Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Is vocabulary really necessary early on?

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
30 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
TrentBooks
Triglot
Groupie
United States
TrentBooks.com
Joined 4614 days ago

43 posts - 98 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Guarani
Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Japanese

 
 Message 9 of 30
20 August 2011 at 5:20pm | IP Logged 
Andrew C wrote:
TrentBooks wrote:
What are your thoughts? Anything on this list seem
unnecessary or would you add anything?


For me, you have omitted the most important thing from your list: Listening.


It seems I did. I view listening as a method for acquiring the content I listed, so listening and reading are
just ways to get the information in our brains. I was thinking more of what content to study in the
foundational stage of language study, not specifically how to acquire that content.

I do appreciate you bringing that up, though, as listening is indeed important for fluency - unless the
language being studied is dead, such as biblical Hebrew or ancient Greek.

I'm glad to see everyone's input. As I am more interested in the process of language learning itself, the
varied perspectives help me to broaden my approach to language study in general.
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5771 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 10 of 30
21 August 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged 
AriD2385 wrote:
I'm not familiar with many language learning methods or theories, but while it is possible to build a strong vocabulary gradually, in order for that to be possible you have to reach a critical mass of comprehension first so that you can figure new words and phrases in context and without resorting to a dictionary every other sentence.

Building a vocabulary gradually doesn't necessarily mean learning from context. It's perfectly possible to buikd your vocabulary gradually by looking up words in a dictionary.

But I would say it's always easier to learn vocabulary when you know a good amount of grammar, and this is for a very simple reason: the best way to learn a word is by using it. The more tenses you know, the more you can use a verb. The more cases you know, the more you can use a noun. The more connectors you know, the more you can use any word at all.

There's little point in cramming 300 verbs when you only know the first person present, because you're not going to be able to use any of them unless you want to say "I do" or "I'm doing". You can't talk about someone else doing it, you can't say that your going to do it or that you used to do it. It's a waste of your time.

Carlucio wrote:
Vocabulary is the most important thing for a beginner, what is the point in learning how to make sentences without having the words to use? i recommend to not even think about grammar before knowing at least 500 words.

The point is simple:
We are more likely to say things like:
"I'll do it tomorrow" or "I want to do it tomorrow"
than things like
"The boy is eating an orange".

When people advise learning X words to begin with, it's usually justified by saying X words allows you to read Y% of the language. But it's not just any old X words, it's a specific set of the most common words: each grammatical feature of a language introduces certain "functional" vocabulary, and a most of the top 100 words* in any language are these function words. But you can't learn these function words without learning the grammar rules they are linked to.

So if you learn 500 words without grammar, you'll have to learn "lexical"/"content" words -- buy, eat, wash, car, orange, fast etc.

What you won't learn is words like "ago" (481 on the list linked below), "yet" (467), "between" (226), possibly even "me" (122 -- I wasn't properly taught this in French until my fifth year!), "than" (91), and if you're really not doing any grammar, then you wouldn't even learn the number 1 word: the.

But you do learn how to use "the", don't you? So you must be learning grammar.


* A significant proportion of the rest of the top 500 is still function words. This list, for example, puts "yes" at number 486!
3 persons have voted this message useful



misslanguages
Diglot
Senior Member
France
fluent-language.blog
Joined 4606 days ago

190 posts - 217 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 11 of 30
21 August 2011 at 6:45pm | IP Logged 
Saying that vocabulary isn't necessary is like claiming that being able to communicate in your target language is an option.
As a very wise man once said, "Without grammar, little can be conveyed. Without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed."
So yes, do learn vocabulary.
2 persons have voted this message useful





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 12 of 30
21 August 2011 at 9:44pm | IP Logged 
Nobody's suggesting that one should ignore vocabulary, but with a bag full of words but no instructions on how to use them will result in Tarzan speech (which however was suggested some years ago on this very forum....).
1 person has voted this message useful



amethyst32
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5409 days ago

118 posts - 198 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, French

 
 Message 13 of 30
21 August 2011 at 10:00pm | IP Logged 
TrentBooks wrote:


For me, I have found a lot of value on putting aside an intense study of vocabulary when first learning simply because the vocabulary will come over time anyway.
For example, if I were to study verbs first, I might cover conjugations of the three main verb types in Spanish (-ar, -er, -ir), and in the process I will have learned 3 new words. I've mentioned in a few places that I thought a study of verbs was incredibly important because in many languages verb conjugations can be quite difficult to master; they're also what help a person express thoughts more clearly.

...

[M]y experience is that vocabulary comes with time, and it's much less frustrating to learn new vocabulary in real conversation, where meaningful associations take place between words and ideas/objects, whereas the foundational study can be better spent on some of the above items.



I agree with you and I gave you a recommend for this post. Studying vocabulary would be inefficient for me anyway because it's grammar that I find difficult to assimilate but easy and pleasant to study. On the other hand, vocabulary I can pick it up easily but studying it outside of any meaningful context bores me rigid.



Edited by amethyst32 on 21 August 2011 at 10:02pm

1 person has voted this message useful



misslanguages
Diglot
Senior Member
France
fluent-language.blog
Joined 4606 days ago

190 posts - 217 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 14 of 30
24 August 2011 at 6:52pm | IP Logged 
Still, using Tarzan speech is much better than not having a conversation at all.
With my approach on learning languages (see German in 10 minutes) I'd be better off speaking a very ungrammatical but understandable German than getting bogged down in details.
It depends on the person though.
2 persons have voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4890 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 15 of 30
24 August 2011 at 7:04pm | IP Logged 
misslanguages wrote:
Still, using Tarzan speech is much better than not having a conversation at all.

I would argue that Tarzan speech is not having a conversation at all, rather a monologue. You might get a person's attention initially with broken up words or even phrases and may even get some correction, but you won't hold that attention for long. A conversation is bi-directional with a good bit of improvisation thrown in.

R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4816 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 16 of 30
24 August 2011 at 7:35pm | IP Logged 
If you can't master a grammatical rule (for example, English articles), you can leave it
but you can't go on without learning vocabulary.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 30 messages over 4 pages: << Prev 13 4  Next >>


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 1.2031 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.