Vocabulary acquisition is an essential part of language learning. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of communication. Words greatly enhance your communication.
How many words you need for basic, effective communication is up for debate. It depends on the language and the kinds of topics you want to talk about.
Opinions differ quite a bit. At one end of the spectrum, for example in German, 2000 words can get you started pretty well and provide a good base to build on. [Langenscheidt: Basic German Vocabulary] Near the other end stand 10,000 words as the native vocabulary mastered by a five-year-old who is ready to start school. The bottom line is that you need build your vocabulary!
Dictionaries
First, keep a dictionary handy. It's the most basic tool for any language learner. You'll use it for quickly looking up a new foreign word you come across, for double-checking the meaning or the spelling of a word or phrase, to search for verb conjugations, or for finding the target language translation of words in your own language.
You'll also want to see common expressions where a particular word shows up. For example, Ultralingua (a sophisticated multilingual translation dictionary) offers these features, and, in addition, you can download iPhone or iPad apps. Having a dictionary on your mobile is really convenient when you're traveling. Such apps contain much more information than the mini-dictionaries I used to travel with.
An excellent online dictionary which I use a lot, even on my phone, is Word Reference. The dictionary is free but uses ads for revenue.
Learning how to use a dictionary takes a little practice. For example, some words have more than one translation, or are used only in specific contexts. Or, some words have associations that you want to be aware of before you use them.
Here are FOUR more tools for building your vocabulary:
Flashcards
Flashcards are a great way to create a base of words and phrases, and you can keep using them to continue building your vocabulary.
Resources abound and they come in all kinds of configurations: Words + Translation; Picture + Written Word; Picture + Written Word + Sound, etc. Some of the programs incorporate spaced repetition, some allow you to add your own vocabulary. A popular flashcard program, to name one, is Anki.
Language Exercises & Games
Good language exercises and fun games can take vocabulary to the next level. Besides learning new vocabulary, you can practice verb tenses and conjugations, drill subject and object pronouns, learn to build sentences, etc. Besides our own program GamesForLanguage, Mindsnacks is definitely a fun program to try.
Reading with Translation
Once you have a grasp of basic vocabulary and grammar, reading has to be the best way to keep on building vocabulary. When you read a longer text, the same words and phrases will often come up several times.
Depending on your venue, you can get a translation with a click, or by checking a printed translation. With time, you'll get better at guessing the meaning from the context. A versatile program like LingQ provides what cofounder Steve Kaufmann calles "compelling content" - a library of texts and tools for learning.
You can also read foreign language newspapers online and use Google Chrome's Language Immersion feature.
Listening: Podcasts, Audio Books, and Videos
Understanding a stream of foreign words may be the hardest skill to learn (besides speaking fluently). The trick is to listen to the same audio many times. Your goal is to hear the words and phrases distinctly, and not as a stream of gibberish.
When listening to foreign language audios, you'll keep hearing words you know. With time and some repetition, you'll start to put them into your long-term memory. But you'll also hear new words and by hearing them in context, you'll learn to understand them.
Learning new vocabulary can be a bit of a chore. The key is to use a variety of tools and make a kind of game out of it. Have Fun!
Disclosure: We have no financial relationship with any of the programs that are linked in this blog post.
Following up on my previous blog post Everybody speaks English anyways. Really?, and prompted by our visit to the battle field of Hastings (see left), I was wondering about the French Connection.
After all, the English forefathers had to get used to the French tongue for several hundred years – and there are many similarities between both languages.
A Momentous Event
Our visit to the battlefield in Hastings, England, and to the Tower of London refreshed some forgotten school knowledge.
It also reminded us that the Norman invasion and the victory of Duke William II of Normandy over the English army under King Harold II on October 14, 1066, represented a momentous event during the height of the Middle Ages.
The victory of William the Conqueror, how he is now mainly known, not only resulted in the French-speaking Normans' control of England, but also had tremendous influence on the English language. By imposing the French language on his court and administration, William caused many French words to become part of the English language.
While the reign of the Normans may have begun with the victory at Hastings, it took much more for them to control the towns and the country side.
William immediately set out to take charge by introducing a series of laws, and building fortifications and castles. One of them, the Tower of London has a long and interesting history.
The White Tower, on the right, gave the entire castle its name and was begun by William already by the end of 1066. It served as royal residence, armory, treasury, as well as home of the Royal mint and the Crown Jewels.
Its location on the Thames and its fortifications which were expanded over the centuries gave it a commanding position to control London and the Thames river traffic.
While French was the language of the nobility in England for about two centuries, English continued to be spoken by the common people.
After King John lost Normandy in 1204, the use of French started to decline and English again became dominant by the beginning of the 14th century. Further, in 1362 Parliament passed a law requiring all lawsuits to be conducted in English.
True and False Cognates
Laura K. Lawless on about.com estimates that about 10,000 French words were adopted into the English language during the nearly 300 years following the Norman invasion, and that ”English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words.” She also compiled a list of 1,700 words – true cognates – that you can access with the Vrais Amis link.
There are also plenty of “false cognates.” When learning another language it's often quite helpful to also study the false cognates. Not knowing their meaning in the foreign language can lead to embarrassing moments. You can take a look at the Faux Amis, the French-English false cognates .
Learn French Easily
For English speakers who want to learn French, there are many online resources available today. (For obvious reasons we like our own French 1 course.) In one of our next posts we'll discuss various online programs that let you improve your vocabulary and/or learn French (or other languages).
And - just maybe - a reminder of the close connection between English and French will motivate some English speakers to give French another try.
FREE French Language Games and Courses
And, if you want to learn or practice some French, just click on the FREE (no registration required!) French Language Games, see how much you already know, and check back from time to time for new ones and, please, SHARE us with your friends.
And don't forget: You can practice French online for FREE with our 36-Scene travel story "Daniel en France" HERE.
Like Gamesforlanguage, Lingohut is also completely free with over 100 vocabulary lessons!
Other Language Learning Resources
We recently discovered a very effective app for learning French: MosaLingua. There are currently iOS and Android Apps, with a MosaLingua Desktop App for PC, Mac and Linux users just launched. You can also try out the "Lite" version for FREE! We like the apps a lot and are currently using them ourselves. Read Ulrike's Review HERE.
Disclosure: The MosaLingua links above are to a partner's program with revenue sharing, should you subscribe or buy. We would receive a small payment, which helps us to keep our site ad free.
Many Americans and for that matter many natives of other English speaking countries (Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) often feel that the effort of learning another language is just not worth it: “Everybody speaks English anyway” is a not uncommon excuse.
How about you, when you travel abroad?
Essential Vocabulary
The fallacy of this notion becomes evident as soon as your travels take you off the beaten path. Knowing at least a few basic words becomes a matter of necessity when you’re looking for the bathroom or a street or place to stay.
Admittedly, traveling with a guided tour group as part of an all inclusive package greatly reduces such necessity. But the inability to communicate in the local language may also limit your travel experiences.
Several years ago, we traveled to China as part of a professional delegation. We had prepared ourselves diligently with audio courses (though for obvious reasons, learning to read and write Chinese was way beyond our efforts to prepare for the trip).
Our audio lessons had included Chinese numbers, and thus we were able to “negotiate” in Mandarin during our visits to various markets. We also found other basic vocabulary very handy, when asking for directions, requesting a restaurant bill, or asking how much something costs.
A snake in a bottle on the Li River
Later on during a boat cruise down the Li River (see photo left) we encountered a travel group from Rome.
After we had quickly determined that our Italian was much better than their English, we had a long and very enjoyable Italian conversation with two of the couples.
We told them about our recent stay in Rome, they told us about a trip they took to New York and plans to visit the Grand Canyon sometime in the future. Having the vocabulary to talk about travels was a huge asset.
We were all deliberating whether to dare a drink from an ominous looking bottle (see photo) with a dead snake in it, but for good reasons we finally decided against it.
Which illustrates another point: When traveling you may meet people who will also speak your second (or third) language. And for many people who travel, the ability to communicate in a language other than their own will create memories that last.
“Assassins et Assassinés”
Our recent trip to England just reminded me again how much more you can get out of traveling when you understand (and ideally also speak) the local language.
While sitting in a pub or joining a walking tour through a city, you pick up tidbits of information that would elude you otherwise. Obviously, it was easy for us in London where we learned much on David Tucker’s (the co-owner of “London Walks” and author of “London Stories”) “Shakespeare’s and Dickens’s London Walk.”
However, several years ago we joined a French tour at the Père Lachaise cemetery (see photo left) in Paris. Our guide was the well-known “Nécrosophe” Bertrand Beyern and we visited the graves of “Assassins et Assassinés” (Assassins and Assassinated ones).
Not only was the walk fascinating and funny, but we learned a lot about Paris history and events at the same time. Not to mention that Bertrand’s stories nicely stretched our French vocabulary. Both the London and Paris walks made us realize how differently humor is expressed in each language.
Which brings me to the conclusion: Not everybody speaks English, and the most memorable events of a trip often don't happen in English, they happen in a foreign language!
(literally: the dogs will bite the one who is last)
the last one's left holding the bag
ein Rätsel (a riddle):
Was hat sieben Häute und beißt alle Leute?
What has seven skins and stings all people?
Antwort (answer):
die Zwiebel (the onion)
The German letter ß vs ss
Maybe you are wondering about the German letter "ß", also called Eszett "sz" or Scharfes-S. In a spelling reform in the early 90s, the use of the "ß" vs. the "ss" was simplified.
It is now much easier to remember: after a short vowel or Umlaut you'll find "ss". Examples are: müssen, küssen, lassen, fassen, Tasse, Kasse, Riss, Biss, etc.
After a long vowel (or double vowel) you'll find a "ß". Examples are: beißen, heißen, genießen, Maß, Straße, Fuß, Gruß, etc.
We came across this change during a trip from Stralsund to Usedom - Exploring 2 German Baltic Islands, when we realized that the town "Saßnitz" on the island of Rügen, changed its name in 1993 to Sassnitz (short "a") in accordance to the new rule! Leave it to the Germans to also spell town names grammatically correct!
When somebody told me some time ago that there are palm trees in England, I thought they were kidding.
However, during our recent trip though Cornwall and the “English Riviera” we could convince ourselves first hand that indeed there are palm trees growing there! And - Chevy Chase has an English (or rather Scottish) origin...
Minack Theatre
A wonderful discovery in Porthcurno at the very tip of Cornwall was the Minack Theatre. The dream and vision of Rowena Cade, who started the construction in 1938, has now become a world famous open air theater. It could easily be mistaken for the remnant of the Roman occupation as it reminded me very much of the amphitheater in Taormina in Sicily with its spectacular view out to the sea.
We saw a wonderful performance of Oliver Twist during a sunny afternoon with sailboats in the background adding to the spectacle on the stage. Pictures of the subtropical garden can also be seen when clicking on the above link to this amazing theater!
Europeans and Languages
The many cars in the theater's parking area with French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Swiss, etc. number plates reminded us that most Europeans are quite able to communicate in more that one language, and their training starts early.
Right behind us on the seat terraces cut into the ledge, a German couple was seated with their 10-year-old daughter. We were quite impressed that the girl sat through the whole performance, without complaint, although, as her parents told us, she really did not speak any English (yet). She was following the action on the stage with great attention, with her parents, who were fluent in English, giving her brief explanations from time to time.
St. Michael's Mount
Another interesting visit during our trip was to St. Michael's Mount, which not coincidentally shares with its French cousin both its tidal island characteristics and its conical shape: The island was given to the Benedictines, the religious order of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century.
The Mount, as locals call it, with its imposing castle, has gone through various ownerships, after Henry VIII abolished the priory. The St. Aubin family retained a 999-year lease after donating it to the National Trust in 1954, and one of the Lord's nephews lives in the castle and manages the island's operations. (We ran into him, as he hurried from his private quarters through the museum to the chapel!)
Chevy Chase on the Mount
We took a small boat over during high tide, visited the castle and walked back across the causeway during low tide.
The causeway and the harbor as well as the palm trees can be seen on the picture on the left looking out towards the town of Marazion, only a few miles from Penzance, the most westerly major town in Cornwall and home to the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera.
During our visit of the castle we were intrigued by the name of the "Chevey Chase Room" and one of the guides explained to us that the name comes from the plaster frieze depicting hunting scenes of the Ballad of Chevy Chase: "The ballads tell the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills on Anglo-Scottish border - hence the term, Chevy Chase."
There is actually another more linguistic explanation for the name, which can be found on the site of the Chevy Chase Historical Society:
"Chevy Chase may have been derived from the French word 'chevauchee' used in medieval Scotland and England to describe the horseback raids made into the ancient borderlands between the two countries. Whatever its derivation, the name became the title of the English version of a ballad memorializing the famous Battle of Otterbourne which took place at Otterburn, in the Cheviot Hills, Northumberland, England, in August 1388, between the Scottish troops of James, Earl of Douglas and Englishmen led by Lord Harry “Hotspur” Percy, who challenged Douglas by mounting a deer hunt in the hills. The battle was stubborn and bloody, fought hand to hand in the dark -- and may have been fought hand to hand through the night. The Scots prevailed, but many troops were lost, and Douglas died."
For more information on St. Michael's Mount, go to Anglotopia.net:
"St Michael’s Mount is famous both for historical and mythical reasons. An important Benedictine priory used as a stronghold by a pretender king, held for the king during the Civil War before being taken by a parliamentarian Colonel, and machine-gunned during World War II, St Michael’s Mount has seen its share of real-life warfare. But the mount also has an aura of mystery they has made it the setting of the legend of Jack the Giant Killer and a filming location for various Dracula films. An iconic rocky island on the coast of Cornwall, St Michael’s Mount has many stories to tell and is very worth a visit if you’re in Cornwall."
blauer Montag (literally: blue Monday) a Monday on which you skip work
die blaue Stunde
(literally: the blue hour)
time of dusk
das Blaue vom Himmel herunter lügen
(more literally: to lie so much that the blue color comes down from the sky)
to tell stories that aren't true
das blaue Wunder erleben
(literally: to experience the blue miracle)
to get the shock of one's life
mit einem blauen Auge davonkommen (literally: to escape with a blue eye) to get off lightly
jemandem blauen Dunst vormachen (more literally: to fool someone with blue mist) to throw dust in somebody's eyes
sich grün und blau ärgern (more literally: to turn green and blue with annoyance) to get very annoyed
der Blaue Planet (literally: the blue planet) the planet Earth
der blaue Brief (literally: the blue letter) a letter containing unpleasant news
blau sein
(literally: to be blue)
to be drunk
Blauer Brief
"Blauer Brief" most commonly refers to a letter that a school will send to parents warning that their son or daughter may not pass and be required to repeat the shool year. A "Pink Slip" or notice from an employer that one is being fired or laid off is often referred to as "Blauer Brief". The "Notice to Quit" from a landlord terminating your tenancy, is also sometimes called "Blauer Brief". If you read German, find out more about the history of the term, and regional differences in how it is used in this Wikipedia entry.
I don't really know why German has so many idioms using the color "blue".Yes there is the English "feeling blue", or "being blue" i.e. being sad.But, if you were to express such a feeling and translate, "I'm blue", into German as "Ich bin blau", you will get some astonished or worried looks.
If you come across other German idioms using "blue", send us a note to info@gamesforlanguage.com and we'll add them here!
When starting a new language, one of the hardest things to learn is to understand a native speaker. It's definitely much easier to read a foreign language than to understand a stream of it when it’s spoken quickly.
When I started learning Italian, TV programs sounded like gibberish. But now, I’m pretty good at understanding Italian speakers and Italian TV and films. Just as with building any skill, it helped me to break down the learning process.
You can do it in these three steps.
1. Listen repeatedly to a short audio or video
Listen to a short audio of which you understand or can guess about 50%. Listen to this same audio segment several times in the next several days.
This will make your brain familiar with the "music” of the language, its melody and rhythm. Pay attention to where stress goes on words and which words are stressed in a sentence.
You’ll quickly learn to distinguish individual types of sentences (statements, questions, negative responses, short emphatic answers, etc.). You'll be surprised how repetition increases your understanding of what is being said.
Also, from day to day, your brain continues to processing the sounds that you are learning. After some time, you may find that you'll be able to identify individual words within the stream of sounds that is whooshing by. That's a huge step and a very exciting one.
To get the idea, here are the MP3 audios of Scene 2 from our four languages, French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
Pick a language that you understand somewhat. Then listen to the corresponding scene in a language you don’t know at all. It’ll give you a taste of audio learning.
2. Watch or listen to an ongoing story
Watch a TV series in your new language. Or, if one in your language is not available, look for a foreign film that's not dubbed. Watch it in short increments.
The ongoing story will provide you with related vocabulary and lots of repetition. The context of the story itself will offer plenty of clues so that you can guess the meaning of what is going on.
3. Learn by immersion with a variety of materials
Now you’re ready to tackle all kinds of different audio and video material in your new language. TV programs in the language you’re learning, films, news audios and videos, a radio station. learning, etc. Increasingly, context clues will help.
Also, in an earlier blog post, I list 10 essential grammar items to become familiar with. They’ll help you get a good start with immersion learning.
Language learning is not a linear process
You may want to go back to any of the previous steps from time to time. Learning to understand a new language is not a linear process, it's more like a fun zig-zag, filled with new discoveries all the time.
Of course, if you can interact with native speakers, you'll want to do that right from the start. They'll make your language learning personal, add direct experience of the language, and give your valuable feedback.
Have fun! And yes, research shows that these “language exercises” have all kinds of good benefits for your brain.
As said by the writer Rita Mae Brown: "Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."
The article meant to address the "things" our future Secretaries of State or for that matter, the students and future international policy wonks should learn.
(The 1938 photo from the article shows undergraduates from Oxford University as they walk to lectures, well equipped with books.)
Foreign Language
While I certainly cannot argue with any of his ten points, I wish he had listed “Foreign Language” as #2 or even #1 (instead of #3) for all the excellent reasons he mentions:
“... I know that everyone is learning English these days, but learning at least one foreign language provides a window into another culture that you can't get any other way, and also provides a sense of mastery and insight that is hard to achieve otherwise.”
It seems clear to me that among the many other “things” a foreign policy expert should know, foreign language and history should be on top. Considering the interconnections of our lives with the rest of the world, Prof. Walt's reasoning does not only apply to foreign policy wonks, but indeed to many industries, businesses, and people.
He also speaks to “a sense of mastery that is hard to achieve otherwise,” a point that is rarely mentioned when enumerating the benefits of knowing a foreign language.
Presidential Politics
The current presidential election campaign in the US also makes me again painfully aware of the fact that knowing another language (than English) does not give any candidate an advantage with the voting public.
You may all remember that John Kerry downplayed his knowledge of French in 2004, and Mitt Romney is currently doing the same.
President Obama is now staying away from that topic as well, as he got blasted in 2008 when regretting: “I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing ... It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup, right?" (CBS News 7/11/2008)
But for those who endeavor to learn another language both the “window into another culture” and the “sense of mastery” provide ample rewards.
Yesterday, as I was poking around one of the Forums at Fluent in 3 Months, I came across a post with the topic of Time Management in Language Learning.
A forum member asked about goal setting. One answer to her question especially caught my eye because it expresses a familiar feeling: "Yes I have [set a goal] but I rarely keep to it. I don't know why, but when I set a goal, I do everything to not reach it. ... I feel compelled and I rebel."
A lot of language learners can probably empathize with such a statement. Rebellion of that sort may have to do with personality, with former school experience, with family dynamics, with the enormity of the project, etc. In any case, it means you have to deal with your own feelings of resistance to something you actually want to do.
Based on experience, here's my best advice for overcoming this kind of inner hurdle: Approach your language learning from an activity that you truly enjoy. It is bound to fuel your enthusiasm
Reading
If you're a great reader, dabble with texts and their translations. Google’s Language Immersion for Chrome or a program like LingQ work well for that. Just think, the better you get, the greater access you will have to anything written in your new language.
Watching Videos and TV
If you like to watch moving images (I don't want to say "if you're a TV addict"), find online news videos, or follow a soap in your new language. You'll learn a lot of vocabulary by guessing from the context of the story, gestures, facial expressions, sound of voice, and such.
In addition, becoming familiar with a few basic grammar items will help a lot (such as pronouns, question words, etc.). I've posted a couple of links to soaps and videos, as examples, on our Facebook site.
Listening to Music
If you are crazy about music, download songs, listen, sing along, google the words and memorize them. There's plenty of evidence that this is a fun and effective way to learn a language.
Playing Games
If you like playing games, you're in luck. You'll find a host of language apps and sites online that include games. Obviously, I'm hooked on games, and there are plenty of sites that I like, including our own GamesForLanguage. Here are a couple of others to try out: Digital Dialects, Mindsnacks, and Drops.
Writing
If writing is what you love, then start by writing out words, phrases, and short sentences. Duolingo, the popular, free crowdsourced language learning website, has you writing right from the beginning.
Community style programs, such as Busuu or Lang-8 include writing exercises and offer a chat feature with which you can communicate with native speakers.
Talking
If you love to talk, tell stories, and are not shy about speaking up in a foreign language, get yourself into a situation where you can be your chatty self. Finding a language-exchange partner who's on your proficiency level is the best way.
Meet with or skype with each other, and do this often. Here are two online resources: "Conversation Exchange" (a site we successfully used in Barcelona) and "My Language Exchange."
Textbooks and Grammar
Should I add this category? I for one really like to figure out how a language works. It’s not a bad idea to have a way to check some grammar points, be it in a textbook or on an online grammar site.
Just remember, progress with language learning is not linear. It's more like a zig-zag, a back and forth. Some things you won't get for a while, others you'll master immediately.
Still, whatever you put in will get you a step ahead - be it a stint of learning vocabulary, practicing pronunciation, watching a news video, reading headlines, or scrolling through a foreign language Twitter feed. Even a few minutes count.
If you approach your language learning in a way that you personally enjoy, chances are your you'll maintain your enthusiasm at a high level.
Are you learning a new language? Soon you may be eager to begin watching videos or TV programs, with no translation provided.
The goal of this type of immersion is to start processing language like native speakers do. It’s a fun and challenging way to learn. Your mind goes into full gear and you're pushing yourself way out of your linguistic comfort zone.
Immersion Learning
To make your immersion learning productive, you’ll want to become familiar with some of the essential elements of your new language. The following 10 basic grammar items are crucial for beginning to understand spoken language on TV. Using audio and written examples for each, I practiced these before starting to watch a Spanish telenovela.
10 Basic Grammar Items
1. Subject pronouns. (Are they always used or mostly dropped?) 2. Regular verb endings for first, second, and third person. 3. Definite and indefinite articles. (Are they used or not used?) 4. The 5 most common question words. 5. The 5 most common prepositions. (eg. the equivalents for: in, on, to, with, from) 6. The different vowel sounds in the new language. 7. The consonants whose sounds don't exist in English. 8. The common words that express negation. 9. The sentence melody of statements. (Practice to imitate the melody.) 10. The sentence melody of questions. (Practice these too.)
As your listening skills advance, you may want to add other steps. In the meantime, these 10 grammar steps will help you make the jump from sound as “gibberish” to sound as “words that have meaning.”