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How the words we teach English language learners changed

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Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#91

Post by rsynnott »

cvhc wrote: post #84
DC-3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot about this. It's funny how there are certain domains of language, familiar to all native speakers, but that you are simply not likely to learn as an adult language learner, at least not without diligent and focused study. I live and work in a foreign country, and have a modest but functional grasp of the language here. Which is to say, I know how to say 'sustainability', 'union-negotiated collective agr…

Words like cedar/robin/linen come from either the physical or cultral environment that I (as a Chinese) wasn't exposed to when I was a child. Cedar and robin are all species native to Europe, and I guess they also appear in many Western fairy tales or historical stories. Also, both because of the familiarity and how English form words, English assign very specific non-compound words to them (rather than "xxx tree/bir…

Cedars, fwiw, are not found in most of Europe either. Small parts of the Mediterranean (also parts of the Himalayas, bizarrely; closer than you think!)

They likely show up in Western works a lot because they’re mentioned in the bible a good bit.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#92

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

ghaff wrote: post #15
OJFord wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting one if you look at Google Ngram Viewer – usage dropped off massively to 70s/80s, and it's picked back up since but not to 1953 or earlier levels, so even that doesn't explain it. Must just be the combination of that increase as well as other words decreasing in usage I suppose. E.g. perhaps we're a bit less keen, but also much less passionate, so keen ends up making the cut.

As a native English speaker, keen feels like a very 1950s TV word. Don't know if that's actually true but feels like that way. I expect you're more likely to hear like cool today are some more contemporary word.

Still in common use in Britain as far as I know. A more local (Bristolian) word would be "keener" used to describe someone who puts lots of effort into a task to win praise.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#93

Post by rsynnott »

chrismorgan wrote: post #60
ninjahawk1 wrote: post #47

When I was in high school at a private school, I was surrounded by students who were religious but didn’t have much curiosity. I got into a debate with basically my whole class about how languages shift and change over time, and everyone was saying that languages stay the same and that they were all determined at the Tower of Babel. I used the examples of Latin to Spanish and English, or Old English to new English. I…

Here’s one verse from the Bible itself that shows that language changed: 1 Samuel 9:9: > (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come, let us go to the seer”; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.) I love that one because it translates so well into English because we also have an older and a newer word for close enough to the same thing. Though when saying older and…

Arguably the CEV version is clearer, because approximately no-one knows the difference between ‘prophet’ and ‘seer’ in English (a seer is a practitioner of divination). I’m assuming that the distinction was similar in the original (ie that the original didn’t just use two words for the same thing).

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#94

Post by climech »

alyeska2 wrote: post #64
dadie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware though that only learning words may leave you confused as in my experience Americans tend to overload the same word with a different meaning depending on the context. They also often resort to idioms and cultural references. For reasons unknown to me, instead of using the word with the meaning they probably are trying to convey, they rather use vague analogies or metaphors. It always made me question if Americ…

Interesting perspective, I'm used to seeing the exact opposite observation, that British people are famous for saying things meant as insults that sound positive at a surface level and that people are often unsure if they're being mocked/ridiculed or not. Of course, American corporate-speak is unique from normal conversations, and people intentionally use vagueness to make sure there's general agreement before saying…

>Interesting perspective

I see what you did there!

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#96

Post by saghm »

coliveira wrote: post #36
DC-3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot about this. It's funny how there are certain domains of language, familiar to all native speakers, but that you are simply not likely to learn as an adult language learner, at least not without diligent and focused study. I live and work in a foreign country, and have a modest but functional grasp of the language here. Which is to say, I know how to say 'sustainability', 'union-negotiated collective agr…

When you're a foreigner learning a language your experience is mostly from reading. There are words, however, that are much more common at home and in spoken language. So you'll probably never learn the words that a 10 year old kid knows.

One subtle issue in learning words from reading is that with languages like English where there's ambiguity in how to pronounce a given spelling, sometimes you might not guess the correct pronunciation for words you learned. This isn't specific to learning non-native languages either; growing up I read a lot and learned most of my advanced vocabulary that way, so as a teenager I would often find out that I didn't pronounce a word correctly because I had only ever seen it written down before.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#97

Post by Frieren »

SoftTalker wrote: post #29
Frieren wrote: post #9

> The “Social-Communicative” level barely changed in size. But nearly a quarter of the words in the 1953 list are gone, and 39% of the 2023 words are new. Humble, loyalty, fellowship, generous, polite, and companionship gave way to community, identity, organization, ethnic, gender, and narrative. ...It offers fewer words for the people directly around you, but more for belonging at a distance. I would blame inequalit…

I can't quite follow your point. Are you saying there is more inequality today than in 1953?

From 1945 to 1980 inequality was the lowest in the USA. From 1980 onward economic inequality exploded. I understand that you cannot follow my point without this important piece of information.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#98

Post by hk__2 »

retrac wrote: post #63
crazygringo wrote: post #16

I tried to organize vocab by difficulty level for an English language-learning app once. It shocked me how there is absolutely no "right" answer. If you are teaching English for travel, then you're prioritizing a lot of stuff around bathrooms, transportation, menu items, etc. If it's for understanding TV, it's a lot of words like "murder", etc. Depending on which TV shows you want to understand. If it's for reading t…

> Also, while it's easy to calculate word frequencies for stuff like newspaper articles, there aren't any good statistics (last I checked) around just normal everyday conversation. Because that stuff isn't getting recorded and transcribed. Linguists have resorted to spying on people in parks and shops and restaurants, to get "natural" language unperturbed by observer effects, audience tailoring, the filter of writing…

That’s what makes ethnolinguistics fascinating. As a native French speaker, I started getting interested by linguistics when I learned Italian, and now I keep noting things I never thought about when I talk with other native French speakers. As someone said, “You don’t know your language until you know another one”.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#99

Post by refactor_master »

theli0nheart wrote: post #65
WalterBright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read years ago that: 1. TV vocabulary is 2,000 words 2. High school vocabulary is 10,000 words 3. College vocabulary is 30,000 words 4. English language has 1,000,000 words This is good news - you can be proficient in a foreign language by learning only 2,000 words!

Being proficient in a language is really less about memorizing words than it is pronunciation and grammar. Memorization itself is pretty easy.

No, memorize many noun most important. Grammar less Important. Can do food, can do travel, can do tax. Because, noun most important.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#100

Post by cogogo »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #73
coliveira wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're a foreigner learning a language your experience is mostly from reading. There are words, however, that are much more common at home and in spoken language. So you'll probably never learn the words that a 10 year old kid knows.

I started learning english around 1984, when I began to learn programming. Back then most books were, by very far, in english. I also spent some time in the US (about one year altogether). Copying lyrics from my favorite songs of the 80s was helpful. And then later on TV series and movies in english. I've watched Friends, HIMYM and Californication* more than once (it's probably the reason I swear so much) and those r…

My wife kept up her english via friends. And I am always surprised how much US cultural exports help people learn the language.

A French accent in English is easy to mock but it actually sounds pretty good. My American accent in Spanish sounds atrocious and sadly our bilingual kids have pretty American accents too. But honestly who cares?

Speaking another language is the best effort I have ever made (I am lucky not to do it out of necessity). Totally changed my world view and how I think, speak, read and dream. Though please do not make me listen to a recording of my own voice…

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