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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

#131

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#132

Post by zdragnar »

KPGv2 wrote: post #111
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Americans don't seem to do understatement. Brits say this all the time because they assume we talk like people in movies and interviews do (or they interpret corporate-speak as how Americans actually talk). We use understatement plenty. In fact, the "interesting idea" understatement? I wouldn't even clock it as British because we use that in the US, too. I would say it is a classic example we use here of how you po…

Code switching between registers is a fact of life in America. Nobody speaks corporate natively, and it's more extreme if you grow up or live in an ethnic minority enclave.

What Americans tend to not "get" is how dry British humor can be. It's less about not getting sarcasm and more just not finding it as funny. Personally, I blame the number of ads that interrupt our TV shows back when people watched broadcast and cable TV. There really wasn't enough time to build up and the ads are too loud and shouty in comparison.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#133

Post by protocolture »

tavavex wrote: post #108
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.

>Retired radio shock jock Alan Jones′ influence and reputation survived one arrest, in a London public toilet in 1988.

Always has been.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#134

Post by Thraway198 »

WalterBright wrote: post #109
refactor_master wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 late…

This is grammar from their native language. They dont know the English grammar, so they just assume it's the same as the one they understand. You just understand them via the context.

Older Europeans used to say 'AND NOW WE MAKE PARTY!"

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#135

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

WalterBright wrote: post #109
refactor_master wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 late…

English is a fault tolerant language that is usually comprehensible with errors. That isn't generally applicable to all languages.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#136

Post by thaumasiotes »

WalterBright wrote: post #55
thaumasiotes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While if you are living somewhere, it's really important to know a lot of basic supermarket items that you wouldn't prioritize for other usages. Why? Having spent a good amount of time living in Shanghai, I found it important to be able to understand menus. But there's no pressure to know the words for supermarket items; you can just go to the supermarket and look for the item. Otherwise your point is correct; all…

> you need to understand almost all of the words that appear in that document I didn't learn English by reading vocabulary lists or dictionaries. Pretty much all was learned by context.

Yes, but that was a process of over a year that involved being repeatedly presented with real-life scenarios accompanied by verbal descriptions.

If you were to just listen to all the same input, you would never have learned anything. The learning comes from deciphering the connection between the reality you see and the words you hear.

And if you want to understand a document, which is just a sequence of unsupported words, it is equally true that you must already understand almost all of those words.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#137

Post by fasterik »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #103
fasterik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 definitio…

Yes that makes sense, and I think I mostly agree with you. The point about metaphors is a good one, but what I would say is that often the most precise way to communicate something is through a metaphor. If the goal is to convey a mood or a feeling, there's no way to take the metaphor and make it more precise using more words, because an essential part of it is brevity. The intended effect is lost if you try to turn it into an academic paper. I think this is exactly your point, so maybe we're just using "precise" in a slightly different sense.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#138

Post by WalterBright »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #128
WalterBright wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 late…

But your friend was applying consistent rules of grammar from his mother tongue. Having learned some vocabulary, he would mentally form the phrases in his head, and then literally translate out the words and tenses. Grammar was so important to him that he was adhering to the grammatical rules he knew. It would be interesting to know how he would perform with writing or typing instead of contemporaneous conversation.…

The point was I understood him perfectly despite the execrable grammar.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#139

Post by WalterBright »

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.

I recall a WW2 documentary where a veteran recounted that he approached a bunker filled with Wehrmacht soldiers. He pointed his gun, and said "raus oder ich scheissen!" The response was laughter. He repeated, and they finally came out, still laughing.

He later realized he should have said "shiessen".

P.S. He confused "shoot" with "shit".

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#140

Post by WalterBright »

jonahx wrote: post #86
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!

> This is good news - you can be proficient in a foreign language by learning only 2,000 words! Depends what you mean by "proficient". I currently know ~6k Spanish words and would hesitate to self-apply that word. Others might, but damn languages are hard .

> Depends what you mean by "proficient".

I thought I was pretty clear - you could understand at the level of television. Television scripts are dumbed down.

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