ventana" I had no choice but to check the dictionary, if only to get the this very vivid, and very wrong, image of large dark flying lettuce out of my mind (maybe it was romaine?) Normally when reading in a target languge, if the text is at the right level for me at the time, the best thing to do is read for general comprehension first and mark unknown or unfamilar words in pencil. The I read again later and pay attention to specifics of meaning and usage (extensive and intensive reading, as mentioned earlier in the thread). The more difficult words go in a list or on cards, and I read again when I know them better. Sometimes I do a reading session specifically to reinforce learning of a particular grammatical detail; for example, I might choose an article in German that is easy to read in general, and pay careful attention to case and preposition. Stopping reading because of flying lettuce is an exception to my normal practice, but I'm sure you'll agree that it WAS ominous! 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5513 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 18 of 38 02 November 2010 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally seldom even bother to look up words, and for the most part this works pretty well. My (passive) English vocabulary is pretty large, and I've built it up through osmosis, 99% of it at least. Similarly with Russian, I started reading translated books (Agatha Christie, Strindberg, Lagerqvist etc) after just a few months, and even though I probably didn't understand more than half the words starting out, it was enough to enjoy the read, sort of understand the story and towards the end I would understand a higher share of the words, since they tend to repeat, especially in non-literary writing.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6574 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 19 of 38 02 November 2010 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've learned my English through osmosis, too, but then I use my English a lot. I'm not going to use my French or Mandarin for hours a day during many years. I find that not looking the words up you'll probably learn them, but looking them up and SRSing them (that's right, I verbified it) speeds up the process a lot.
Ironically, when I read Mandarin at the moment, I do look up the words, but I don't SRS them, because my Canto deck is constantly receiving so many new words I can't deal with the added burden of Mandarin right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6026 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 20 of 38 02 November 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
The "flying lettuce" effect is actually a good thing. The brain is trying to do patten matching on the basis of sound, lexical similarity, and (critically) context. Given enough occurrences of the word I'm sure you would have guessed it's an owl. Some people like to look up every word, personally I wouldn't bother even for the very specific and uncommon words (e.g. like bird species). Call me lazy ;-p. 2 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 21 of 38 02 November 2010 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm with meramerina on this one. The brain's pattern matching isn't always good. It looks for a "good enough" fit and won't let go. I had a problem with "rosumiem"(?) in Polish. The pattern-matcher in my head wanted it to be like an american saying "resume" followed by "yem". This rough pattern matching is how we handle unfamiliar accents in our mother tongue, so our brain has it pegged as a good strategy, and is reluctant to stop doing it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5959 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 38 03 November 2010 at 5:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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True, if we could not generalize patterns our brains wold be quickly overwhelmed, and this would probably cause all kinds of aerial salad and who knows what else. (accelerating celery?
The "flying lettuce effect"! I love this as a phrase. Now it's not just me - we are ALL seeing flying lettuce now! The one-letter difference between "lechuza" and "lechuga" is easy to miss at first glance. When you see two very similar words, even in your own native language, it must be a perceptal/cognitive mistake that functions as a mental shortcut, at least as a first impression, to default to a more familiar form or pattern even when there's a good reason not to. I misread frequently both in English and in foreign vocabularies. "Lechuga" is familiar but "lechuza" was not; thus, my mind skipped right over the z and assumed g, making a clear, quick picture of an image I know instead of one I don't. But now that I've specifically noticed the difference, I'll see the distinction, and, I hope, avoid getting pelted by wayward veggies. And so my vocabulary grows. Edited by meramarina on 04 November 2010 at 2:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5165 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 23 of 38 03 November 2010 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
It strikes me, although not exactly Mrs Malaprops, how many native speakers of English are happy with knowing only vaguely what a word they frequently use means. I have to keep quiet now, otherwise I would get into lots of trouble correcting people, at least as I see it. It's the way languages change and we have to accept most people's "pattern-matchers" are pretty inaccurate things. If most of what you learn to say in any language is correct people are going to understand what you mean when the occasional error creeps in. Edited by Old Chemist on 03 November 2010 at 12:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6134 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 24 of 38 03 November 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm with those who are of the mindset that they look up every unknown word and put it in an SRS. I'm currently reading Harry Potter in Greek and I can usually understand even the unfamiliar words from context, but I look them up anyways since I'm aiming for a native level of proficiency in Greek and I want all the words I can get. How I go about this is I read a chapter on my own without looking up anything at all, and then later go back to that chapter (before reading the next one preferably) and go through it, looking up all the unknown words. This way, I would think, I get the benefits of both extensive and intensive reading.
P.S. I really like that term -- the "flying lettuce effect"! Edited by ellasevia on 03 November 2010 at 4:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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