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Vocabulary Acquisition - common words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6726 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes  Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 47 06 July 2009 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
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Has anyone previously used lists of the most common words in x language to aid their vocabulary acquisition? Where would one find these? (I found English, but no Hungarian!)
Would you see it as beneficial to study in this way? I have been reading that, should you learn the 3,000 most commonly used words in a language, you will be well equipped to carry out normal conversation (as long as you know grammar etc). Any opinions? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kyrie Senior Member United States clandestein.deviantaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5737 days ago 207 posts - 231 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 2 of 47 06 July 2009 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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I found one for Portuguese, but Hungarian might be a bit harder.
Here's what I'd try. Go to the list of common words in English and use your dictionary/translator to translate them, then you have yourself a vocabulary list. I know that they're common in English and not Hungarian, but hey, what choice is there? :/ And yes, normal conversation is easy once you know common words. Especially colloquial words for the younger, more informal. Edited by Kyrie on 06 July 2009 at 3:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Louis Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5738 days ago 92 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 47 06 July 2009 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
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There is currently a frequency list for Hungarian words here. Unfortunately, the list is not all that helpful since there are no side-by-side no translations, nor are there definitions for each words (this is indicated by a red word, rather than the normal blue). I suppose it is better than nothing and if you wanted to limit yourself to just the first 2,000 or so (there are over 9000 total words), that would work.
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| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6726 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 4 of 47 06 July 2009 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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That's fabulous Louis! Thanks!! Nevermind about there not being a translation side by side - I can take the time to look them up if necessary. It'll help cement the words in my mind!
Kyrie, I had thought of doing that aswell (using the English lists) - but that was going to be my last resort! I think I'll start to Anki these words and get to know them! Edited by Katie on 06 July 2009 at 5:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6711 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 5 of 47 06 July 2009 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
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Many of the most common words are irregular and then they are mentioned in grammars, and besides you will meet them all the time by reading genuine texts or text book texts so you can also pick them up there. In that way you also meet them in some of their different meanings in in different constructions - these words are often extremely versatile. But I don't think that there are as many as 3000 words in this category, - certainly less than 1000 words, maybe just a few hundred. There is no need to use a frequency dictionary (especially not one without translations) - either these words pop out into your head whenever you open a book or they simply aren't common enough to warrant a special treatment.
As I have written in many other places I prefer learning the rest of my vocabulary bulkwise through wordlists, partly based on the things I read, partly directly on dictionaries. But the central core of words in a language aren't suited for word lists because of their irregularities, many (vague) meanings and frequent idiomatic uses. Edited by Iversen on 06 July 2009 at 10:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6280 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 6 of 47 06 July 2009 at 3:34pm | IP Logged |
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I have seen a word list for Modern Standard Arabic (in transliterated Roman script) and one for Latin, in what appeared to be frequency order. I think the same company published both.
Not the first time I have mentioned it on this forum, but the finest example of such a frequency dictionary is Nicholas J. Brown's Russian Learners' Dictionary, published by Routledge. I regret that this had not been published when I was studying Russian at university, though I did use one of Brown's sources. To add a little more: Brown in his introduction alludes to the belief that such lists of common words in frequency order cannot go beyond 2,000 words, as less frequent words are too dependent on context, subject etc. to be readily arranged according to frequency. Brown rejects this view - his list goes up to 10,000 Russian words. Edited by William Camden on 06 July 2009 at 3:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7085 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 7 of 47 06 July 2009 at 4:45pm | IP Logged |
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If you want a _real_ book, maybe look for a book for Hungarians learning English.
Until relatively recently they weren't any frequency lists for English-speakers learning Korean, so what I did was get an English frequency book for Koreans and use it in reverse. This way I got a hold of a few synonyms for each word as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachbund Octoglot Newbie Denmark Joined 5640 days ago 15 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Spanish, French, Dutch Studies: Italian, Latin, Arabic (classical), Russian | Message 8 of 47 13 July 2009 at 2:40pm | IP Logged |
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Could you supply a bibliographic reference for Nicholas J. Brown's Russian Learners' Dictionary - I've checked Amazon, which doesn't list any such book.
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