Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

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Le Baron
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Re: Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:36 pm

I have no doubt they are looking for easier ways, but it reminds me of people who are so preoccupied with collecting and cataloguing their books, they don't read many of them.

I'm less convinced by Feyerabend (and was tired of hearing about him at uni from a devoted fan). There are many ways to the same conclusions, but so often you find they are just the same thing with minor differences - old wine new bottles. There are many ways to knock in a nail, but I can show you the tried and true method which delivers results and pontificating about improvements and novel methods for doing it is admirable, but is being an inventor, not a knocker-in of nails.
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Re: Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 23, 2022 2:36 pm

Le Baron wrote:I have no doubt they are looking for easier ways, but it reminds me of people who are so preoccupied with collecting and cataloguing their books, they don't read many of them.

I'm less convinced by Feyerabend (and was tired of hearing about him at uni from a devoted fan). There are many ways to the same conclusions, but so often you find they are just the same thing with minor differences - old wine new bottles. There are many ways to knock in a nail, but I can show you the tried and true method which delivers results and pontificating about improvements and novel methods for doing it is admirable, but is being an inventor, not a knocker-in of nails.

While I agree with your perspective, a nail-gun is still a major improvement over a hammer when you're looking for speed and efficiency. :) Sometimes new methods and systems are huge improvements over older ways.
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Re: Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:12 pm

It's still only as good if it gets used to actually complete tasks. I've got one of those pinning compressor-guns, you can put skirting board on with it etc, but it's just offset with extra bother of safety concerns, cost, energy.

I won't tiresomely stretch the analogy. It's not that I'm against employing technology 'solutions', though the benefits from it appear so slim in the end. And really, while someone is putting such energy and time into finding ways to automate word extractions and feed huge lists into Anki, they could be using that time to just read and look up words. I imagine that some of the the actual discovery is perhaps in the manual compilation of lists, where you're forced to check and see things are correct and be interacting with it. Yet people seem to be trying to get past all that 'work'. It's the wrong approach, surely?

Maybe folk are working and I just can't see it. If so I'll mark myself as wrong and leave it alone.
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Re: Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:23 pm

Le Baron wrote:It's not that I'm against employing technology 'solutions', though the benefits from it appear so slim in the end. And really, while someone is putting such energy and time into finding ways to automate word extractions and feed huge lists into Anki, they could be using that time to just read and look up words. I imagine that some of the the actual discovery is perhaps in the manual compilation of lists, where you're forced to check and see things are correct and be interacting with it. Yet people seem to be trying to get past all that 'work'. It's the wrong approach, surely?

In my video, I think I've given the example of using this technology to be able to get meaning out of the book! For me, I was learning words which were very subject specific. In my case, in order to play a D&D type game in French. But I got the idea from a person who manually had to learn all kinds of firearms vocabulary in order to pass Spanish firearms licensing exams. So in my example it isn't about leisurely learning a language from a book, it is about finding specific vocabulary related to a real-world exercise which requires proficiency in specialist vocabulary. This is why in my previous statement I did agree with you generally. If you've got the time and leisure to learn at your own pace, then just grab a book and go. If you've got a deadline or other reason to cram vocabulary, then frequency lists are great.

Having said that, I'm not a big fan of general frequency lists since as you say you'll soon encounter frequently used words by just reading. However, the words used frequently in a firearm licensing examination, or a D&D game, or in a hospital are not frequent enough. This is why I specifically used manuals related to the topic I wanted to know. If I were studying for a computer networking exam in French, then I would be cramming words which come up frequently in a CCNA exam.

But my use cases are not the purpose of Routledge Frequency dictionaries, and hence why I don't own any. :ugeek:
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Re: Routledge Frequency dictionaries — 5k limit

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jun 23, 2022 3:41 pm

This is great, it means we hardly disagree at all! I also compile small specialised lists (economic ones currently to allow me to discuss it in Spanish), though perhaps I'm using a rather old-school method.

Gentlemen, I withdraw.
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