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Learning Only Vocabulary | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Desertbandit Groupie Netherlands Joined 5092 days ago 80 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Iraqi)* | Message 1 of 25 12 December 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is it possible to master a language by only memorizing voculubary ?
I mean think about it, a language is just one big collection of words. Grammar is something you can learn afterwards , but I believe if you know what most words mean understanding a sentence should be very easy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 25 12 December 2010 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's a tempting thought.
For very concrete things and one-word-one-meaning sentences: yes, you may very well understand a great deal, but many languages have particles that aren't directly translateable. I have struggled with basic sentences in Chinese where I've known the "meaning" of each individual word/character (I've even been able to write them!), but where the meaning of the sentence have been unclear. Grammar is the way the word elements work together, and knowing them individually might not be enough. Now and then I've read here on the forum that Asian students read (even memorize large parts of) an English dictionary. Do they all master the language? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5182 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 25 13 December 2010 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
I think this is a very bad idea. If you want to understand a language and speak it with any fluency you need to learn how words fit together. The best way to do this in my opinion is through listening to natural sentences, so you gradually get used to the sounds and structure of the language. Learning individual words may seem like a short cut, but I think that it is probably a waste of time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7089 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 25 13 December 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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In Arabic I had the same problem that Jeff mentions. Much of the time I could, w read a sentence and understand each word individually but not understand what the sentence was saying, what all the words meant together. Yes, a language is made up of words, but these words take different meanings in different situations. This is why if you memorize the dictionary you don't yet know the language. Context is key.
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| vickyyuchi Newbie Taiwan Joined 5110 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English | Message 5 of 25 13 December 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
Personally, I don't think one can really master a language only by memorizing vocablulary. It can't be denied that vocabulary is important for language learners because it could be the foundation of language acquisition. However, I think language would be more than collections of words. Except for vocabulary, other parts like syntax, semantics and so on could be very important as well. Languages would be seen as many disconnected segments if learners acquire only by memorizing vocabulary. Moreover, when a language learner doesn't know the rules of combining vocabulary together, or doesn't know when and where and how to use the vocabulary, it would be impossible for he or she to really master the languge and produce effective communication, let alone to write eaasys. I'm not denying the importance of vocabluary. Every language would be learned from vocabulary level. What I want to point out here is that when it comes to mastering a language, only to memorize many vocabulary is not enough. Other important parts like grammar, culture, and so shold also be included in language learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| papen Newbie United States Joined 5172 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English | Message 6 of 25 13 December 2010 at 10:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe, Most language is Noun + Verb + noun (basic)
so from your 1st language yea. You can just learn the vocabulary and then speak to the speaker and learn the grammar in a hard way (analyze the sentence) or read the textbook's grammar who people already did it for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emiliana Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5106 days ago 81 posts - 98 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Arabic (classical) | Message 7 of 25 13 December 2010 at 11:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is very much depending on the language and if the grammer is somewhat similar to one that you already know. In Arabic for example I assume that it is quite difficult. For example, when declining verbs they change their first letters and not their last like in all the other languages that I know. So even if I know the verb in its infinitive form (furthermore there is no real infinitive in Arabic, but that's a different matter) I probably wouldn't recognize it in a sentence.
On the other hand when I learned Latin at school I never learned any grammer. At least not on my own. Of course I grasped some parts during the lessons but at home I learned only vocabulary and well, I am not exactly a Latin geek but at least I passed ;-). Anyway, Latin grammar can produce such complicated constructions that sometimes I even did not understand the German standard translation of the teacher. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 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 8 of 25 13 December 2010 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you are a tourist then it may be useful to know the names of the main food items, the numbers, the words for loo, men and women, and exit and - for the very ambitious - some greetings. But this is not what most of us understand by "mastering a language". Vocabulary learning is probably the most time consuming activity for a language learner, but it can't stand alone.
PS: this reminds me of a old thread where somebody asked whether learning 'Tarzan language' would be a good idea. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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