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Disappointed about English vocab test | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5894 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 9 of 69 14 October 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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In 'Bao's Test' I scored 29,600.
Quite a lot of these words I have never even heard of! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4855 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 10 of 69 14 October 2011 at 11:49pm | IP Logged |
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Sorry if I'm getting off track but does anyone know of a test similar to these two for less common languages?
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| July Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 5062 days ago 113 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB2 Studies: French | Message 11 of 69 14 October 2011 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
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Well I (native speaker) got 24,400 words in that first test, although I'd probably have
done a tiny bit better if I hadn't gone and messed the first question up. Honestly, though, you wouldn't need most of those words in daily conversation - only if you wanted to read the more advanced kind of literature. It's never too late to expand your vocabulary, should you want to, either. I wonder if anyone knows a test like this for Spanish? I'd love to see how that would go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5219 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 12 of 69 15 October 2011 at 12:30am | IP Logged |
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I did the second test (score of 39,600). But the interesting part was in the notes to the overall test results where they looked at the correlation of age and vocabulary size. Here is the text that accompanies a chart showing age and vocabulary size:
"This is a fantastic chart, because it shows the speed at which our vocabulary really grows. Between the ages of 3 and roughly 16, our vocabulary explodes at an average rate of almost 4 new words a day (3.8, to be more exact). Then, between the ages of 16 and 50, our vocabulary growth is slower, but still fairly consistent: around 1 new word a day (0.85, to be precise). Finally, beyond 50, vocabulary size appears to remain fairly constant." This data of course shows the particular impact of schooling on the expansion of one's vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5748 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 69 15 October 2011 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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What QiuJP, the original poster, describes is also something that can happen with children of immigrants. In fact, what he describes is very close to what happened to my husband here in the US. QiuJP, after you're done venting, shake it off and go on with your life. That's important to do otherwise you'll miss out on other opportunities. Good luck.
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| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4619 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 69 15 October 2011 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
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I got 12000 :o I'll make up an excuse and say I flubbed on a few of the words because iPads are tough to
maneuver. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6168 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 69 15 October 2011 at 4:20am | IP Logged |
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As discussed in another thread this test is very sensitive to how the test taker answers questions he/she is
unsure of. For example, if you guessed at the meaning of some words that you didn't really know you would do much better than if you answered I don't know. The problem is the test doesn't tell you whether you should try to infer the meaning of words you don't really know. I don't remember my score but it was way below a lot of non-native speakers. Edited by newyorkeric on 15 October 2011 at 6:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5555 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 16 of 69 15 October 2011 at 5:35pm | IP Logged |
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I guessed unless I really had no idea, because that's what I always do; a habit that is hard to overcome. I got around 15k in the first and between 17 and 22k in the second test, but those should represent the word families I think I understand, not the ones I actually can understand or the ones I can use. And, honestly? On one hand there are a lot of words for everyday items I don't know, and on the other hand I know rarer words because they pertain to my fields of interest. I'm simply no native speaker and never will be one. But I have this wonderful gift of a human mind with its adaptability and inquisitiveness, and I give my best to put them to use. Why? Because I want to be able to comprehend, to communicate and to express my own thoughts efficiently.
Your English and Chinese will improve as long as you take on new challenges in situations where you have to use one of those languages. You can always make up exercises to increase the rate in which this happens. I can't be sure of it, but one of my friends working there commented on the wide-spread use of Singlish in Singapore. That could be a starting point, to ask yourself if you know how to express a sentence you hear (or even say yourself) in a more standard English or Chinese. You could also change sentences from informal settings to formal ones, written language to spoken language or the other way around. How would you explain a certain matter to a customer, how to your boss, how to a group of children? That kind of game or mental exercise can usually be done in short spans of idle time you happen to find yourself in and if you can make it fun to you, it won't use up your strength and concentration. And even though you won't remember all sentences you found hard to transform, I find that one or two stick and I can jot them down and look them up in the evening. I do that for German as well, by the way; it's a habit I got into when I was bored by too much repetition in class. Edited by Bao on 16 October 2011 at 3:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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