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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

#101

Post by eudamoniac »

conductr wrote: post #78
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…

I always hear a phase that goes like “we have a word for it in Language, …”. You almost never hear it said where English is that language. We just don’t have many words or don’t like adding new ones very frequently, it seems.

English has more words than any language on earth. People don't learn or use use most of them because they will be labeled pretentious.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#103

Post by thomastjeffery »

fasterik wrote: post #74
thomastjeffery wrote: post #27

> It’s as if the world now requires you to be more precise about everything. This is something I've been thinking a lot about. We have trended from subjective language to objective language. Why? Computing. Software is written with objective language. Everything is clearly unambiguously defined. Blue is no longer a category, it's #0000FF. Logic must always reduce to a binary truth value. Most of what we have to talk…

I don't agree with the assumed equivalence between precision and objectivity. Language can be precise when describing a subjective perspective, and it can be imprecise or ambiguous when describing objective facts. The tendency toward increasing precision is a good thing, in my opinion. If anything, precision in language allows writers to tell better, more nuanced stories about subjectivity.

Increasing precision is good to the end that is disambiguation. The problem is that that end is not always what language is good for. Metaphor is an incredibly useful tool, because it allows us to convey meaning with imprecise definition, but precise implications.

The meaning of an expression is its implication, not its definition. The implication must be decided by the reader. This is either done by strict definition, or by arbitrary inference. Inference is a powerful feature of language, because it expands the set implications that can be expressed without abstracting the language. Without inference and metaphor, we must instead create a tower of well-defined abstractions that rule over us; having already determined what implications are relevant: objective truth. With inference and metaphor, the writer/speaker can articulate their implications with familiar language; relying on the reader/listener to infer from the expected relevant perspective: subjective truth.

Essentially the tradeoff isn't whether or not you get precision, but whether that precision can be shared by the writer and the reader, or be managed entirely by the writer. Defined abstractions allow the writer to be unambiguous to anyone (objective), while inference allows the writer to offload that responsibility to the context and perspective of the reader (subjective).

Does that make sense?

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#104

Post by watwut »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #82
alyeska2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Different context. One social register is extreme understatement, which may be laden with passive aggression, but could also be approving. "That's not a bad idea" is likely to mean "Good idea, let's do it, or at least consider it seriously." But "Interesting idea" is likely to mean "You're an idiot." This is more corporate/middle class. There's also a working class register which is very direct and sweary, and extrem…

> They sent it on time, and then the team lead called a meeting to ask why it hadn't arrived. The report was literally sitting in their inbox unread. Everyone could see it, but they all went through the motions of pretending it wasn't there and developing an action plan for future delivery.

That is surreal.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#105

Post by mahdi7d1 »

WalterBright wrote: post #61
Guestmodinfo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please someone tell me where to get those 1 million words in decreasing order of difficulty or ascending order of usage along with their meanings and insinuations

Sounds like a job for LLMs.

Only if you mean llms finding already compiled lists on the internet. Since they would be too inefficient for actually compiling a list themselves.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#106

Post by ebiester »

dadie wrote: post #49
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…

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…

When I started dating someone whose second language was English, I found that the idioms were a giant hurdle. We really do speak in idioms and metaphors and this makes it very difficult for people who understand the words but not the cultural context. While my (now spouse) adapted, I also adapted by learning how to speak far more literally, especially around people of mixed levels of English.

I don't think there is a fear of being imprecise. If anything, it is a fear of speaking plainly as boring.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#107

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #43
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.

It is changing. A bulk of learners now get their vocabularies from youtube, netflix and podcasts. Watching kids shows is common recommendation (I disagree with it somewhat, but that does not make it not common), so I think people will learn also those 10 years old world words.

[deleted]

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#108

Post by tavavex »

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…

> If it's for reading the newspaper, you don't ever need to know "bathroom", but you sure do need to know words like "congressman".

Unless you're reading a newspaper from the last 5 years or so - in which case, the word "bathroom" becomes surprisingly more relevant.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#109

Post by WalterBright »

refactor_master wrote: post #99
theli0nheart wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Working with ESL people makes it clear that grammar isn't so important. One of my friends would say, instead of "go shopping", would say "make some shoppings". Instead of "it's time to go", he'd say "time for go". All words that started with 's' were pronounced 'ehs', as in "gas ehstation".

The other people at work soon picked those lines up, and we used them regularly amongst ourselves. I still use them decades later!

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#110

Post by poncho_romero »

eudamoniac wrote: post #101
conductr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hear a phase that goes like “we have a word for it in Language, …”. You almost never hear it said where English is that language. We just don’t have many words or don’t like adding new ones very frequently, it seems.

English has more words than any language on earth. People don't learn or use use most of them because they will be labeled pretentious.

I wonder if despite our large vocabulary, English speakers tend to use a small subsection of it because there are so many non-native speakers. It seems to me from reading and watching people from decades ago that the language was more complex. (I don't mean this as any knock on people who speak English as a second language.)
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