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Strategy: Learn 600 words a week. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6168 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes  Speaks: Latin* | Message 65 of 167 09 October 2007 at 8:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually, I will align myself with xtremelingo for once. I can certainly see the point of learning in the context and how that applies to a large number of word categories, such as verbs, adjectives, etc. However, I find contextual learning overrated when it comes to nouns denoting physical, easily identifiable objects: soap, door, pencil, honey, milk, car, cat etc... It makes little difference for the eventual usage if one learns them in context or not. En outre, I honestly can't see the point of using flashcards with European or any other alphabet-based languages but that's a matter of individual preference... :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6485 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 66 of 167 09 October 2007 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The assumption behind wordlists, flashcards and things like that is not that two languages are 100% connected on a word to word basis, - and you would be hard pressed to find anybody who seriously believe that. The purpose behind such systematic learning tools is to familiarize people with enough words to get through genuine texts without stumbling over unknown words all the time. The meaning that is associated with a given foreign word is for practical reasons its approximate translation into another language, which may or may not be the native language of the student. But it could also be a drawing or an explanation in the target language or a translation into a third language if there is suitable term there. The important thing that you get just enough feeling for the meaning of the word to understand it when you meet it in 'real living language', and having a dictionary translation (with examples, if necessary) as a background is much safer than believing that you know all about it just from seeing it once in context. Many things in language are idiomatic, but it doesn't imply that languages are purely idiomatic. It is still valid to note that a English horse is the same as a French cheval, even there are idiomatic expressions with both words that can't be translated directly. Linguamor apparently finds it strange that anybody would want to use wordlist and flashcards in spite of languages being so idiomatic. My position is - and will continue to be - that languages are not purely idiomatic, and therefore it is perfectly legitimate to use tools that ultimately are based on translations. In fact, I find it strange that there are people who are unable to or refuse to use such tools. But we are clearly different, and everybody should use the methods that work for him or her. In the end we all expect to get to a situation where we use the target languages without translating mentally, - we just can't agree on the choice of methods at the early stages. Edited by Iversen on 09 October 2007 at 9:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6725 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 67 of 167 09 October 2007 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This criterion may be unnecessarily conservative - there are plenty of adjectives and other parts of speech with straightforward meanings. The percentage of words that map well enough onto their English equivalents may vary from language to language, so an operational criterion of some sort may be more helpful here, which would allow one to decide on the spot if there is any point in putting any given word on a flashcard in isolation. Based on my ongoing experiences with reading German, I think one can get a pretty good idea of how "fuzzy" a word is by simply noting whether one had a hard time pinning down its meaning using a dictionary. With many words, you look it up in a pocket dictionary, and you are done. With others, you look it up in a pocket dictionary and can't quite figure out what to make of it. You then go to bigger and bigger dictionaries, with lots of sample phrases, and even if you kinda sorta figure it out, you are still left with a funny feeling that you still haven't really grasped what it stands for in the text you are reading. Chances are, the next time you see it, you will be reaching for a dictionary again, until you finally realize that you will only nail down its meaning over time from context. Putting such a word in isolation on a flashcard is close to pointless. Whether a given word is "flashcardable" may also depend on whether one is only interested in the Target->English flashcard review or whether one also wants to drill the English->Target part. Edited by frenkeld on 09 October 2007 at 11:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6332 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 68 of 167 09 October 2007 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
And why not, pray tell? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6400 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 69 of 167 09 October 2007 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Words like these are not typical of most of the words in a language. Neither do people speak in single words. As soon as you use these words in utterances, word for word translation to produce the utterance often no longer works, e.g. "on a changé de voiture", "tu as donné à manger au chat?", "pense à prendre du lait". Edited by Linguamor on 10 October 2007 at 1:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6400 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 70 of 167 09 October 2007 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And yet I have corrected hundreds of student essays written by students assuming that they could express their thoughts by substituting target language words for native language equivalents that they had memorized from wordlists. In many cases I would not even have understood what the student was trying to say if I had not known the student's native language.
My objection is not to the use of systematic learning tools, but the learning of isolated words as translation equivalents. Many people do seem to do this with the expectation that they can learn words this way for productive use. You can memorize lists of words as an aid to understanding words in authentic texts, but it is just that, an aid, like a dictionary. The real problem with this is that most people find rote memorization of thousands of words difficult.
Languages are largely idiomatic. Authentic target language utterances cannot be produced simply by slotting in native language word "equivalents". Looking at single concrete words, especially concrete nouns, obscures this fact. Learning isolated words ignores this fact. Look at real utterances used in real communication, in real contexts, and it becomes glaringly obvious. Edited by Linguamor on 10 October 2007 at 1:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| thirdearthinker Diglot Newbie Hong Kong paulie.nomadlife.org Joined 6038 days ago 12 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese | Message 71 of 167 09 October 2007 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just a couple of ideas to pick up on some key threads in this conversation
Re: learning lots of new words ... A guy from New Zealand is doing some really interesting stuff with visual memory hooks to help build your vocab. His program is called "200 words per day" ... and there are a number of free sample words on the website that you can check out to see if you like the idea. Google "200 words a day" if you want to learn more. Re: identifying most commonly used words ... An education centre in Kansas, United States, has researched and published the 1,000 most commonly used words in English. On their website, they have broken them down into the 1st Hundred, 2nd Hundred etc. It makes for interesting reading (and it's free!). A Google search on "English First 100 Words" will find it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6725 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 72 of 167 09 October 2007 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This problem can be solved by allowing only Target->English wordlist review/memorization, as an aid for reading texts, while eschewing the English->Target memorization of individual words. Some words can't be usefully recorded even for the Target->English memorization, but such words don't seem to be particularly numerous as the percentage of the words one meets in reading, at least when one studies the main West European languages. Edited by frenkeld on 10 October 2007 at 3:02am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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