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Do you have words you overuse? | ||
Tags: Word Frequency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 17 13 July 2012 at 12:48pm | IP Logged |
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I was struck by the overuse of certain words by some of my students.
One man would say 'actually' in nearly every sentence. Another insisted on using the word 'should', often inappropriately. Having discovered a new word, perhaps it rapidly became a favourite. Or they used it too much because they didn't know an alternative. Learning new words is one step, but learning when and how to use them is another. How do we guage word usage? It made me think about what Polish words I use in conversations and writing, and whether I clung to some more than others. From feedback from my conversation partners I discovered that I was saying 'zresztą' (= 'anyway') a bit too much. What words or phrases have you got into the habitat of using a lot? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4657 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 17 13 July 2012 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
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I hope that I don't overuse single words - but I use several "filler" words in my speech quite often. The words are different in each language but the reason is the same - to get a bit more time to think.
I suspect that the student using "actually" in nearly every sentence does it for this reason. Should it be so, I would offer him several alternatives. It won't be as obvious than. The words and speech patterns I use in Czech are completely different from the ones I use in German and again different from what I use in English. I didn't notice it when speaking French, but the reason is that my spoken French is still at the self-sufficient tourist stage. I try to avoid such cheats in writing completely. Instead, I make a real stop and think my message out completely. There is no need to fill a pause with an empty word. But when I started to participate in mail lists and converse online, I had to train myself out of the habit to mirror my speech in writing. BTW, in my teens I did learn to avoid certain words quite quickly - instead of swear box the penalty was dunking in a cold brook. Nothing motivates better than a cold bath in March. Second one during one weekend was my limit... 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 3 of 17 13 July 2012 at 1:37pm | IP Logged |
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Pretty much every single idiomatic French expression that I ever learned. I spent about
six weeks using "Il m'arrive de…" every 10 minutes. Up until maybe a week ago, it was "Il faut que je"+subjunctive. Next week it will probably be something that I pick up from watching Buffy, perhaps "Ça ira". Kids do the same thing. How many times can a 2-year-old say, "Fire truck!"? And whenever they learn something new, they overgeneralize it for a while. I suspect that it's perfectly natural. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 4 of 17 13 July 2012 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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In Polish: generalnie (someone once pointed this fact and, in fact, she was right)
In Bulgarian: тогава In most of the languages: by the way, for example, etc... And 'in my opinion'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 17 13 July 2012 at 4:39pm | IP Logged |
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In my native Swedish, I tend to have a "word of the week" or "expression of the week". It takes a couple of days and all of a sudden I realise that I've used this or that word/expression. It doesn't even have to be a "new" word I just learned, or a buzz word, just something which for some reason gets activated.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 17 13 July 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged |
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Like, I use like a lot.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| blackbrich Newbie United States Joined 5229 days ago 13 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 17 15 July 2012 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
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In my native language I use the phrase, "to be fair". I also use a lot of words to soften things I say. Like I think, probably, pretty much, basically, for the most part.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4527 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 8 of 17 17 July 2012 at 7:28am | IP Logged |
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In Mandarin I say aiya (and extend the aaaaaaaaa) a lot... In English I say like, like all the time.
In German, my target language, I pretty much never speak... I like saying doch though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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