|
 |
Synonym learning books ? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5766 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 1 of 8 11 December 2009 at 10:25am | IP Logged |
|
This is a clumsy attempt to describe what I am looking for, but I remember how 30 years ago I enlarged my vocabulary of English a lot by getting exercises in my mother tongue, where we considered all kinds of translations.
In principle that might not be that good, but I am not so interested in the contrast (although in the differences between the languages as well). What I would like is for me to get to learn lots of synonyms and near-synonyms, variations, of 'basic' verbs in another language - and a method for learners to enlarge their vocabulary in a contxtual way... For example: - it appeared to be true/ It seemed.../... - we found out it was true/ ... / Any books where you find that kind of information in some structured way? It might be a synonym dictionary even, but of course I prefer teaching materials, didactic things... Thanks, JanG Thanks, JanG Edited by JanKG on 11 December 2009 at 10:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 2 of 8 12 December 2009 at 6:49am | IP Logged |
|
You know...that's not a bad idea. Perhaps I should look into getting a thesaurus for each of my target languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5766 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 3 of 8 12 December 2009 at 9:53am | IP Logged |
|
I did not really think thesauruses (thesauri ?) were that interesting for this purpose.But I checked synonym.com, and that is relatively good.
But I would prefer to focus on certain broader general topics, things we do like passing on, finding out, using our voice, etc., and then distinguish between basic and extra vocabulary. When referring to using our voice, we could mention a lot of verbs, but then 'whisper' and 'cry' for example are fairly basic/ frequent, but 'squeal' is not - and even in a thesaurus you do not get them listed alongside, that is asking too much. Yet, I think that would be interesting. So I'd need 'graded' thesauri! Edited by JanKG on 12 December 2009 at 10:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7164 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 4 of 8 12 December 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
|
If it's available in your language, the "Using --- ---" series is not bad. I have "Using German Vocabulary" and it separates the vocab into graded categories (for frequency of usage, and thus relative difficulty) and then subcategories within them. For instance, translated it would be:
Generosity Level 1: generous stingy Level 2: tight mean Level 3: magnanimous parsimonious No book can spell out all shades of meaning, but the levels are a fair indicator of linguistic register. PS There are a lot more words than that per category, of course! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5766 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 5 of 8 12 December 2009 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
|
I have been able to look inside. I recognize the principle, and do not really like it. The focus is situational again or contextual, but somehow too narrow for me, as far as I can see (the town: practical vocabulary). I would prefer to focus on verbs more, on the key connectors. Or I would prefer to focus on towns, villages, geographical places, on buildings and general parts, then all kinds of borders, all kinds of enclosed spaces, etc. M
Mind you: amazon.com allows me to only see some pages. So maybe I am too critical. But I found another book like that and I found it discouraging: long lists having no internal structure really. I present words in groups and explain them in the target language but adding G/F/E, and some Latin and Greek. But thanks for the hint ! Edited by JanKG on 12 December 2009 at 10:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 8 12 December 2009 at 11:24pm | IP Logged |
|
There is a magnificent book for this type of thing available which I have been using when learning French:
Cambridge French English Thesaurus 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JanKG Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5766 days ago 245 posts - 280 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 7 of 8 12 December 2009 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
|
You are right: this is very interesting and indeed comes close to what I have in mind. And good Lord, it is ten years old already. ;-)
Because I still have my idea in mind, I feel the urge to formulate some criticism: - it takes a lot of reading: could one not reach a faster effect by adding more sentences as a starting poitn? - I think focussing on affixes would help too: realizing that r- in French refers to 'twice' seems important to me... But thanks a lot, Splog, for the useful hint ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7164 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 8 of 8 13 December 2009 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
|
I went to amazon.com to see, and I can definitely see how you would come to that conclusion. But there are a lot of other chapters in the book with a lot of verbs. In "Gesture and Movement," the list includes:
Fast and Slow Movement to trot to stroll to tramp to trudge to come falteringly to shuffle to dawdle to loiter to patter etc... They're pretty much all of the variations that you could want, listed together. Is that what you mean? In fact, the book does just that: things like "all containers" or "all buildings" are grouped together and then graded. I'm sorry, the way you described it in your second post: that's what it is (for German, anyway). Maybe I misunderstood what you wanted. It does not, though, give you phrases like "It is my opinion that" "I contend that" "I maintain that." It just gives the verbs; you have to create the example sentences yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
