It seems like this is similar to any kind of discipline in life, physical or mental: you make great strides at first, and then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Where to go from here when reading? That seems to be the million dollar question. For me I would say to constantly change the "genre" and type of material that you read. If you have been reading a certain kind of fiction, read something out of your "comfort zone" or the genre that you prefer.
I did the test and I got this result: You know at least 10,800 English word families! My native language is Spanish. I need to get back to work on my English ;-)
After watching this video I started reading Pinocchio in the language I'm learning and found I was having quite a bit of trouble. After doing a word count of the few pages I'd read, I found that I know appx. 93% of them. I was very surprised it was that high because I was having considerable trouble with it but it is more evidence what you say is true.
I started learning English a year ago. I picked up one of those word frequency lists and crossed out all the words I knew. Then I compiled a list of unknown words and the words I mispronounced into an SRS collection.Since then I've been checking out at least 400 items every day.It skyrocketed my learning curve and I've filled in a lot of gaps in my vocab. Now I can read books pretty well.Using SRS is by far the fastest way you can get to boost up the frequency of encountering rarely used words.
@klnkx SRSs are fantastic programmes, definitely the best way I've found to ensure that you remember low-frequency vocabulary. Your English is excellent, especially impressive for one year of study!
As I learn more from you about language learning methods, there seems to be less and less of raison d'être for language teachers. This poses a dilemma for me, as I am now employed as a language teacher.
For example, with me in Japanese, or recently with Chinese and Spanish, even without a dictionary I can look at the character/s and understand a tiny bit, while if it was blocked out, I would be forced to know 0%
Spanish is similar due to the usage of Latin in modern English.
Useful forty minutes for the start of my day. Thank you professor!
One thing that I must point out though is that, your blocked-out paragraph example is useful for visually seeing how a limited vocab ulary can affect your comprehension, in reality it's not like that at all. There's a difference between not knowing a word and having it completely blocked from your vision.
Great video, thank you! I look forward to part two! I was wondering though, when you refer to the 98% threshold, does that mean that the reader knows at least 98% of word occurrences or 98% of unique words (word families) encountered?
Thank you Professor for uploading a video related to the higher echelons on language learning! I look forward to seeing the tool you mentioned. Also, I got a lower score than I would hope for on my vocabulary test, though it wasn't unexpected. Reading only Korean books for the past year and a half can definitely deflate one's native tongue...
@SubjectAlpha100 Not so much that I forgot words, rather that I have been actively engaging an entirely different vocabulary stratum for such a long time that my knowledge of low frequency English words has gone dormant. And I guess I can say yes, sometimes I'll know the word in Korean just fine, but forget it in English. This is usually a momentary thing, and the word will come to me a few hours or a day later when I'm not thinking about it.
I got 20k words and I'm a native English speaker. The last twenty or thirty books that I've read were about economics and investment, and I didn't see a single word in the test relating to those fields. You could have a larger vocabulary than your score! And don't worry about your number, just learn the vocabulary that is right for you. If you're a botanist then learn plant names, but I wouldn't waste my time on those if I was an investment banker.
I've heard native English speakers have somewhat larger vocabularies than speakers of other languages. Is that true? Does that mean we have to learn less words to learn a foreign language compared to an EFL/ESL learner who has to learn English?
Are these numbers and percentages applicable to other languages? How many words do Korean speakers usually understand?
Cont'd: So far for me the way out of this dilemma has been to acquire a lot of vocabulary in a single field (day to day politics, local cuisine, history) with the help of word lists or a dicctionary. Then from there you can branch out to neighbouring fields until you've covered it all.
Very interesting lecture! So far, I've explained this 98% level to myself, that in order to understand words from their context, well, you have to understand the context. Extensive reading is how I kick-started my English after school, reading novels for weeks. And I have to agree that the problem is usually finding the right materials to read. When you're stuck around 85%-90%, you'll probably be stuck with children's books as well.
This was a very informative lecture. I'd been wondering for quite some time how many words were actually needed to have a certain level of comprehension, and your video answers the question perfectly. I'll be eagerly waiting for the second part!
I'm currently learning Japanese by intensive reading, using a mixture of your techniques and AJATT's pointers.
P.S. I took the vocabulary test, and got a result of 20,700... it's way below your level, but for a non-native I guess it's not bad! =)
For some reason, I had thought that extensive reading was a "beginner's technique," but I see now that I was wrong. It is obviously very necessary even for advanced, even for professional users of a foreign language. I suspect that even many native speakers could profit from it. Thanks so much for making me aware of this!
It seems like this is similar to any kind of discipline in life, physical or mental: you make great strides at first, and then the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Where to go from here when reading? That seems to be the million dollar question. For me I would say to constantly change the "genre" and type of material that you read. If you have been reading a certain kind of fiction, read something out of your "comfort zone" or the genre that you prefer.
plaidchuck 5 months ago
@plaidchuck
For example, if you have been reading the classics read a silly romance novel or if you have been reading fiction read academic texts or essays.
plaidchuck 5 months ago
I did the test and I got this result: You know at least 10,800 English word families! My native language is Spanish. I need to get back to work on my English ;-)
Jate0000 5 months ago in playlist Más videos de ProfASAr
My result is 13,200 word families. I'm a non-native speaker of English. I spent 5 days in London with my family last year, that's all.
Vik51272 5 months ago
After watching this video I started reading Pinocchio in the language I'm learning and found I was having quite a bit of trouble. After doing a word count of the few pages I'd read, I found that I know appx. 93% of them. I was very surprised it was that high because I was having considerable trouble with it but it is more evidence what you say is true.
ChipsOnLanguage 5 months ago
But still learning vocabulary is a real pain for me, because words have too many multiple meanings.
klnkx 5 months ago
I started learning English a year ago. I picked up one of those word frequency lists and crossed out all the words I knew. Then I compiled a list of unknown words and the words I mispronounced into an SRS collection.Since then I've been checking out at least 400 items every day.It skyrocketed my learning curve and I've filled in a lot of gaps in my vocab. Now I can read books pretty well.Using SRS is by far the fastest way you can get to boost up the frequency of encountering rarely used words.
klnkx 5 months ago
@klnkx SRSs are fantastic programmes, definitely the best way I've found to ensure that you remember low-frequency vocabulary. Your English is excellent, especially impressive for one year of study!
katanamanatee 5 months ago
My reaction? "funny" ? "incredible" ? "classic" ? "cute" ? "what?" ? "ouch" ?
No, just simply "interesting". But apparently the guys at Youtube do not imagine people use this for sharing interesting ideas.
blaiseli 5 months ago
As I learn more from you about language learning methods, there seems to be less and less of raison d'être for language teachers. This poses a dilemma for me, as I am now employed as a language teacher.
americaninkorea 5 months ago 3
An extremely interesting lecture! Can you suggest some further reading or links to related articles? Many thanks!
dodowhisperer 5 months ago
For example, with me in Japanese, or recently with Chinese and Spanish, even without a dictionary I can look at the character/s and understand a tiny bit, while if it was blocked out, I would be forced to know 0%
Spanish is similar due to the usage of Latin in modern English.
ArchetypeXE 5 months ago
Useful forty minutes for the start of my day. Thank you professor!
One thing that I must point out though is that, your blocked-out paragraph example is useful for visually seeing how a limited vocab ulary can affect your comprehension, in reality it's not like that at all. There's a difference between not knowing a word and having it completely blocked from your vision.
ArchetypeXE 5 months ago
"At least 21,300" here. Not too bad I suppose.
qzchris 5 months ago
Great video, thank you! I look forward to part two! I was wondering though, when you refer to the 98% threshold, does that mean that the reader knows at least 98% of word occurrences or 98% of unique words (word families) encountered?
ryuuhi11 5 months ago
I'm @ 18.500 word families, not a native speaker, hardly ever been to an English-speaking country. Not bad, I guess.
MrOnkelDunkel 5 months ago
Brilliant lecture, as usual!
biophr34k 5 months ago
The professor's score of 28,300 comes out to 139/140 on the test - not bad!
philbyerm 5 months ago
Thank you for another informative video, Professor. It was a great pleasure to hear from you again.
customic 5 months ago
Thank you Professor for uploading a video related to the higher echelons on language learning! I look forward to seeing the tool you mentioned. Also, I got a lower score than I would hope for on my vocabulary test, though it wasn't unexpected. Reading only Korean books for the past year and a half can definitely deflate one's native tongue...
lokijeong 6 months ago
@lokijeong Are you saying that you forgot English words because of all the Korean you were absorbing?
SubjectAlpha100 6 months ago
@SubjectAlpha100 Not so much that I forgot words, rather that I have been actively engaging an entirely different vocabulary stratum for such a long time that my knowledge of low frequency English words has gone dormant. And I guess I can say yes, sometimes I'll know the word in Korean just fine, but forget it in English. This is usually a momentary thing, and the word will come to me a few hours or a day later when I'm not thinking about it.
lokijeong 6 months ago
20,200 word families I got in the test and I'm British.
MrOregona230 6 months ago
I got 20k words and I'm a native English speaker. The last twenty or thirty books that I've read were about economics and investment, and I didn't see a single word in the test relating to those fields. You could have a larger vocabulary than your score! And don't worry about your number, just learn the vocabulary that is right for you. If you're a botanist then learn plant names, but I wouldn't waste my time on those if I was an investment banker.
duke1duke1 6 months ago
I've heard native English speakers have somewhat larger vocabularies than speakers of other languages. Is that true? Does that mean we have to learn less words to learn a foreign language compared to an EFL/ESL learner who has to learn English?
Are these numbers and percentages applicable to other languages? How many words do Korean speakers usually understand?
duke1duke1 6 months ago
@duke1duke1 I am learning both English and Japanese, and it seems to me that there a lot more synonyms in English.
amanogawamakoto 5 months ago
I got 10,700 and english is my native language
TheNonsubscribable 6 months ago
... I got 10,700
TheNonsubscribable 6 months ago
Cont'd: So far for me the way out of this dilemma has been to acquire a lot of vocabulary in a single field (day to day politics, local cuisine, history) with the help of word lists or a dicctionary. Then from there you can branch out to neighbouring fields until you've covered it all.
Looking forward to the next lecture.
anon2k10 6 months ago
Very interesting lecture! So far, I've explained this 98% level to myself, that in order to understand words from their context, well, you have to understand the context. Extensive reading is how I kick-started my English after school, reading novels for weeks. And I have to agree that the problem is usually finding the right materials to read. When you're stuck around 85%-90%, you'll probably be stuck with children's books as well.
anon2k10 6 months ago
This was a very informative lecture. I'd been wondering for quite some time how many words were actually needed to have a certain level of comprehension, and your video answers the question perfectly. I'll be eagerly waiting for the second part!
I'm currently learning Japanese by intensive reading, using a mixture of your techniques and AJATT's pointers.
P.S. I took the vocabulary test, and got a result of 20,700... it's way below your level, but for a non-native I guess it's not bad! =)
damon899 6 months ago
can't wait for part 2 :D
clarinini 6 months ago
For some reason, I had thought that extensive reading was a "beginner's technique," but I see now that I was wrong. It is obviously very necessary even for advanced, even for professional users of a foreign language. I suspect that even many native speakers could profit from it. Thanks so much for making me aware of this!
vixen020202 6 months ago 12
Is there any way to improve the sound quality, please?
Vik51272 6 months ago
The sound aspect affects you psychologically to pay more attention... ;)
TheDarkPan 6 months ago 4
Got 10,400 word families. Still lots of work ahead of me. Thanks!
amanogawamakoto 6 months ago
Thank you for the upload! Very good video!
epsilon910 6 months ago
I took the vocabulary test. Though being English, the two americanisms which stood out for me were 'lonesome' and 'pigtail'.
Anerammos2 6 months ago
good video. thank you for it. I'll wait the next video.
HitsugayaR 6 months ago
The sound is not clear, though.
bonuccicris 6 months ago
A must-see for any serious aspiring polyglot.
Thanks again, Professor.
Walshyman 6 months ago 3
Yes! Another upload!
RyuPiu 6 months ago 25