>What language(s) are you learning? >Share language learning experiences! >Ask questions about your target language! >Help people who want to learn a new language! >Participate in translation challenges or make your own! >Make frens!
FAQ U: >How do I learn a language? What is the best way to learn one? How should I improve on certain aspects? Read the damn wiki. >Should I learn lang Y so I can learn lang X? No. >What is the most useful language? French >What language should I learn? Occitan
>Easy My tooth hurts. He has blue eyes. Wash your hands!
>Medium Because we walked through the river, our legs became wet. Do you guys already know that I broke my finger and won't be able to play the piano? The Russian author Gogol wrote a famous short story, The Nose, about a man whose nose runs away.
>Hard Despite my great love for my wife, I must admit that her feet almost always smell absolutely terrible, especially at the end of the day. Even if you accurately describe the thief's hair, skin color, height, and build, that won't be enough to find him in such a large city, so please try to remember his license plate number. I applied the cream prescribed by the doctor to my face, at which point I felt a strange burning sensation, and it was only upon inspecting the tube that I realized there had been a mix-up at the pharmacy.
1st2repost: >you need a vocabulary of 20k words That depends heavily on the novel in question. Someone recently posted a picture here showing the number for some of the most famous novels in English and some were below 10k while others were above 20k.
>doubt he can read Goethe at a similar level as a native speaker You may be surprised. Besides, as I said, this whole discussion is kinda moot if you can read said novels with the help of a dictionary at a comparable pace to a native speaker. Looking up a word only takes seconds.
Still, I'd be interested to figure out just how many words he knows. There's websites for this kind of thing in English, I wonder if there's equivalents for German. For example, this one tries to estimate what percentage of English words you know:
>vocabulary.ugent.be
I got 76% (79-3) on my first try. But be warned, only answer "Yes" to the ones you actually know the definition of. There's fake, made-up ones mixed in and if you claim to "know" these you'll get heavily penalized so be fair.
Alternatively, this one tries to estimate the amount of word families you know:
>my.vocabularysize.com
Starts off piss-easy but I started encountering some difficulties about two thirds of the way in. Again, if you don't know the word then instead of guessing just answer honestly. My result was 18,4k word families (see below) and the native standard is apparently 20k. Here's the definition: >There are many different forms of a word, so this test measures your knowledge of the most basic form of a word and assumes that you can recognize the other forms. For example, nation, a noun, can also be an adjective (national), a verb (nationalize), or an adverb (nationally). There are also forms which can be made with an affix such as de- or -ing which also modify the way that the word is used or adds to the basic meaning. [...] [W]ord families are considered to be the most accurate way of counting words.
>some were below 10k while others were above 20k. Yeah, but in order to have a chance at understanding those 10k, you need a vocabulary larger than 10k if you catch what I'm saying >with the help of a dictionary at a comparable pace to a native speaker. Looking up a word only takes seconds. It sort of ruins the reading. And I find it takes longer than a second (maybe because I use paper dictionaries?) >Try it yourself but be honest Last time I did I scored around 18-19k, I think. >Also you do not need an extensive vocabulary nor grammar to connect with other people. On a more than superficial level, yes you do. Is there anything that makes Portuguese syntax resemble English more?
Cooper Jenkins
Mi diente duele. (Él) tiene ojos azules. ¡Lávate las manos!
Porque caminamos por el río, nuestras piernas se pusieron sucias. ¿Saben ustedes ya que me rompió el dedo y no podré tocar el piano? El autor ruso Gogol escribió un cuento famoso, La nariz, sobre un hombre cuya nariz huye.
A pesar de mi gran amor para mi esposa, debo admitir que sus pies casi siempre huelen absolutamente terrible, especialmente al fin de día. Aunque usted describa el pelo, el color de piel, la altura, y el físico del ladrón, esto no estará bastante para encontrarlo en tan grande una ciudad, entonces por favor trate de rocordarse el número de su placa. Apliqué la crema prescribida de mi médico a la cara, y en este momento sentí una sensación quemando y estranjera, y solo cuando inspecté el tubo entendió que hube hecho una confusión en la farmacia.
(Había muchas palabras que yo no conocía...)
David Miller
Well, uh, yeah, if you're using a paper dictionary then it's obviously gonna take longer, grandpa. But why would you do that? Poorfag with no smartphone?
So you need a relatively small number of adjectives (probably less than 100) plus a handful of verbs to accurately convey your internal states. Who cares if you can only say that you feel "sad and gloomy" instead of "lugubrious"? The majority of words gets barely ever used anyway, in text OR speech. Pareto principle and shit.
Henry Reed
>que hube hecho una confusión en la farmacia. I messed this up. I think it should be >que hube habido una confusión en la farmacia.
>hube hecho una confusión en la farmacia. El español no es mi lengua materna, pero puedo decirte que ya no se usan hubo/hube/hubieron... en los tiempos composados. Sólo se usan en la literatura para señalar un hecho que pasa directamente después de otro (en cuanto hubo terminado, se puso en el camino). Creo que deberías usar el pluscuamperfecto en su lugar. Entonces, >entendió que había hecho...
Ethan Reed
>But why would you do that? Poorfag with no smartphone? Because I'm a simple brute and hate electronics. >Who cares if you can only say that you feel "sad and gloomy" instead of "lugubrious"? The majority of words gets barely ever used anyway, in text OR speech. Pareto principle and shit. But you need to know these rarer words to get a deeper understanding of the culture, an understanding which is useful if you want to make more than superficial connections.
Charles Cooper
Sure, I'm not saying you can get by with just the 1000 most common words and still expect to express yourself meaningfully. But I very much doubt that you need 20k for that either.
Ryder Foster
Well, it's not so much expressing oneself as understanding culturally important texts, for which you need a large passive vocabulary.
Luis Nguyen
Also reposting due to completely missing the reply count
>If you actually want to be able to read novels like a native speaker you need a vocabulary of 20k words
Not all novels use words with low frequencies (
Jeremiah Harris
Should I learn Norwegian or Danish?
Kayden Morris
>Not all novels use words with low frequencies (
Luke Foster
>Basically everything Luke Smith says about language learning is true Topkek. Don't take advice from this retard. Please.
David Parker
>if you want to be able to pick up any novel and read with pleasure and understanding, you need around 15k words to be able to pick up the rest from context. If you’re picking a random novel, yes, but you can always choose something that suits your level and read it with pleasure and understanding. Even if you’re way below 15k.
James Richardson
This. He says input doesn't work because of some lame strawman yet (rightfully) praises LLPSI.
Zachary Butler
He praises LLPSI in conjunction with the Dowling method.
Leo Collins
>>Maybe Aussienon knows more about why both work. Could just be an exception or something. I just grabbed this from the old thread without checking whether or not it was resolved, but I'll give my take anyway.
"habe' and 'hätte' aren't necessarily interchangeable in this context because they both belong to two different moods, the former being Konjunktiv 1 and the latter being Konjunktiv 2. Whereas Konjunktiv 2 is used to express uncertainty, desire and the possibility of an event, Konjunktiv 1 makes the fact that the statement isn't derived from opinion explicit. "Sie sagen, dass [...]", "Es wurde berichtet, [...]", "Donald trump hat gesagt" etc. Here's the German definition: >Die sprachliche Äußerung einer Person kann von einem Berichtenden indirekt vermittelt werden (indirekte Rede, seltener: abhängige Rede, lateinisch oratio obliqua). Durch diesen Modus wird kenntlich gemacht, dass nicht die eigene Meinung oder Wahrnehmung, eine eigene Frage oder ein eigener Wunsch berichtet, sondern die Äußerung eines Dritten wiedergegeben wird Take this for example: >„Mein Bekannter sagt, er habe geheiratet. The statement could be false or true, that's the point, it isn't the speakers opinion, they're relaying a supposed fact from another person.
The delineation between the two modes may be subtile, but that doesn't mean they're interchangeable.
Jace Foster
english is enough
Luis Thomas
Ctrl+F "Aussienon", I think there were a couple more where I mentioned you. You might wanna do this routinely going forward.
Thomas White
Hard to say. Norway is pretty well positioned for the future, what with its sovereign wealth fund and an economy more or less already transitioned to 100% renewable energy. Then again, Denmark at least nominally has Greenland, one of the most resource-rich areas on planet Earth, at least in theory (in practice once its glacial ice melt). But I guess it's not at all certain that Denmark will retain control over it in the long term so overall maybe Norwegian is the safer bet?
David Collins
Danes will probably sell Greenland to the USA for gigabux in the next few hundred years.
Julian King
>Well, we know that Aussienon reached fluency in German within 12 to 18 months Do we? I'm not fluent at all friend. I can understand almost any medium (podcasts, tv shows, movies) with varying degrees of comprehension, but beyond that I couldn't sustain a conversation with someone for very long without making a shit tonne of mistakes. I can read fairly fluently, though, and I'd say I know anywhere between 7000-8000 words.
>If you actually want to be able to read novels like a native speaker you need a vocabulary of 20k words, which is almost impossible to develop in in only 2 or 3 years >2 or 3 years Yeah no, stop talking out of your ass. I started learning German in August last year and I'm currently reading ASOIAF in it's entirety without any problem. I would even go as far to say I'm reading at the same speed as a native. Yesterday I did 100 pages in two and a half hours. Which is 40 pages, give or take, an hour. I read Kafkas 'Die Verwandlung' prior to this without any problem, and I'm going to read 'Der Prozess' next. >This requires hours of reading everyday for years You're right, you need to invest hours. I know the exact number I've spent reading. Exactly 138h since beginning to track (25.3.22). A couple hours a day. 2-3 years though? No, that's retarded.
>but I doubt he can read Goethe at a similar level as a native speaker in 3 years of study. Of course I can't. Goethe's language is incredibly archaic and on par with that of Shakespeare. But to claim that lack of vocab is the cause of this problem is plain stupid. I attempted to read 'Die Leiden des jungen Werthers' and I didn't get filtered because of the vocab, I got filtered because of the insane prose.
I'll check right now
Michael Robinson
>I'm currently reading ASOIAF Also before any faggot says that this isn't 'true' literature, you'd be right, but also wrong to assume that it isn't difficult in and of itself.
