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How many words to speak? | ||
Tags: Number of words | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4485 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 113 of 309 10 September 2014 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's more important to concentrate on what people say, and how they say it, than to be
rigidly obsessed with any classification systems. You should learn as practice requires, not as theory prescribes. I agree with Robarb. But substitute Cantonese with Mandarin, Greek, Portuguese and a few others. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5208 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 114 of 309 10 September 2014 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think anyone is rigidly obsessed with any classification system. In fact, I don't see any classification system at all here. We're talking about what one can do with a small vocabulary as a starting point. But to come back to robarb's experience with a Cantonese tutor. This is typical when we are learning. We search for words. How can I say this? This is normal. But there are three possible phenomena: 1. We don't know the word. e.g. How do I say GPS in Cantonese? 2. We don't recall the word that we already know. e.g. Oh yes, I knew GPS but I had forgotten it. 3. We didn't think of a workaround. e.g. I could have said navigator. Again, I hope people don't think that I'm saying that a small vocabulary is better than a large one, but the point of all this is that small vocabulary is not synonymous with trivial and shallow conversation. Plus, one should keep in mind that a small vocabulary is not a prison, If you don't know a word, you do what robard did, you ask for it. Can you talk about the parts of an automobile with a tiny vocabulary? Not easily, but at the end of the conversation, you'll have more words in your vocabulary. Isn't this what native speakers do. I gave the example earlier that just a few days ago I learned the meaning of "suicide doors" on automobiles. Now I know. Edited by s_allard on 10 September 2014 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6375 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 115 of 309 10 September 2014 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This is typical when interating with tutors who speak your L1. But:
-this isn't the only way -it can easily become pointless in the real world -the discussion is not "how soon can you start speaking with a tutor". obviously a good tutor should adjust and teach you more vocab, but this isn't a random native speaker's job 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maecenas23 Triglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 4389 days ago 21 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Ukrainian*, Russian, English Studies: German | Message 116 of 309 12 September 2014 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I strongly dislike this reductionist approach to the languages and language
acquisition. I am a seasoned language learner and your 300 words theory sounds at least humiliating. Moreover I consider Benny Lewis' 3 months challenges to C1 almost as humiliating. Language is not a pile of words from which you can pick and speak. If it was so - many people simply would find language learning boring and derived of its fascination. Language is a hugely complicated interconnected system and to implement it to your brain and make it work takes thousands of hours of exposure. I don't believe anyone who claims to be fluent at 30 languages unless he is 100 years old and has spent every waking hour of his life acquiring those languages. Some people can pretend to be fluent, given they are speaking about a 'comfortable' topic, but when they do one step aside of that familiar territory you see them stumbling in every single phrase - they are like trains who follow only a stict directions in their languages and have limited abilities to turn away from certain topics which lie in their comfort zone. Edited by Maecenas23 on 12 September 2014 at 11:45pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5208 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 117 of 309 12 September 2014 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Please, when you come late to a discussion, it is a matter of basic courtesy to find out what we have been talking about. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maecenas23 Triglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 4389 days ago 21 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Ukrainian*, Russian, English Studies: German | Message 118 of 309 13 September 2014 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, I've read what you were talking about before I made a post. I thought everybody here is free to write their opinions about the main topic regardless of the current arguments in discussion. Can't see how it relates to what you call a "basic courtesy". 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4485 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 119 of 309 13 September 2014 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Call in the language police! Actually, you can pick and choose words to use in languages. That's what we call talking. For example, I could say something else right now, but I don't - I'm picking and choosing my words in order to send you this message! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maecenas23 Triglot Newbie Ukraine Joined 4389 days ago 21 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Ukrainian*, Russian, English Studies: German | Message 120 of 309 13 September 2014 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I speak a language I mostly don't pick the words - the process of talking is
like some kind of natural reflex to me - I don't think about the words and phrases but they appear subconsciously, when I try to express the idea. There is certainly no ongoing analysis in my head about the choice of words or phrases.In my opinion language is not for the most part related to articulated thinking - I would say 90 percent of what we call speaking is an unconscious process, some kind of instinct. I agree that you can pick the words when you are writing, but obviously, while speaking, you have little conscious control over the ways of expressing the ideas. And this ability to pick the words comes from the enormously big database of contexts of usage in your brain. So the pile of 300 or 10000 words without knowing the contexts is useless.Some polysemic words can have a great variety of meanings and they are also most frequently used (one example is phrasal verbs in English). It seems the usage of these words gives an impression of laconic speech and virtuosity. So language learning is more about contextual knowledge of words' meanings than about the sheer size of vocabulary itself. Language is not a pile, but a precise system and you are always restricted in using certain words - it's not up to you to chose the way to speak most of the time. One famous German philosopher Heidegger once said that "We don't speak the language, it's the language that speaks using us". And he wasn't joking. Language is not a tool of communication as most of the people are used to see it - it's the essence of being human. Edited by Maecenas23 on 13 September 2014 at 11:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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