Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

How to tell many words you know?

 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4


jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6669 days ago

4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 33 of 39
03 October 2007 at 3:32pm | IP Logged 
Although LingQ counts different forms of a word as well as any phrase you wish to save, it's probably better than the random method. I use the LingQ tool to save words and phrases for two languages, and will probably continue using it for more languages, depending on what they add.
1 person has voted this message useful



William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6032 days ago

1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 34 of 39
06 October 2007 at 10:59am | IP Logged 
It's a rough and ready method but I tested my German and Russian vocabulary using pocket dictionaries. German, my best foreign language, came out at 6,675. Russian was 5,542, closer to my German level than I expected. I have done a lot of work on my Russian vocabulary recently and have started reading novels in Russian again, so that might explain the Russian level. I might test my other languages the same way.

I get 4,248 for Turkish. I use conversational Turkish a lot at the moment.

I scored 18,400 on the Lemma test (Advanced) and 40/40 on Context 1 and Context 8 (I didn't bother with the others). I think we can safely conclude that English is my native language.

I got 1,055 for Polish, a language I know at a basic level. The dictionary test does give a rough guide to your level of attainment in a language, it seems to me.   

Edited by William Camden on 07 October 2007 at 7:17am

1 person has voted this message useful



asad100101
Diglot
Senior Member
Pakistan
languagel.blogspot.c
Joined 6215 days ago

118 posts - 137 votes 
Speaks: Hindi*, English

 
 Message 35 of 39
20 November 2007 at 2:33pm | IP Logged 
12080, is a level I got after taking an advanced test.

1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6463 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 36 of 39
20 November 2007 at 5:51pm | IP Logged 
xtremelingo wrote:
This method of randomly opening up a dictionary to determine an approximate is not mathematically sound, simply because the sample size of 10 random pages is not enough. Actually, the number of pages should not be a quantity, but moreso a percentage based on the total size of the dictionary itself. 10 pages on a 50 page dictionary is far more significant than 10 pages on a 400 page dictionary. These are apples and oranges.


A 50 page dictionary is far too small to be useful for checking your vocabulary, so the relevant question would be: is 10 pages from a 400 page* dictionary enough? And no, it is not enough. If you happen to choose a page with a long tale about a common verb with 152 examples then your word count will be low; on the other hand you might chance upon a page with mostly loanwords that you also know from your native language - then it will get an undeserved boost. However if you use the word counts as I have proposed: as a periodical control of your progress in vocabulary building, then you will not only accumulate much more than 10 pages, but you will also be able to see the general tendency through all the random deviations.


* (or even better: from a 1000 page dictionary, - otherwise it will soon get too small as your vocabulary expand)


Edited by Iversen on 21 November 2007 at 4:02am

1 person has voted this message useful



zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6312 days ago

803 posts - 1119 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German
Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 37 of 39
20 November 2007 at 6:36pm | IP Logged 
ok 18430 on the on-line Lemma test, rushing through it. Will eventually try the dictionary test in my other languages... but rather spend that time studying ;)
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6463 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 38 of 39
21 November 2007 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
Making word counts is not totally wasted time studywise. When I decided to relearn my old forgotten languages (after a 25 year long period of utter neglect) my first thought was of course to get some textbooks, preferable the same that I had used when I learnt those languages in the first place. When I read about word counts in an old thread here I decided to do one for Romanian. I got around 1000 words the first time, but soon after I had already reached 5000, and then 8000. My conclusion was that working with passive words started a process that brought the language back much faster than if I had concentrated on totally new words, - in fact it brought back words that I had not even worked on. So of course I immediately applied the method to my other rusty languages.

However that strategy broke down when I started to learn a totally new language (Modern Greek), so then I had to develop some more sofisticated methods for the use of word lists based on unknown words. But this doesn't change the fact that the simple act of writing down a lot of passive words from a dictionary gave amazingly good results with my half-forgotten languages.

2 persons have voted this message useful



Monox D. I-Fly
Senior Member
Indonesia
monoxdifly.iopc.us
Joined 4895 days ago

762 posts - 664 votes 
Speaks: Indonesian*

 
 Message 39 of 39
02 October 2016 at 4:38pm | IP Logged 
For word count, I prefer BliuBliu.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 39 messages over 5 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3281 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.