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Selective vocabulary learning | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Kami_77 Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 3893 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 9 of 15 14 October 2013 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I have been studying English actively for about 8 years now and 8 years passively in school (in the sense that I was forced to learn it, but I did not want to for lack of motivation). There are too many words that I still do not know well despite the fact that probably I came across to them several times. Of course, it would be better to learn them in context, but if I did not manage to do it in 16 years there has to be a reason. Maybe it is because I tend to read technical english and I do not like reading story books (which would teach me a lot of interesting words for sure). I just want to level up my English by learning something like 3000-5000 new useful words and not waiting for them to appear in context (it would require too long). Edited by Kami_77 on 14 October 2013 at 2:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kami_77 Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 3893 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 10 of 15 14 October 2013 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Indeed. The point of my open post is that I realized that I have to be reasonable about learning new words. But then again, if I am to wait for them to pop up in context I would have to wait forever. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5564 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 15 17 October 2013 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
Ah, that's the tricky part, you have a point. First of all, you don't have to learn new words (you don't even have to be reasonable about it if you don't want to, it can just be more strenuous.) Once you've reached a certain level, you can get by perfectly fine using your prior knowledge and picking up new skills when the need presents itself. In that case, it is a matter of choice to learn new vocabulary. And that could be your guideline. What is your goal? Do you want to be as efficient using English in your job as any native speaker in the same field? Then you could work with a specialized dictionary first. Or you might think, now is the time to learn to place slang terms in time and location, so you understand when somebody uses an outdated expression for effect, or to bolster their sense of identity. Maybe you want to familiarize yourself with different variants of English, like Nigerian or Indian English. There are so many possibilities, really. Rather than waiting for unknown things to present themselves, or trying to figure out everything I do not know at once, I look into one specific area and let the structure of information present guide me when figuring out what I need or desire to learn. Edited by Bao on 17 October 2013 at 3:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 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 12 of 15 17 October 2013 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Swedes have their "lagom", and in Danish we have "godt nok" (good enough). I get a lot of Anglophone input so maybe at least my written English is slightly above "good enough". On the other hand I get far less Italian input (partly because Raiuno is such a rotten TV station and the Italian books at my local library mostly are literature) so there "good enough" is exactly what it means - enough to allow me to read everything I want to read in the language and good enough to have conversations with native Italians, but I don't have to know all the names for parts of a motor or the names of all the Italian ministries. And in that situation I cut down on the time I spend on formal vocabulary training.
What's then left? OK, I read about specific subjects on the internet and in magazines, and when you study a certain topic you will of course also have to learn the terminology of the subject - or in other words, you'll learn some vocabulary selectively because it is explained in the text. But because it is extensive reading or listening you will in all likelihood rarely get around to writing those items down. And then they just leave a faint trace in your memory. In contrast my daily workouts with languages below the "godt nok" level are intended to give me a passive knowlege of a general vocabulary rather than a specialized one - even when I use a text about a specific subject. For instance I recently read an article in Greek about the way EasyAir has been incorporated into the ticket selling network Amadeus, and yes, that gave me a few branche specific words - but far more 'neutral' new words because my preexisting Greek vocabulary is relatively small. I have of course experimented with topicbased wordlists (homemade as well as those found in language guides), but they are a blind alley. If you really want to learn fifty kinds of vegetables then read a book about vegetables (with pictures and possibly translated names and all that stuff). But for me knowing just the main kinds is "godt nok", given that I don't have plans to become a chef in a vegetarian restaurant. Edited by Iversen on 17 October 2013 at 12:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5026 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 13 of 15 18 October 2013 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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You'll be the personal arbiter of what words are useful to you. I just used the Spanish word for Anglo-saxon. I made an Anki card for that word long ago because it's one I knew I was likely to use---but I'm sure many people get through their lives just fine without using it once.
So, even though I'm a perfectionist like you, and even though I've been tempted to, I've never gone through a Spanish dictionary systematically. There are tons of words in my native language that I don't know, don't need to know, don't want to know--it would be insane to be more demanding of myself in a second language. Many words in dictionaries are archaic and many are extremely specialized. You may not need those (you may--it depends what you want). Here's a suggestion: why not, instead of going through a dictionary, go through a usage list? Find one of the databases online of the most common words in the language, and go through those. With those at least you'll know they're likely to come up in your studies. Edited by ScottScheule on 18 October 2013 at 9:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4242 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 14 of 15 05 November 2013 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learning any language I don't think going through a dictionary from A-Z is the best idea. It can get tedious and
boring. What I would do is to focus on listening to the radio, watching videos in a native language. Every word or phrase that comes up frequent enough I'd make a list (my own A-Z list). I don't think you need to know every word or phrase in a language to be fluent. There are certain ones that are so seldom used that you don't find it in every conversation anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 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 15 of 15 06 November 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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There is no doubt that you need to learn the most common words in a language, and a standard dictionary isn't the best tool for that. Many common words are irregular, and there your grammar is more relevant. Many are used in a lot of idioms, and there the frequency lists are totally irrelevant because they normally just are lists without further information. Your dictionary may be informative, but hardly userfriendly (long articles in dictionaries are notoriously hard to gulp down!), and learning idioms purely from context is relevant, but only part of the story. The tool that would fit the task best would be a book consisting of a series of monographs about each of these words, or maybe rather a dictionary with very few words, but extensive information about each one. I have something like that for Spanish (a book bought in the 70s so it is probably out of print now), but it is a rarity. The articles about single words on the internet and in some books tend to focus on interesting but rare words, not on interesting and very common words.
My normal strategy with a new language is to use the words I find in my intensive study materials in three-column grouped wordlists (substitute Anki or Goldlists if you prefer those). But once I have learned enough words to read a normal text with just a few look-ups I get impatient. It is simply too timeconsuming to look words up all over the dictionary, and even though I can avoid some lookups by using bilingual texts these aren't trustworthy and precise and informative enough to replace a good dictionary. So at that stage I start making wordlists based directly on target -> base language dicionaries, where I can get through sixty or ninety new words in a session before I get tired. Why not thematic wordlists? OK, I confess: I have sometimes used small language guides, but the problem is that I'll get confused if I have to learn fifty berries in one go - and besides I remember those berry names better if I get them from a book or article with pictures, suggestions for use and some botanical information for the flower lovers. A mere list is not nearly as interesting. I do know that you can learn some specialized vocabulary from fiction, like words for sorcery from Harry Potter or words for 19. century artisan tools from Balzac, but people who really dig literature might forget about the vocabulary culling project and instead just read to get the plot. Quite generally I find extensive reading better to learn idioms from than for learning single words. Wholesale A to Z perousals of dictionaries aren't totally idiotic, but you have to see them as mopping up operations where you just pick the words you haven't learnt yet, but might use. I have done two such perousals this year, based on small dictionaries (Greek and Russian), and the result in both cases was that I got a noticeable boost in my reading skills - but not in my active skills. However once you know a word passively it will be easier also to learn to recall it and make it active - this is just not something that comes automatically, it has to be trained separately. Couldn't you just skip the dictionaries and get insane amounts of input? Oh, yes, but that input will only help you if it is more or less comprehensible. And that's where some dedicated vocabulary learning can speed up the process and shorten the period where you have to use ultra-simplistic and vocabulary-poor sources. And depending on your methods it doesn't have to be a dreary process. Not nearly a dreary as reading a the texts in a standard textbook. Edited by Iversen on 06 November 2013 at 10:00am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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