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Reading a Dictionary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Linas Octoglot Senior Member Lithuania Joined 6701 days ago 253 posts - 279 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese | Message 17 of 22 09 March 2006 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I think that no author, Swedish or otherwise, could use as much as 100000 words. Perhaps the reference you have quoted meant 10000 words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6972 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 18 of 22 10 March 2006 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Well here is the link if you are intersted (it is in Swedish though):
http://www.sprakforsvaret.se/oftastalldafragor.htm#ordforrad The article says: "Det påstås ofta att det engelska ordförrådet är större än det svenska, men en engelsman använder inte fler ord än en svensk. Det har gjorts undersökningar av antalet olika ord i engelska respektive svenska dagstidningar och dessa visar att antalet ord är ungefär detsamma. Det har också gjorts en undersökning av antalet ord i Strindbergs respektive Shakespeares verk, vilken visade att Strindberg använde 119288 ord och Shakespeare 29006. (Fakta: Svenska språknämnden)" Which means: It is often claimed that the vocabulary of English is larger than that of Swedish, but an englishman does not use more words than a swede. Investigations have shown that the number of distinct words used in Swedish and English newspapers is approximately the same. Another investigation showed that Strinderg used 119288 words in his works while Shakespeare used 29006. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linas Octoglot Senior Member Lithuania Joined 6701 days ago 253 posts - 279 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese | Message 19 of 22 10 March 2006 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
However the article continues that it is impossible to determine exactly the number of words, so that it seems the the author of the article desagrees with such "assessments" of Strindberg. I must repeat myself, the figure of 119000 words for a single author is extremely unlikely. Already Shakespeare had very extensive vocabulary(including many neologisms and ad-hoc coinings), unmatched by the most of authors. I also have seen a figure that Russian author A. Pushkin used about 20000 words whaty is also considered very much. IMHO the average vocabulary of the most of classical authors can be within the range 10000-20000 but rarely exceeds this figure. The vocabulary of the writers of popular novels maybe could be as high as 5000-10000, if considering the entire corpus of a given author(but probably less if we consider any single novel). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6972 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 20 of 22 10 March 2006 at 6:37am | IP Logged | ||
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But even if the Strindberg figure is an exaggeration and most authors use 10000 words, wouldn't it still be enough to read novels to build vocabulary? If you know 10000 words in the language I think you could handle most situations pretty well.
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| winters Trilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6833 days ago 199 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Croatian*, Serbian*, Russian*, English, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek, French, Hungarian | Message 21 of 22 10 March 2006 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I love dictionaries, theasauruses and lexicons - and I can read them for fun; when I feel bored, I can, for example, take the dictionary of some language and open it to any page and for mere fun read 10-20 pages, and even remember most of the words.
However, I do not go that far that I would read the dictionary from cover to cover; and I prefer learning most of the vocabulary from the context and usage. Finally, I think that such a knowledge remains longer than just endless lists of words that mean nothing to you themselves, and that you are, as such, likely to forget most of. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linas Octoglot Senior Member Lithuania Joined 6701 days ago 253 posts - 279 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese | Message 22 of 22 11 March 2006 at 7:24am | IP Logged | ||
I do not know how you, but I found it extremely difficult and boring to look at dictionary while reading.you have to interrupt the process of reading all the time. Somtimes I use another technique - i read and just note the unknown words, later I look for them in dictionary, later I read the text for the second time. The most important in my view is to separate the processes of reading and looking-up. Sometimes I find a word in the text which I read then look into dictionary, then try tomemorize all the words that I find in the same page of dictionary. Sometimes I write down words from one dictionary(eg. hungarian -english) and later look them up in another dictionary(eg. hungarian-hungarian) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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