How the words we teach English language learners changed • Hacker News Board

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#191

Post by dieselgate » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

KPGv2 wrote: post #116

saghm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

There's a quote I've come across before, never make fun of someone mispronouncing a word in English, because it's a sign they are a reader. I was in my 30s when I learned "ennui" was pronounced "on wee" rather than N-U-I. I did not know it was from French. No shame. I never spoke the word aloud, but used it in writing. A teenager I knew was studying for a vocab test and had to learn the word, and I overheard him flas…

Interesting example in this context because "ennui" looks French, which may help someone with the pronunciation or spelling depending on needs. It's not a word I've come across much before though, if ever?

It means: tedium, boredom, "A feeling of weariness and disgust; dullness"

Thanks for the teachable moment!

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#192

Post by wyclif » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

ccppurcell wrote: post #163

alex_akimov wrote: post #161

I still cannot get my head around what is "lunch", "supper", and "dinner" - and how this was explained to me at school was different from reality, also depending on the country where you are in :-) No English school teaches you this, only real practice.

Dinner originally had a meaning like "biggest meal of the day". That used to be midday, culturally shifted to the evening. In some places and some contexts the language followed but not in every case. In southern England dinner is typically in the evening but we still say "school dinners" for subsidised lunches and "dinner ladies" for the women who serve them. Supper has always meant evening as far as I know but refe…

When I was growing up, "Supper's ready" was a common phrase. I think it is more common in the Anglosphere. Of course, my family is of English extraction so that might be why.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#193

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

dhathorn wrote: post #154

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…

Have a butchers at my China who thinks the seppos are less precise.

I read some articles the other day about rhyming slang. It all made sense of course, that it's a thing in some cultures. But most rhyming slangs are part of Cants or other special purpose vocabs which often have the intent of obscuring meaning.

But none of that answered why in the absolute world a group would choose to initiate a rhyming slang for things such as the damn stairs. Rhyming slang is purposely obscuring.

It's insane to me, that cockney is half made up of purposely making communication more difficult or insular. Like, I get that there's complicated in group signalling incentives at play, but like, why?

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#194

Post by MarkusQ » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

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…

"...how your uncles 舅 (mother's brother) 伯 (father's elder brother) 叔 (father's younger brother) relate to your parents."

These words are likely also on their way out, when you consider how few people in China have uncles in the present generation.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#195

Post by DontchaKnowit » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

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…

Its cause its fun

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#196

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #135

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…

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

> That isn't generally applicable to all languages.

I'm skeptical of that claim.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#197

Post by saghm » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

dieselgate wrote: post #191

KPGv2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a quote I've come across before, never make fun of someone mispronouncing a word in English, because it's a sign they are a reader. I was in my 30s when I learned "ennui" was pronounced "on wee" rather than N-U-I. I did not know it was from French. No shame. I never spoke the word aloud, but used it in writing. A teenager I knew was studying for a vocab test and had to learn the word, and I overheard him flas…

Interesting example in this context because "ennui" looks French, which may help someone with the pronunciation or spelling depending on needs. It's not a word I've come across much before though, if ever? It means: tedium, boredom, "A feeling of weariness and disgust; dullness" Thanks for the teachable moment!

I've always assumed it was a loan word from French, but I honestly also have never been properly able to figure out how to pronounce arbitrary words in French because I'm not familiar enough with the language. My perception is that the pronunciation for it is fairly regular, but I'd still need to take the time to learn it, and unless I actually spent the time to fully learn and practice French, I doubt I'd end up remembering the pronunciation rules anyways.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#198

Post by Thraway198 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #138

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's cause you knew what he wanted to do, and there was no other possible meaning from "make some shopping."

If he just said "make shopping some" it would have been less clear.

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#199

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

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.

It's still used in a couple of specific senses - it's used in the nearly fixed phrases "keen edge" or "keen mind" as a synonym for "sharp", and as "to be keen to -" to mean "eager". But, in my experience, it's rarely used to mean grieving ("to keen over -"), and almost never as a generic term of approval ("that's real keen").

Re: How the words we teach English language learners changed

#200

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

fluoridation wrote: post #162

thaumasiotes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a document in front of you, would you rather have to look up every word in a dictionary, or only every other word? I've been in this situation. There's no real difference between the two circumstances you describe.

OK, what about every fourth word? Every eighth word? If you're going to say that needing a dictionary at all is the same as needing a dictionary for every word, I'm gonna have to call you a liar.

I don't really understand what you're trying to measure. I can make some comments about different things you might mean:

--- 1 ---

Say you are presented with a politician's speech on some topic, topic X. Your background vocabulary is such that, out of the unique lemmas present in the speech, you know about 7/8 of them.

Without a dictionary, you aren't that likely to be able to answer basic questions like "is this politician for, or against, topic X?". With a dictionary, this will improve.

--- 2 ---

If you need a dictionary for every word in a document, that means you don't know any of the grammar of that language, and regardless of how much dictionary access you have, you're not going to be able to understand the document.

--- 3 ---

If we're glossing over grammatical particles, and you're allowed to use a dictionary, then this is a question of speed. The differences aren't as significant as you seem to think. A major reason for this is that words get repeated; if you need to look up a previously unknown word the first time you encounter it, you probably don't need to look it up the third time. Your reading speed will start slow and increase very rapidly, as long as you keep reading about the same kinds of things (for example, because you're reading a single document).

Put another way, the process of starting to read a document will convert you from a stylized "every other word" to a stylized "every tenth word" within a short time.