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Universal template for polyglots. | ||
Tags: Polyglot | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6338 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 7 19 April 2008 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I went through an English vocabulary book that categorizes 50 keywords with each word having an average of 3 synonyms or antonyms into 10 levels. Because I wanted to retain these words after having learned them, I memorized each word and collated them into my memory palace. This lead me to think that it would be great if I could use these 500 words, which are ingrained in my mind, as a template for acquiring foreign language words, thus being able to run through this list without much work. In level 8 I have the first 10 words:
1. Alacrity 2. Obviate 3. Emolument 4. Intransigent 5. Mordant 6. Sagacious 7. Acerbic 8. Variegated 9. Succor 10. Importune Every word, besides 'variegated', is of Latin origin, so if my foreign language of study was Latin, this word list wouldn't be that beneficial. Would speakers of other modern European languages find these words just as difficult as English speakers? Would an accomplished polyglot be expected to know these kinds of words in all the languages he or she studied? Or is this method poor because each language shouldn't be simply a code in English? Comments? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Budz Octoglot Senior Member Australia languagepump.com Joined 6173 days ago 118 posts - 171 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian, Esperanto, Ukrainian, Mandarin, Cantonese, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Persian, Hungarian, Kazakh, Swahili, Vietnamese, Polish | Message 2 of 7 19 April 2008 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I certainly wouldn't use this sort of wordlist...
These words are in your top 500 words to learn in any new language that you're learning? You'll be learning your 2 or 3 languages for ever. I suspect that only a tiny percentage of the English speaking population knows what 'alacrity' means for example. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6338 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 7 19 April 2008 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
I remember reading that after doing level 6 you'll be at about the same level of difficulty for words that are expected to be known among the students majoring in English. The author of this book only felt that after completing level 10 you would've known words that the top five percent would feel comfortable with. I have no idea if these figures are simply made up by the author. I don't take these measurements very seriously. The book I'm talking about is Charles Elster's Verbal Advantage, if it makes any difference. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 5906 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 7 20 April 2008 at 1:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the same book... I love it. I got it back in high school and these words always came in handy for my essays later on.
An educated French speaker would be able to inaccurately guess the meanings of seven out of these ten aforementioned words. It would be a tad more difficult for an Italian or Spanish speaker. A Romanian speaker would be nearly lost. The author has a very strong preference towards Norman-Latinate vocabulary. He ignores Greek-derived, Anglo-Saxon and entirely foreign words. But nevertheless, it is a great book with very good examples. Remember that many fancy words in English are merely simple terms in other Romance languages - dénouement, naïveté, éfficace, ambiance, sagace, and érudit come to mind. Although if you want a systematic way of maximising your efficiency in foreign languages, I suggest you take a look at the Swadesh list, or, if you are very etymologically- and phonologically-inclined, try to learn new vocabulary through observing and studying sound and semantic changes amongst a group of related languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5909 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 5 of 7 20 April 2008 at 2:31am | IP Logged | ||
Nine of those ten words are in quite "common" use in Italy, succor being the exception (what does it mean?) and most people should understand if not use them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6568 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 6 of 7 20 April 2008 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
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"Variegated", of course, comes from Latin as well.
Not all these words (like alacrity) necessarily even have close matches in non-Romance languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6338 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 7 20 April 2008 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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So I guess this pursuit wouldn't be very fruitful, at least in the fancy words. I had a look at the Swadesh template, and it lead me to wonder how he arrived at those 207 words.
Would using the Basic English template be worthwhile for polyglots just starting out on a new language? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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