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We, who manage to focus on ONE language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4284 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 113 of 142 23 August 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
To me, those are only suppositions but I do not know what percentage of an educated native's vocabulary I know so I don't really have any facts either. But my point was that you can't just take a sentence and assume that someone who knows 80% of the vocabulary of an educated native will know 80% of the words of that particular sentence. It does not work like that.
Of course, if you have only 80% of the knowledge of a competent professional, you probably won't be able to make a living out of it. That's like saying that if you have 80% of the minimum required points for a test, you won't pass. But some lawyers have a JD or a LLB when some have a PhD, some have 3 years of experience when some have only 3 years, some are just OK when some are great. But the fact that some lawyers have 25% or more knowledge than they do does not stop those lawyers from making a living out of it. And again, we were talking about what is for most people a hobby. I do agree that if you want to enter a language related career, you should strive to attain a very good level in one or two languages before adding any other. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5579 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 114 of 142 23 August 2013 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'd rather like to know what lead you to the conclusion that everyone else here treats languages as ends to themselves. As for interesting content, if that was the only thing I cared for I'd look for translations. Professional translators are a lot better at allowing me to understand that kind of interesting content than I will be for a long time in my study languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JC_Identity Triglot Groupie Sweden thelawofidentity.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3934 days ago 53 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Swedish, Serbo-Croatian*, English | Message 115 of 142 23 August 2013 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
You added the words "everyone else" here. I do not believe that everyone else on this forum holds languages as ends in themselves. In fact I know people here that do not hold languages as ends in themselves, but too few of them write about it explicitly. I know also that a lot of people here approach language learning in a way that suggest to me that the language is the sole end to them. These are all the people that STUDY the language. They break apart and study different aspects of the language devoid of real content and context, they do not approach language as if it were a whole, that is focusing on native content and learning naturally from context. Of course I want to speak French eventually and understand French when I travel to France and thus get a lot more content opened up to me. I do not just want to learn French, more importantly I want to use it for its purpose. Since there are opportunities today to begin using French for its purpose right away as a beginner, I embrace those. But these opportunities involve the use of "crutches". Today I need crutches to be able to use French for its purpose, such as bilingual texts, dictionaries etc. They enable me to enjoy a lot of content that interests me despite my low level. I am thankful for the existence of those crutches. But I want to become fluent in French so that I can consume the whole extent of French content without the use of those crutches. Now to get to that fluency the principle of nature dictates that you need comprehensive input for an extended period of time. Here however I have the privilege to use content I like (as a way to open up more content I like). So I am marrying fun and interest with efficiency (as I am using the fastest and most natural method to my knowledge that ensures comprehensive input) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4075 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 116 of 142 24 August 2013 at 12:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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"Except it does not really work like that. Saying that you know 80% of English words
does not mean that for any given text, you will only know the 80% easiest words. I probably know less than 80% of English vocabulary and I can assure you that my level of understanding is neither poor nor useless and that I knew the words sauna, sirens, casualties, footage and I kind of see what thrombophlebitis is, to the same extent that I do in my native French." First off, if your speaking, listening, and reading are on par with your writing, then we would consider you to be almost a native speaker. You said that you spoke English since you were very young and obviously write very well. The average non-native English speaker in the world will not be anywhere near as good as you in English. That said, although your English is excellent, I doubt that you know 20% of all words in English. Though it is hard to determine what is a "word" in many languages, estimate say that there are hundreds of thousands of words in English. I just took one of those tests and I only had an estimate of 20,000. Although with my medical knowledge, I undoubtedly know many hundreds of additional words that the test didn't account for. And I am a fairly erudite native speaker of English, saying that as somebody having graduated from a top 25 school and studying a doctorate in medicine. So you don't know 80% of all words in the English language. No problem. Neither do I and I doubt that anybody living or who has ever lived had ever known 80% of English vocabulary. But the pareto principle most likely, based on some intuitive reasoning, refers to somebody getting 80% of the knowledge of an educated native speaker and not 80% of the absolute number of words in the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6516 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 117 of 142 24 August 2013 at 1:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I have written a lot about learning methods and purely linguistic themes here, but I have also written a lot about zoos, astronomy, history and sundry other themes in my multiconfused log. For me studying languages is definitely a means to get to the stage where I can read and listen to sources primarily intended for native speakers, and where I can travel around in foreign countries using the local languages. But linguistics and languages are just as relevant as interests as sport or music or literature or politics, so I don't have bad conscience about writing about linguistic topics too - especially not on a site which has language learning as its theme. For the same reason I have written a lot about study methods simply because they naturally belong here - my travelogues don't. And my musical compositions and paintings and computer programs even less (although I have mentioned at least the first two in my log). If languages weren't so interesting phenomena in their own right I could just as well have stopped learning languages after my native Danish and English, cfr. the theme of this thread. If I spend time on languages like Indonesian or Irish or Low German where I can't expect to find anything much to read about dinosaurs, baroque instrumental music or Wolf–Rayet variable stars - all themes I have written about in my log - then the explanation is of course that I am interested in the languages themselves. Most of this thread has been about the limitations you have to accept if you can't or don't want to spend all your free time for many years on a single language. The simple fact is that at least half my TV time and internet time is spent on one language, English, and I'm not at all happy about that situation. Edited by Iversen on 24 August 2013 at 1:47am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JC_Identity Triglot Groupie Sweden thelawofidentity.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3934 days ago 53 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Swedish, Serbo-Croatian*, English | Message 118 of 142 24 August 2013 at 10:51am | IP Logged | |||||
You are talking about spending time here, but this thread has been about conscious language learning pursuits. If I were talking about just spending time, I would have to say that I am spending time with four languages daily. But we have to remember that does not mean that I am actively learning all those languages. I know three of those languages to a satisfactory level, I am only learning French. It is only when it comes to French that I am engaging in deliberate learning through comprehensive input. Now of course the three other languages take some time from the 24 hours that I have. I have to use Swedish for work, mostly English for the Internet etc. But then when it comes to my free time which I can chose to spend on learning languages I choose to spend this time on only one language, French at the moment 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5075 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 119 of 142 24 August 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
We are all quite happy for you that you are so pleased with your choice. The great thing about life in a lot of the world today is that we have that choice available to us to pursue our happiness. Others are equally happy with their choices. If you want to show people the virtues of your devotion to only one language learning system, write a log and show us. That's how best to get people over to your way of thinking. Live and let live. There is plenty of room under the sun of language learning for all to shine. In the meantime, I'm out of this discussion. Welcome to the forum, JC_Identity. I hope you do write a log. Edited by iguanamon on 24 August 2013 at 2:28pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JC_Identity Triglot Groupie Sweden thelawofidentity.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3934 days ago 53 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Swedish, Serbo-Croatian*, English | Message 120 of 142 24 August 2013 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
You are misrepresenting me, and I do not think that is kind. I have stated a number of times before, if you just cared to read, that I am opposed to imposing one's approach on others and that I do not care to bring people over to my approach. I think people are smart enough to think for themselves. Besides I would take it as an insult if I get blind followers. I think the best thing you can do is to present your case honestly, if it is good and rational, it will do the work for you. That is what I am doing here. I started this topic when I noticed something that I thought was irrational from my standpoint and felt that I wanted to discuss this matter. I am bringing up my approach here since some people are having a hard time to get where I am coming from, so to make myself understood I am giving them the full context to judge my case. For example some had a hard time getting how one could spend 8 hours learning a single language, so I had to explain that you do not have to actually study the language but you can make that time more pleasurable for you by for example doing similar things to LR and using content that interests you. If you are arguing a certain point you will notice that you quickly will get to the point where you have to state your premises to show what your conclusions are based on, and that is what I am doing here. Besides if all thought as you we would have no need to discuss anything, but a lot of people have sensed that there are principles that are dictated by nature that are the same to all members of the human race. We have to eat, to sleep and if we want to learn anything we need comprehensive input. If we want to reach our goals faster and be successful it helps to have focus, which I here argue is applied by focusing on one language until you reached your goals, no matter what they are. I also mentioned that I believe that it applies equally to the goal of learning more than one language. If you want to learn five new languages I am convinced that you will reach your goal faster by attacking them sequentially rather than simultaneously. Now the matter of choosing what makes you happy is up to everyone, but then you have to start acting in reality, which has certain principles in place already whether you wish it to or not, A is A. This applies to the eating as well, where you have to eat but what you choose to eat is up to you. Now human beings are rational beings, meaning that if you show them two ways of doing one thing and one way took longer, everything else being equal, they tend to choose the more efficient way. But of course to be rational requires that you volitionally choose to exercise that faculty, and some do not want to, so they choose the slower way out of deliberate ignorance or irrationality. That is perfectly fine for me (as long as their ignorance does not begin to affect my rights but now we should stay out of politics here). These people are irrelevant to the argument anyway, since they would not be able to argue their case. But those others that know what benefits come from learning about nature will want to discuss ideas. Discussing ideas makes them evaluate their ideas and learn the nature of their ideas, which makes them become better at dealing with reality. The mere fact that a person wants to discuss ideas, implies that he or she cares about what is right i.e how the principles of reality work. Now what you are saying here is in fact that let's not bother about trying to come up with the excavator, let's all continue using shovels. Now that is the last thing proud people of this forum that are willing to discuss ideas, no matter their standpoint, want to hear! Edited by JC_Identity on 24 August 2013 at 3:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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