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Defining the Speaking Threshold Kernel | ||
Tags: Number of words | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5436 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 28 11 October 2014 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Some time ago I stated here at HTLAL that with 300 around unique words of active vocabulary one could start
speaking French. When I first floated this idea here, all hell broke loose, and my idea was the object of much scorn, ridicule, derision and contempt. I was told in so many different ways that with 300 words, all one can do is grunt, point, make awkward sentences using many circumlocutions and, according to one poster, jump up and down like a crazy monkey. At times, I've been accused of being a troll in disguise. But I don't hold a grudge, and I'll let bygones be bygones. I've moved on. In fact, with some colleagues and friends I created a somewhat pompously named Polyglot Speaking Kernel Working Group. For a set of languages - American English, Peninsular Spanish, Latin American Spanish, European French, Québécois French, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian and Mandarin - we are attempting to define a minimal set of words that contain all the necessary building blocks - the linguistic knowledge - necessary for a user to start building complete sentences and interacting with native speakers. Depending on the language and the definition of the word, this set is in the range of 300-400 words. The focus is entirely on speaking and not on reading or listening. The question is: What does it take for a learner to get up and speaking in the language? What has become apparent is that counting words is very misleading. Although for purposes of presentation and measurement, we have to make do with words, in fact we are working with units of meaning and grammatical micro-structures. These structures are embodied in these words. It's what is lying under the words that is important. I've deliberately used the words "linguistic knowledge" to emphasize the fact that I'm talking about much more than learning a bunch of words. This is where people get mixed up. They think that I'm talking about memorizing the first three hundred entries on some word-frequency list in French. In my opinion, this is useless. What is interesting for us in this idea is that it highlights the key elements for detailed study if speaking soon and properly is a high priority. One must of course systematically acquire new active vocabulary over and above the threshold but one must also regularly work on the kernel to deepen the knowledge of the basics. The big problem we have had so far is finding sets of transcripts of authentic simple conversations. There is a ton of material for news programs, radio interviews, artificial conversations or people reading written texts but, surprisingly, few examples of native conversations along the lines of what is available in French from France Bienvenue. The number one objection to this sort of speaking threshold idea is that you never know what your interlocutor will say. People imagine all kinds of scenarios in which the native interlocutor will spring some horrible linguistic surprise on the innocent learner who can only use 300 words. For example, one can imagine that the sales person behind the counter in a store may want to talk about the latest developments in medical robotics when you try to buy something. What are you going to do with 300 words? If that's the case, you're stuck. You probably won't be able to do much more than make an excuse for your limited language skills. But in the vast majority of cases, your interactions will be limited to the equivalents of: Have you been served?, Are you being taken care of?, How can I help you?, Anything else?, etc. Given the context, you should not have any problems understanding all these forms even if they are not all part of your active vocabulary. The point is that you mustn't be afraid of going into a store simply because you don't know what the salesperson will say to you. Neither should you hesitate because you don't know all the names of the items for sale. This is a great opportunity to learn how things are called. Even native speakers don't know the names for many things If the interlocutor uses a word that you don't know, you simply ask what does it mean. This can be overwhelming of course if the subject gets very technical, but it most simply everyday interactions this is not a big problem. The number two objection to this idea of a small threshold core is that one cannot speak in a sophisticated manner with only these words. This is far from true. Discussing certain topics is difficult because of the lack of vocabulary, but the existing words can be used in very sophisticated ways by skilled speakers. The limitation is with the speaker and not solely with the inventory of words. For example, in French the simple preposition DE takes up three pages in my Grand Larousse de la Langue Française with 53 different nuances of usage plus a whole paragraph on Locutions diverses with de. And this is entirely different from the forms du, de la and des that are covered separately. There's a lot of linguistic power underneath those two letters. I'm not working on French myself but I've received permission to list in the next post a preliminary version of such a kernel for French. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5436 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 2 of 28 11 October 2014 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Preliminary version of a French 301-word Speaking Threshold Core
Breakdown by functional category: Verbs 56 Nouns 121 Adverbs 15 Adjectives 45 Pronouns 27 Connecting words 37 Total 301 Keep in mind the following points: 1. Many verbs can be easily transformed into nouns either by derivation or simply by use of a determinant article. 2. Nearly all adjectives can be made into nouns by using the determinant article. 3. Many verb gerundive forms and past participles can be used as adjectives and nouns. 4. Certain forms, like the connecting words like DE, À and the pronouns AUQUEL have many variant forms that are not listed here. 5. A number of word forms can appear in multiple functional categories, e.g.en the preposition and en the pronoun.
Edited by s_allard on 11 October 2014 at 4:05pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6603 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 3 of 28 11 October 2014 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
a week ago:
In fact, the counter-argument may be the opposite from what you claim. Apart from multilingual environments like Quebec, good grammar is useless if you only know 300 words. And perfecting 300 words like that is overkill for most learners.
This assumes that you have another language in common and even that you've had enough exposure to be able to repeat the word. And asking for a specific word without switching the whole conversation into a different language does require a lot of confidence with the grammar and vocabulary you do know. Sometimes it's just easier to learn more words, so that you were less likely to need to ask. Let me stress that I do wish I had known this prior to my trip to Malta last year, where I wanted to practise Italian. But you never pointed out that this is mostly relevant for multilingual environments, and the main benefit of knowing your kernel well is that you can produce a favourable impression and people won't switch to another language until you hit the limits of your knowledge. However, it was emk who made me understand that, while you were busy proving how universal your approach is. Edited by Serpent on 11 October 2014 at 9:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5326 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 28 11 October 2014 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Actually, it might theoretically work for relatively simple and easy-to-define words as long as the hypothetical language learner loves solving word puzzles and only encounters educated native speakers who love reading thesauri for fun. A real-life example is the (monolingual) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, which uses a 2000 word defining vocabulary to define all of its 45K+ headwords. But even the most educated and willing native speaker will probably have a hard time defining words using a defining vocabulary of only 300-400 words. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4644 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 28 11 October 2014 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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The choice of nouns seems arbitrary and culturally dependent, and clashes with the
universality of the rest of the list. Instead of taking wild stabs at what nouns speakers might need when they start out why not stay true to the concept of a "kernel" and only include words relevant to all human speech: la chose, le mot, le lieu, le jour, la personne etc? Edited by AlexTG on 11 October 2014 at 8:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6603 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 6 of 28 11 October 2014 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I'd much rather listen to poor grammar than explain the words without translating.
As for Longman, I used to love their dictionaries when I was 11-15, but I'm sceptical now. I remember how I randomly found the word "blatant" and considered it incredible that any language has a word for such a concept. Only years later did I realize that my native language also has a perfectly suitable word, and that I had completely misunderstood the vague definition. Found it now: something bad that is blatant is very clear and easy to see, but the person responsible for it does not seem embarrassed or ashamed. I remember even asking my dad if he can think of a Russian word that fits, and he also didn't. Also, my vocabulary was definitely larger than 2000 by that point, so I would've benefitted from a more accurate description. Of course that's just one word, but it isn't even particularly rare, and I'm sure there are many more words that can't be defined adequately with a "simple English" dictionary or similar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4915 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 28 11 October 2014 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Oh my. Nobody argued that you couldn't speak with only 300 words. I doubt a single person said you couldn't. But people began to ask questions like, can you pass a B1 test with 300 words, you said yes, and then the arguments began. I've pointed out before that your position changed several times, and you responded that it's a good thing to be willing to change. I do agree, but then you could have admitted that somebody said something sensible, and you decided to adjust your position. Allowing that, you still shouldn't be surprised when people are confused by what you mean when the position keeps changing. You started with a good idea: people should start speaking sooner rather than wait until they have thousands of words. Then in response to questioning you frankly went to extremes to stick to your number, which remained the same for beginners and for takers of C1 exams (excepting the words they obviously already know...) Actually, I doubt anyone will have much to argue against in your latest version, for which you should thank all of those spouters of derision and drivel for helping you to sharpen your concept. Nevertheless, your latest version is dripping with sarcasm and is frankly asking for objectors to raise their heads above the parapet. Nobody suggested a salesperson would be bringing up medical robotics; your section about the salesperson is both irrelevant and an attempt to ridicule those who have argued against you. The real issue between you and those arguing with you is what you mean by "speak". As I said, most of what you've said here makes sense, and I think the kernel concept is a great tool for a teacher or student. My only objection to the concept is the idea that there is a "threshold". Students shouldn't speak before? (I sense you would say students should speak from the first lesson). Why does it have to be so large? I could order a cup of coffee in a cafe, respond to a few basic questions, and settle the bill with a couple dozen words. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5065 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 28 12 October 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
If you're looking for the true minimal set that will allow someone to start building complete sentences, it's far fewer than 300 words. You just have to define a domain of things that will be discussed. I have even heard of a language learning method (blanking on the source) that does this by defining a set of objects, actions and locations for absolute beginners and then talking about them (Now, this is the cup. Move the cup to the right, etc.)
This is contradictory. You have to listen to interact with native speakers.
I have a really hard time seeing how this is relevant. Isn't it obvious that no matter what you put in your kernel, you will find that authentic simple conversations use mostly words in it, sometimes words not in it but that could be equivalently expressed with words in the kernel, and once in a while a word that could not be easily substituted using the kernel? And if the conversations are not simple (e.g. radio interviews) the proportion of items not in the kernel will go up? What you really want to show is that you can build sentences and interact meaningfully in a reasonable situation using only items in the kernel. Maybe you define a goal (e.g. compliment someone on their shoes, ask them where they bought them and if they are comfortable). Then you build the relevant sentences to accomplish the goal, and you see if it can be done with the items in the kernel. That seems like the way to investigate the original claim.
As Serpent pointed out above, most of the scorn for your arguments involved other positions you've taken other than the uncontroversial one that starting to talk with native speakers when your active vocabulary is less than or equal to 300 is something that one can do. There have been posters who've ridiculed even this idea, but the posters who've most consistently debated with you disagree with them even more than we disagree with you. Their position is a straw man.
I've had experience not understanding what a cashier said to me in Germany, even though my German comprehension is not that bad. This happened because it was the first time I'd ever been to Germany, so naturally I wasn't used to hearing the things cashiers tend to say. I don't think it was a vocabulary problem, it was just unfamiliarity with the situation, and she didn't speak so clearly. I'm OK with this. Surprisingly it turns out that reading a novel is easier for me than doing the relevant talking around buying a loaf of bread in Germany. (The actual bread was bought, no problem.) If I stayed in Germany for a longer time and bought groceries ten or twenty times I'm sure I'd get really good at it, since my underlying German level is more than good enough. Conversely, sometimes these types of verbal exchanges are so trivial as to be uninteresting in the context of language learning. I don't know about other places, but in American cities a lot of people aren't very talkative. I often buy things and say nothing other than "Hello... uh-huh, OK, no thanks. ... ... Thank you!" Let's not waste time arguing about what you can and can't do with 300 words. A simple demonstration would suffice: pick a couple situations and write some sample sentences that would be appropriate in those situations, using only words in the kernel. We don't need to argue the meaning of speaking "well" or about "complex" things--we can just look at the sort of sentences you can make, and what sorts of things are out of reach. I do not think the kernel is a bad idea. I do wish you would be more clear and to-the-point about how it's used and why it's useful. What differentiates it from a simple frequency list? Edited by robarb on 12 October 2014 at 12:17am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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