The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

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The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Sprachprofi » Thu Jul 14, 2022 6:54 pm

I get the impression that most people have never considered using this system in order to grow their vocabulary. For me it came naturally because one of my earliest languages was Esperanto, but everyone always looks at me funny when I mention it.

Do you use this?

https://languagecrush.com/forum/t/3428
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby zenmonkey » Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:38 pm

Yes, I use base lemmas and clusters to develop vocabulary understanding. In Indo-European languages, this is definitely also a way of increasing vocabulary across languages. And certainly I don't care too much if I use a false friend, someone will correct me if needed.

Make mistakes, break things.

What I don't find very useful is non-agglutinative opposites. useful=/=useless or unfriendly=/=friendly are easy to learn. But trying to use opposites like clean and dirty in the same visual moment just doesn't work for me. I'd rather work on 'dirty dog' and 'clean water' to gronk those terms.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:48 pm

Learning how to teach languages (six years ago):
Cainntear wrote:(...)warns against introducing vocab in thematic lists and opposite pairs, because they're too similar in terms of meaning and use, and sometimes even in form, making them prone to being confused.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Querneus » Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:15 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Learning how to teach languages (six years ago):
Cainntear wrote:(...)warns against introducing vocab in thematic lists and opposite pairs, because they're too similar in terms of meaning and use, and sometimes even in form, making them prone to being confused.

I really appreciate that the article by Jan-Arjen Mondria that Cainntear refers to is still up at the same URL... (What an interesting short article in general too.)

Mondria warns against introducing vocab that way when every word is new to the learner, but differs if some words are known (bolding mine):
Jan-Arjen Mondria wrote:Does this imply that language teachers should never make use of semantic sets? Certainly not. Working with sets of semantically related words can be quite useful, but only at a later stage. It is only when learners already know several words of a set that it makes sense to put these words together and to examine what the learners know of them exactly, and subsequently to add new words or new shades of meaning.

This also matches my experience... For example, if you're learning Mandarin, learning the three common words for 'in fact, ...' ~ 'actually, ...', 事實上 shìshíshàng, 實際上 shíjìshàng, 其實 qíshí wholly anew is surely a problem, especially because the first two sound so similar. But let's say you know shìshíshàng already, and maybe qíshí, then shíjìshàng can be your "odd new word" (not necessarily in this order), and you're better prepared to hear some opinions on what the nuances between the three words are.

Apparently qíshí more strongly introduces contrary information compared to shìshíshàng/shíjìshàng. Qíshí is also more common in spoken Mandarin in general, and shìshíshàng is more formal in comparison, with shíjìshàng being more neutral. That said, I wouldn't confidently explain what differences are found between English "in fact", "actually" and "in reality" myself... Maybe "in reality" implies the previous idea/concept is very imaginary or wrong?

To use the example given in the article Sprachprofi linked to, I don't doubt Swahili learners confuse kufunga 'to close' and kufungua 'to open' (literally "to unclose") if they learn them both at the same time, just like Mandarin learners confuse mǎi 'to buy' and mài 'to sell'... Mondria at least recommends learning one word first in these cases, learning the other some time later. And yet I'm also sure learning the -u- "converse" suffix in kufung-u-a that produces antonyms is useful, once you've acquired the base term.

That said, the above may apply more to target languages where roots and words are pretty different in general, e.g. an English speaker learning Swahili or Mandarin. I could believe that if you're a Spanish speaker learning French, learning that la pera = la poire, la naranja = une orange, la fresa = la fraise, la banana = la banane, la cereza = la cerise, el mango = la mangue, etc. comes with a lot less trouble...

(Sprachprofi: I realize that semantic sets is not what you meant in the opening post, you meant "derivational morphology" like suffixes that produce opposite words, agent nouns, etc., but since semantic sets were brought up I felt like commenting on them here...)
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby luke » Mon Jul 18, 2022 10:30 am

The last unit of FSI Basic Spanish (55) is almost entirely on prefixes and suffixes. It was a fun unit. Word construction like:

El que hace zapatos es zapatero y por común trabaja en una zapatería.
He who makes shoes is a shoemaker and commonly works in a shoe store.

El que manifiesta es manifestante.
He who protests is a protester.

El que trabaja en dientes es dentista.
He who works with teeth is a dentist.

They were substitution drills, not translations. The drills were all in Spanish to help the student learn certain morphologies and verb/noun relations,

Practice Makes Perfect has a book about Spanish suffixes that I thought might be useful to gradually go through to make some of these word formations come together more quickly if they haven't already done so.

I also watched a couple videos about Greek and Latin affixes for Spanish, which are also helpful for vocabulary building, just as they are in English.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:47 pm

Sprachprofi wrote:I get the impression that most people have never considered using this system in order to grow their vocabulary. For me it came naturally because one of my earliest languages was Esperanto, but everyone always looks at me funny when I mention it.

Do you use this?

https://languagecrush.com/forum/t/3428


What gives you that impression? I'd hope the view would have been posted in the OP rather than a link to your article, which looks like clickbait/traffic-driving.

It is certainly an interesting topic, though I think that since it's the method taken in pretty much every language course and various periphery materials, it's actually the normal method and used by the majority.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Sprachprofi » Tue Jul 19, 2022 7:34 am

Le Baron wrote:I'd hope the view would have been posted in the OP rather than a link to your article, which looks like clickbait/traffic-driving.


Suit yourself. I'm happy not to post my longer thoughts in this forum if people think I'm just trying to drive traffic. Let me know and I'll stop. The truth is that I'm too lazy to re-apply formatting, especially as this forum doesn't have a WYSIWYG editor, so if I post a richly formatted text somewhere, I'll just link it.

Le Baron wrote:It is certainly an interesting topic, though I think that since it's the method taken in pretty much every language course and various periphery materials, it's actually the normal method and used by the majority.


??? Show me a single language course which includes a list of word-building suffixes within the first five units. With the exception of cognates (telling you that you can convert -tion to -ción etc.), most courses never mention it, and yet this is crucial when learning non-cognates and especially non-European languages. Most people only figure it out inductively and only around the B2 level, when it's too late to use this as a learning strategy - instead of utilising the suffixes in order to quickly acquire a lot of words, people learn a lot of words and then eventually discover that there was a system to them.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby BeaP » Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:18 am

My experience is restricted to European languages.

This type of instruction is extremely common in CEFR-aligned coursebooks around B2. (The end of FSI - see Luke's comment - is probably around B2 as well.) The logic behind is probably the following: when you already know a lot of words, it's useful to solidify your knowledge and get acquainted with a system that helps you add a lot of other items with little effort. The question is: is it more beneficial to learn these things at the beginning?

Some points worth considering:
1. Morphology (word formation) is grammar. In the end it all goes back to the question: Input first, rules later or rules first, input later? Should an intuitive grasp of the system precede the teaching of the rule?
2. How can these things be taught in context, so not as lists? People don't like cramming the phone directory. How can we avoid confusion, mixing up similar things (a possible problem others have already pointed out)?
3. How much is truly beneficial for a beginner? Do frequency lists coincide with words that are examples of a morphological rule? (Morphology for beginners is usually verb conjugation, which is useful, moreover a must if you look at frequency lists. Do we really need the rest?)

My opinion is that a lot depends on the learner. Just like in the case of other grammar areas, there are some who like rules because it gives them a feeling of understanding, security and system, while others are repelled by anything in a chart. In the case of the FIGS languages, starting with extensive morphology instruction would lead to the ultimate grammar focused approach. On the other hand, I agree that taught in the right amount and on the right level understanding how words are formed can be a great asset, and it's worth drawing attention to.

As for materials:
I can't give links to specific units of coursebooks, but if someone is interested in morphology, B2 coursebooks are usually good candidates. Also, grammars that go up to B2 should contain at least one unit word formation. For French I know of one book (Vocabulaire expliqué from CLE, two levels, it has a workbook as well) that I can recommend. I wouldn't start to learn French with it, but it's a great tool from A2 onwards. The intermediate book is for B2. I'm linking the beginner. Here you can see an example how context can be created.

Click on 'feuilleter'.
https://www.amazon.fr/Vocabulaire-expliqué-français-Niveau-débutant/dp/2090331380
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jul 19, 2022 2:16 pm

Sprachprofi wrote:Suit yourself. I'm happy not to post my longer thoughts in this forum if people think I'm just trying to drive traffic. Let me know and I'll stop. The truth is that I'm too lazy to re-apply formatting, especially as this forum doesn't have a WYSIWYG editor, so if I post a richly formatted text somewhere, I'll just link it.

It's not that. I just expected a summary of the idea in the post rather than just a link after 'no one utilises this unknown method...' which is what YT clickbait titles look like. It's not necessarily a reflection on the quality of your actual article. Such a summary doesn't need rich-text formatting. To go further I can follow the link.

Sprachprofi wrote:??? Show me a single language course which includes a list of word-building suffixes within the first five units. With the exception of cognates (telling you that you can convert -tion to -ción etc.), most courses never mention it, and yet this is crucial when learning non-cognates and especially non-European languages. Most people only figure it out inductively and only around the B2 level, when it's too late to use this as a learning strategy - instead of utilising the suffixes in order to quickly acquire a lot of words, people learn a lot of words and then eventually discover that there was a system to them.

I have vocab books (for Russian, Norwegian etc) showing these suffixes for building words from roots. It also points to it in Hugo courses. Not going into it in-depth, but these are first-stop beginner courses. So it's not at B2 level. I also think it's rather intuitive once one is some way into beginning the language. I agree some people would benefit from having this pointed out explicitly, though perhaps fewer members here.
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Re: The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Postby Beli Tsar » Wed Jul 20, 2022 3:14 pm

Le Baron wrote:
Sprachprofi wrote:??? Show me a single language course which includes a list of word-building suffixes within the first five units. With the exception of cognates (telling you that you can convert -tion to -ción etc.), most courses never mention it, and yet this is crucial when learning non-cognates and especially non-European languages. Most people only figure it out inductively and only around the B2 level, when it's too late to use this as a learning strategy - instead of utilising the suffixes in order to quickly acquire a lot of words, people learn a lot of words and then eventually discover that there was a system to them.

I also think it's rather intuitive once one is some way into beginning the language. I agree some people would benefit from having this pointed out explicitly, though perhaps fewer members here.

There's no question that a good grasp of word-building can help build vocabulary. But, as Le Baron says, isn't it actually pretty intuitive? While it's true textbooks could often give a little more attention to this, it often comes naturally.

I decided to give this a quick test: I'm working on Latin at the moment, haven't given any explicit attention to this, and am still a beginner really, and looked up some decent lists of Latin suffixes. While Latin might be too easy (lots are reused in English/Romance languages, after all) there were virtually no unknown suffixes... I've just absorbed them naturally through reading and vocab study.

How much better would explicit study leverage this?
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