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How many words for conversation? | ||
Tags: Number of words | Conversation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4708 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 97 of 100 15 September 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Since I agree with you about fluency, I would say you've been fighting tirelessly, not tiresomely. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5229 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 98 of 100 19 September 2011 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just to return briefly to the subject of the OP, I had an interesting experience just this past weekend here in Montreal. We had the visit of six tall ships or large sailing ships. Thousands of people, including myself, visited these relics of another era. I noted that virtually none of the visitors knew any of the nomenclature of these ships. Who among the visitors knew what a "flying jib" or a "fore topmast staysail" refer to? Only true aficionados of this kind of technology can use the appropriate terminology or jargon. But this is true about every specialized human activity. Lovers of dogs, flowers or any subject have their own technical language.
What is interesting is how non technical people can deal with these subjects without the knowledge of the proper terminology. This is where you see the difference between a native speaker and a foreigner. A native speaker can mobilize all sorts of lexical resources of analogy, comparison and description to get the idea across. And at the same time learn the correct terminology, as in: "That's how you say it!" So, someone says "that tiny little sale at the tip of the ship", and someone else says, "You mean the flying jib." As learners of the language, we tend to get simply stuck or have to resort to our native language. This is because we have not mastered the art of circumlocution, or how to talk about something when we don't know the right words. And this is precisely why native speakers can converse fluently and proficiently with a relatively small vocabulary. Edited by s_allard on 19 September 2011 at 2:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5665 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 99 of 100 19 September 2011 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
"relic" is an interesting word in this context. Here are the Merriam-Webster definitions: 1: a : an object esteemed and venerated because of association with a saint or martyr b: souvenir, memento 2: plural : remains, corpse 3: a survivor or remnant left after decay, disintegration, or disappearance 4: a trace of some past or outmoded practice, custom, or belief All four of these could apply to these tall ships in some way. So there are both positive and negative denotations and connotations. Some would apply if the ship were indeed an original, or a restored original. Others would apply if the ship were a modern replica. Because I really love these tall ships, I would choose not to use the word "relic" because of the negative connotations.
And a sailor would say "sail" instead of "sale". :>)
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5229 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 100 of 100 20 September 2011 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Tommus. The word "relic" was probably not the best choice of words here. As for "sale", it was serendipitous. In all seriousness, I think the main issue here is really the difference between specialized terminology and use of general vocabulary to deal with a specialized subject.
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