The Linguist - language learning should be fun

Vocabulary at the center, Visual Thesaurus and such.

I received a comment on my wall at Facebook about an interview that discussed vocabulary, in which it was stated that vocabulary is at the core of all learning.I agree that vocabulary is at the core of a lot of our knowledge, at least our academic knowledge. It does not affect other kinds of knowledge, such as being a good carpenter or understanding nature, or the kind of practical knowledge that comes from observation. Words are just one form of experience that we can give our brain.

The people interviewed had written a book about words called Vocabulary at the Center, The table of contents suggests, to me, that this book contains more unnecessary complication on the subject of word learning. The book is part of a promotional exercize by a group promoting a visual thesaurus.I also do not believe in these word mapping or visual aids to learn words.

To me words have to be met in context, over and over. Seeing them on a chart does not do anything for me. To me, you are better off to spend your time reading more.

But then that is just me. Others may have a different perspective. So have a look if you are interested and tell me what you think.

Learning words and the use of the dictionary.

Learning words is the key task in language learning, but the dictionary is over-rated as a language learning tool. Here I talk about why I feel this way.

In praise of passive vocabulary

I have heard people say that they can only learn a word if they use it. I do not agree. I know far more words passively in my foreign languages, than I use actively. There is nothing wrong with that. I enjoy my listening and reading and feel that understanding what I hear and read is essential. I do not mind struggling to find words when I speak. I find that the more I listen and read, and review my words and phrases, the greater my passive vocabulary, and therefore the greater my potential active vocabulary. When I have more opportunity to speak, I find these passive words gradually migrating over into the active category. Here is the podcastDownload Passive vocabulary

More on Spaced Reptition Systems

I would be interested to hear which of the many SRS systems are the most popular, and how they are used.  I am particularly interested to hear how different kinds of information are learned using these systems.

I mean there are different bits of information that are learned using these systems. Which are easiest to learn this way? How many do you look at daily?

1) An isolated fact. The capital city of Finland - no understanding, no context required.
2) A mathematical or scientific theory. Understanding required
3) A Chinese character: A major effort required to learn a totally different writing system, in addition to having to learn the language
4) A word (passive knowledge). Some easier than others, to learn, and forget. Depends largely on frequency of exposure in contexts other than SRS system itself.
5) A phrase (passive knowledge), Easier than words because a collection of words some of which are usually known.
6) Sentence (passive knowledge) really just a long phrase, but a more unique collection of words.
7) 4)-6) again but active knowledge

8) A grammar rule or word ending as a rule.

9) A grammar pattern as part of frequently reviewed phrases or sentences

I save about 1000 LingQ per month at LingQ, from my reading and listening. I save words, and I save phrases, which I often tag for grammar or other purposes, for later review.

This would correspond to 1000 cards. When I consider that my Flash Cards in LingQ (we also have a SRS system) can be reversed (English Russian as well as Russian English in my case ), this could be 2000 cards the way Anki counts them.

I know that my deliberate word and phrase review in LingQ is very much on a random sample basis. I cannot review all my saved words. I do not do it on a thorough basis. There is just not enough time, since I spend most of my time listening and reading.

I am happy with that and my word and phrase knowledge is growing. How much time would I have to spend daily on word and phrase review if I were a disciplined SRS user?

Some improvements in the LingQ vocab section.

The vocabulary page at LingQ is a great place to work on vocabulary. We are continuing to refine and improve it. This is where all the LingQs that are saved when reading end up. Here I do a short video on some of the things I do there.Download Jingvocab

How many words do you know? How many have you looked up in a dictionary?

I think that I might know 50,000 or so words of English. That is what a college educated person is supposed to know in English. How often have I looked up a word in the dictionary? Not often, other then when playing scrabble and trying some word that just may be in the dictionary.

Apparently I only knew 7,000 words when I was seven and 14,000 when I was fourteen. I learned from exposure. Now things are not that easy in a second language, but it just shows that the brain can absorb information from sheer input.

TEOFL TOEIC IELTS, word lists and LingQ

There are a number of important word lists available on the Internet such as

The Academic Word List
TOEIC lists
TOEFL lists

See
http://language.massey.ac.nz/staff/awl/sublist1.sh tml
http://www2.nict.go.jp/x/x161/members/mutiyama/voc abridge-toeic/
http://supervoca.net/toefllist.cgi

These can be used in the following way at LingQ.

• create a Collection in the Import section called Lists.
• import each list as an item in the Collection
• open them as content starting with the one that has the lowest % new words
• go through and LingQ the words that you do not know
• use "Examples" to find appropriate phrases for the LingQ box or wait until the word appears again in another text.
• if you want you can Tag these words TOEFL or TOEIC or AWL whatever you want in order to retrieve a list of the words you still need to learn.

This procedure has a number of advantages
1) You can immediately input a long list of words that are necessary for these tests.
2) You get a sense of how many you already know.
3) These words will now appear highlighted in yellow in future texts at LingQ.
4) You will now have the words you need in your database for review in Flash Cards
5) You can track your progress in learning these words.

Why not give it a try at LingQ.

Words or phrases?

Should we learn words or should we learn phrases? There is increasing realization that it is important to learn phrases. There has been some research to show that we learn languages in chunks, which I guess corresponds to phrases. I agree that learning phrases, getting used to recognizing phrases that regularly appear in the language, is important. We need to give our brain enough exposure to these phrases, in contexts, and in our Flash Cards or other deliberate study activities, so that they start to become natural to us. That is the easiest way to get comfortable with tenses, prepositions, case endings, and all the other things that are so different from language to language.

However, words, individual words, are also important, very important. They are the basic building blocks of the language. We need a lot of them. Many words are connected to other words so that the more we know, the easier it is to pick up new words without even noticing it, incidentally.

So my conclusion is that we need both. That is why we ask people in LingQ to save both words and phrases. That is why we capture phrases every time a learner saves a word. The other great thing about words is that it is easy to measure a learner's progress in terms of words saved, known, and learned. We will eventually build a test to confirm that our learners really know the words that the system says they know. But even if the word count is not accurate, being aware of the number of words you are learning is a stimulus to continued effort.

Words and phrase...both!

Spaced repetition at LingQ

We have started sending out regular emails to learners, containing the words and phrases that they have saved from the content they are studying. The lists of words and phrases are based on a spaced repetition algorithm and help to remind learners that they need spend some time with the words they are trying to learn. The list can be opened and reviewed with Flash Cards.

I find this quite useful for a few reasons. I have been receiving my Russian and Portuguese words. I find that it is a good idea to take the time to review these words when one has the time to do it properly.

I have found it a good time to do two things.
1) "Upgrade" my LingQ cards. In other words I go to the LingQ and edit my phrase. I even look for examples to see if there is a better example that I can keep, and which I can edit. I do this partly because it means I will see a better example phrase next time, but even more because the time I invest in the word, editing the phrase and looking for examples, helps me to remember the word.

2) When I go to the LingQ card I see the alphabetical list of words I am learning in the background. I often check to see the related words that I have already saved that start with the same letters. Here again I am able to review the word, and review how it relates to similar words. All of this will help me to remember the word, I believe.

When do you know a word?

When can you say that you know a word in a new language? Some people think that you need to be able to use the word,  to make it part of your active vocabulary, before you can claim you know it. I do not agree. I don't use Russian that much  anyway.

To me I know a word when I hear it or read it and it is instant meaning. I need not translate it in my head, I just know the meaning. It is a comfortable feeling, the feeling of meeting old familiar friends. You do not have to ask how they are, or what they are thinking, or what they mean. You are just comfortable in their presence.

How do words achieve this status? It is done through a lot of exposure, and in particular the combined effect of repetitive listening, reading and vocabulary review. I have heard "Fathers and Children" by Turgenev many times, I have read it on LingQ, saving words. I have reviewed the words using Flash Cards. I have clicked on the yellow previously saved words to refresh my memory.  I have reviewed my Examples.

Now, I am reading a hard copy of the book in Russian, and many, many of the words, are just meaning to me,no need to translate. Those are words that I know, and am unlikely to forget, especially as I continue reading and listening and meeting them.