Frequency Dictionaries are ...

General discussion about learning languages

Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Overrated
7
15%
Helpful
26
55%
Incomplete
9
19%
A waste of time
5
11%
 
Total votes: 47

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luke
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Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby luke » Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:42 pm

What is your experience with Frequency Dictionaries?

Do you find them helpful?

Do you use them to stockpile vocabulary?

Is it better to focus on the vocabulary you need to know now, rather than assume the corpus of the Frequency Dictionary Creator closely aligns with your goals or interests?

The poll allows you to select two answers to reflect your experience and perspective.

Written answers are always very helpful. :)

Also, please let me know if you think allowing 3 answers or only 1 answer would have made the poll more informative.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 17, 2022 3:27 pm

Helpful.
Incomplete.

I'm ambivalent. It is of course only my opinion but I often feel stockpiling vocabulary on a conveyor belt, into some ready-knowledge from large lists, might not work. Mainly because I think you only remember words through use association (real-life repetition) and when they were involved in something that made an impression upon you. You never know when you're going to encounter quite a lot of vocabulary or if you really need it. Fair enough, the core words of 500-1000 (maybe even 2000) or so which Iversen mentioned are worth going over, but if I read lists I feel I'm reading to no goal and trying to memorise something I'll never memorise. I read the lists, fail to memorise them because they're just bald lists, then only recognise a few when they turn up in listening or reading.

Wouldn't it be better to just encounter them in actual reading/listening and look them up? The lists will be shorter for a start. Then during look-up I make a decision about how imperative it is that I know this word. Sometimes just that act leaves some faint memory imprint which can linger.

I never used a frequency dictionary for German or Dutch. I do have one for Spanish and I like the idea of the Routledge ones. I still have a vocabulary arranged by topic for Russian, which was actually quite useful. E.g. under 'communication' it has 7 short lists. Also one topic section of 'abstract words' with a useful things like: although, because of, why?, according to. That sort of thing is useful. Though I'm more likely to consult such a thing for bits and pieces than go through them trying to memorise long lists.
Last edited by Le Baron on Fri Jun 17, 2022 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby galaxyrocker » Fri Jun 17, 2022 3:32 pm

I voted for incomplete. Frequency dictionaries for Irish have things like 'an' and 'a' being super frequent...But that's because there's lots of homophones that are spelled that way. For instance 'an' can be both the definite article and the question particle in the non-past tenses/moods. a could be any number of things: his, hers, theirs, that, 'to' (like 'to eat'), etc etc. Without this information and breaking it down I think they're very incomplete, especially as they often just group all occurrences of a word under one definition.

Now, if they're restricted solely to nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs they're probably a lot better. At least for Irish I would expect them to be much more useful in that case.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby BeaP » Fri Jun 17, 2022 4:47 pm

I voted for 'a waste of time', but it's a personal experience. I see why others find them useful. I've tried to learn list of words a lot of times and it was always a huge failure. I need context (emotions, things to connect other things to) and I need to listen. Language has rhythm, music and when it's broken down to mere printed words this character is lost. I need to see (and hear) when and how a certain word or expression is used. I need situations.

I think it's important that I aim to achieve a very high level in all my languages and I'm relatively patient. If I wanted to stop at A2 or start to read literature ASAP, maybe I'd turn to these dictionaries. I do own the Vocabulaire Progressif books, which are something similar, but I can't really learn from them. I think they're useful as a revision tool, when you're already past a level, and you want to solidify things.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby einzelne » Fri Jun 17, 2022 5:45 pm

Apparently, as my thread and some responses in this thread demonstrate, there are lots of misconceptions about frequency lists and it looks like people simply don't know how to use them effectively. Here's my approach and I find it extremely effective.

1) I use them for developing reading skills only.
2) When I start working with them, I already have a general idea about grammar, pronunciation and already know a hundred or two of stock phrases (after a couple of dozen Assimil lessons or other recordings, and a short grammar reference book).
3) I go through the frequency dictionary and copy 30-40 new words to my list. Depending on the language, you can go through 100 words and write down the required 30 (cognates and international words in Romance and Germanic languages makes this process significantly easier: when I started to work with Spanish, I wrote down only 250 words out of the first thousand).
4) I review these words in a lazy fashion. I write down only the word and its translation. I'm too lazy to make flash cards so I just skim though the list when I have a free minute. I don't write sample sentences because I don't need it. Why? See Number 5.
5) This is extremely important: I read everyday at least 30 min. This gives you enough opportunities to review frequent words in various contexts, while the fact that you saw this word in you frequency list singles them out out of hundred others.
(it's a trick I was taught by a NASA translator: he told me to read several books in your target language at the same time, for if the same word appears in contemporary book on neuroscience, Goethe's novel, and a podcast's transcript, it sends a direct message to your brain that this word is important. At the initial stages, the frequency dictionary produces such synergistic moment just fine).
6) I continue to review grammar tables for verbs now and then, because most frequent ones are usually irregular.

That's it. The key is to combine your vocabulary review from a frequency dictionary with reading, otherwise it doesn't work. (I read min 30 a day, but for my first books I also try to find the ones with audio, so I can add at least another 30 min of review when I walk my dog)
And there's no need to practice reverse translation at this stage during this stage. It's extremely exhausting and ineffective at this stage.

From my own experience, this is the fastest way to start reading unadapted texts in your target language. I cannot imagine any other alternative which would be as effective and stress free.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:05 pm

einzelne wrote:Apparently, as my thread and some responses in this thread demonstrate, there are lots of misconceptions about frequency lists and it looks like people simply don't know how to use them effectively. Here's my approach and I find it extremely effective.

5) This is extremely important: I read everyday at least 30 min. This gives you enough opportunities to review frequent words in various contexts, while the fact that you saw this word in you frequency list singles them out out of hundred others.
(it's a trick I was taught by a NASA translator: he told me to read several books in your target language at the same time, for if the same word appears in contemporary book on neuroscience, Goethe's novel, and a podcast's transcript, it sends a direct message to your brain that this word is important. At the initial stages, the frequency dictionary produces such synergistic moment just fine).

Number five looks interesting. I think perhaps I already do the same thing, but initially in reverse: see word multiple times in many contexts, look up word, learn word, see it again. The frequency dictionary seems to be the reverse, yet you don't know what's going to turn up.

Wouldn't it be better to just read and then when you hit a word go and look if it's listed in the frequency dictionary? And if it isn't then apparently it's not all that important...I assume?

I read for a lot longer than 30 minutes a day. On some days I read between 2-3 hours. The missing part of this discussion is just how good one's memory happens to be. It's somehow taken for granted that once the 'methods' are applied they get remembered - because the method. I can encounter a certain word 50 or more times and still not remember its meaning, even if I recall the TL version.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby einzelne » Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:31 pm

Le Baron wrote:Wouldn't it be better to just read and then when you hit a word go and look if it's listed in the frequency dictionary? And if it isn't then apparently it's not all that important...I assume?


Well, when you just start reading, you will see hundreds of new words per day, even if you read 30 min a day, not to mention a couple of hours. It would be too time consuming to check every single one.

Le Baron wrote:I read for a lot longer than 30 minutes a day. On some days I read between 2-3 hours.


Well, if your time allows, good for you. To my friends who just start their first language I also recommend to read at least a couple of hours daily. But I have 2-3 hours for all my languages. So you have to make some strategic choices.

Le Baron wrote:The missing part of this discussion is just how good one's memory happens to be. It's somehow taken for granted that once the 'methods' are applied they get remembered - because the method. I can encounter a certain word 50 or more times and still not remember its meaning, even if I recall the TL version.


Yes, I know what are you taking about. I stopped fighting with stubborn words and learnt how to be patient — sooner or later they get into your memory.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:55 pm

einzelne wrote:Well, when you just start reading, you will see hundreds of new words per day, even if you read 30 min a day, not to mention a couple of hours. It would be too time consuming to check every single one.

This is perhaps only what happens when people start with reading books that are too hard for their level. The ideology of 'going to native materials' way before it's functionally possible is misguided. When building up with reading material there should never be 'hundreds' of words per day. That would be almost an entire chapter of any book! It means reading practically nothing but unknown words.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby einzelne » Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:18 pm

Le Baron wrote:This is perhaps only what happens when people start with reading books that are too hard for their level. The ideology of 'going to native materials' way before it's functionally possible is misguided. When building up with reading material there should never be 'hundreds' of words per day. That would be almost an entire chapter of any book! It means reading practically nothing but unknown words.


No, this ideology has nothing to do with that. If you just start to read your first fiction book in your target language, you will get hundreds of words anyway. There's no way to escape it, I think. Parallel texts help, just like pop-up dictionaries.

In fact, if you read 2-3 hours a day, you can easily collect a couple of hundreds of words a day even at the advanced stages. The other day I read the first 4 chapters of Levi-Strauss' Tristes tropiques and it gave me around 200 words. Luckily, pop-up dictionaries alleviate this issue and make reading a pleasurable experience.
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Re: Frequency Dictionaries are ...

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:31 pm

einzelne wrote:
Le Baron wrote:This is perhaps only what happens when people start with reading books that are too hard for their level. The ideology of 'going to native materials' way before it's functionally possible is misguided. When building up with reading material there should never be 'hundreds' of words per day. That would be almost an entire chapter of any book! It means reading practically nothing but unknown words.


No, this ideology has nothing to do with that. If you just start to read your first fiction book in your target language, you will get hundreds of words anyway. There's no way to escape it, I think. Parallel texts help, just like pop-up dictionaries.

In fact, if you read 2-3 hours a day, you can easily collect a couple of hundreds of words a day even at the advanced stages. The other day I read the first 4 chapters of Levi-Strauss' Tristes tropiques and it gave me around 200 words. Luckily, pop-up dictionaries alleviate this issue and make reading a pleasurable experience.

It's true you can pick up words even at higher stages, but I can read a novel in French, Dutch or German and I'm not running into anything like hundreds of words, often it is 'zero', sometimes it is a few every 2 or 3 chapters or so. I'm not even running into hundreds whilst reading Spanish and I'm at a much lower level in this. Then again I am using suitable material. Anyone at say A2 or B1 reading a giant native novel or difficult non-fiction to supposedly train vocabulary like that will always be running into hundreds of unknown words - which they won't ever learn at that rate as they just keep accumulating into a backlog.

So on the contrary I'd wager that this ideology has everything to do with it. No graded readers are offering hundreds of unknown words and selected books to the level of the learner aren't either. The idea that someone just forcibly reads themselves to fluency whilst facing a wall of unknown words is fictional. If the person is also trying to listen and/or speak, there are likely more chances to encounter words in contexts for remembering. Otherwise: no.
Last edited by Le Baron on Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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