4 ms·

As others have already noted, vocabulary is the most important aspect with regards to learning a language to a good-enough extent; that is, with regards to maki

by Funes- 6y ago

As others have already noted, vocabulary is the most important aspect with regards to learning a language to a good-enough extent; that is, with regards to making oneself capable of constructing sentences (as non-grammatical as they may be, or as unconventional as they may sound to a native or to a fluent individual, in spite of being deemed "technically correct") that can be understood by other people competent in a given language. However, vocabulary acquisition shouldn't be constrained to the typical or more salient nouns and adjectives. It is absolutely crucial to acquaint oneself with discourse markers (adverbs, prepositional phrases, etcetera), conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, and other less markedly semantic and more functional elements. The main goal throughout the entire process should be becoming capable of producing intelligible sentences right off the bat about anything that crosses one's mind, without many hiccups. Of course, grammar, phonetics, and phonology must be taken into account as well, and a good grounding on their mechanisms is indispensable for anyone that aims to be proficient. I'm writing a manual on language learning right now, and I've spent a very long time thinking and testing many different hypotheses and methods I've come up with through the years. It's quite an interesting topic, but I reckon many of the considerations that would make one proficient in learning languages can also be applied to any other learning process (learning to code, learning to play a musical instrument...), so it is probable that adopting a more general perspective would be beneficial.

tasogare 6y ago
> vocabulary acquisition shouldn't be constrained to the typical or more salient nouns and adjectives My recent research finding (that needs to be confirmed with new data I collected) is that East-Asian L2 learners of English have a gap in knowledge of adjectives/adverbs in comparison of nouns. The nouns causing them problem are in the 3000 frequency vocabulary band while the adj/adv they don’t know are in the 2000 frequency band. That’s a very huge gap. So you are totally right that other part of speech that nouns should be given more attention.
- guai888 6y ago
  Vocabulary acquisition is not easy. Human remember things through story. Initial phase of the vocabulary acquisition is very difficult since you need to remember one word at the time and it is very easy to forget. Once you have enough vocabulary to read sentence and progress to understand story then you have better chance to retain vocabulary at faster pace and less likely to forget the word. Listening is also a skill that people overlook. You need to train the ear to pick up how people pronounce a specific language otherwise it will just sound like noise. Let me give you an example: I have a 4 years old son. He likes cartoon. English speaking cartoon sounds like garbled noise to him. I know because he try to recreate the conversation and it came out like garbled noise. I prompt him with some word with Chinese translation before he watch video then gradually he can recognize the word in the video and gave me correct translation after I asked him.

by Funes- 6y ago

tasogare 6y ago

> vocabulary acquisition shouldn't be constrained to the typical or more salient nouns and adjectives My recent research finding (that needs to be confirmed with new data I collected) is that East-Asian L2 learners of English have a gap in knowledge of adjectives/adverbs in comparison of nouns. The nouns causing them problem are in the 3000 frequency vocabulary band while the adj/adv they don’t know are in the 2000 frequency band. That’s a very huge gap. So you are totally right that other part of speech that nouns should be given more attention.

guai888 6y ago
Vocabulary acquisition is not easy. Human remember things through story. Initial phase of the vocabulary acquisition is very difficult since you need to remember one word at the time and it is very easy to forget. Once you have enough vocabulary to read sentence and progress to understand story then you have better chance to retain vocabulary at faster pace and less likely to forget the word. Listening is also a skill that people overlook. You need to train the ear to pick up how people pronounce a specific language otherwise it will just sound like noise. Let me give you an example: I have a 4 years old son. He likes cartoon. English speaking cartoon sounds like garbled noise to him. I know because he try to recreate the conversation and it came out like garbled noise. I prompt him with some word with Chinese translation before he watch video then gradually he can recognize the word in the video and gave me correct translation after I asked him.