Fluent Forever Word List

Discussion in 'Learning Techniques and Advice' started by H.F., Oct 6, 2014.

  1. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    I just took a quick glance at the Routledge French Frequency dictionary. The frequency of words in each 1000 word band drops by about 50% in each subsequent band, so there is definitely a point of diminishing returns. Those words around frequency level 5000 only occur about 200 times in the 23 million word corpus. Around frequency 2000, they are occurring in the range of 500-1200 times in the corpus. The author looks at how broadly they cross the corpus. A word that has a narrow focus has to be repeated more times to get it's ranking elevated when compared to a word that is more widely dispersed.

    So if I run out of gas on the frequency dictionary before I get to word 5000 and switch to just adding about 10 words per day from random encounters, I can say I've done that based upon the recommendation of the informed. I will be, as Newton once said, "standing on the shoulders of giants"!

    So, back to the original post about the Fluent Forever approach to vocabulary and my experience with the three cards I made using it, it does seem like pure genius to use that method for the most frequent 1000 words or so. (some words don't fit Anki word model, so that's why the author doesn't use a strict number). Since I'm pretty solid on that first 1000 words in French, I may have already hit the point of diminishing returns for using that approach, since it requires more time to compose each individual flashcard.

    Or maybe I'm just lazy.
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2014
  2. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    To give some perspective, I calculated recently that to read 1 million words per year in a language, one would have to read one very long or two average novels each month for a year, or 10-15 medium length newspaper articles daily for a year. Give or take. This is why if extensive reading is to have any positive effect it must consist of MASSIVE exposure.


    If you are interested in spoken fluency/proficiency, you could try to learn not just the most common 3000 words or so, but also all the collocations and idiomatic expressions containing those words, and thus learn lots of additional words that are lower in frequency that are associated with them. This would give you a very good command of those 3000 words, and would be the only way where the 3000 words = fluency promoters could come close to having a valid point (though obviously the total is then a multiple of 3000).
  3. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    I've never been one to think a 3000 word vocabulary is adequate, although it's a great start if it's backed up with spoken fluency and correctness built from FSI.

    My SRS frequency number could be misleading, because I ignored SRS for the first year and a half of French study.

    I've been thinking about SRS. I'm imagining two potential approaches for myself.

    1) Original idea - 2 phases
    a) Frequency Dictionary to 5000 words.
    b) Supplementary SRS after that, but mostly extensive reading.

    2) (now that I've got the 1100 or so of the frequent words - also 2 phases)
    a) Get SRS words here and there from material I study, like Assimil, a few words from FSI, and the books I listen/read.
    b) Fill in the gaps with the frequency dictionary and extensive reading.

    Part of me thinks I can't go wrong with idea 1.
    Another part thinks the somewhat unknown words from Assimil and FSI would be helpful for those study tracks and I can always come back to the Freq Dictionary if I feel I have gaps.
    The side that thinks keep using the Freq dictionary imagines if I abandon that track, I'll always be fuzzy on some fairly common words because I won't come back to the abandoned track.

    What do the experts say?
  4. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    luke, I don't know what experts think, but I personally want to explicitly study not only the words in courses I use (and in advance of a lesson), but also surely the part of those 5000 most frequent words not covered in those courses. Thus I would input the words from the courses into Anki, and then whatever ones in the 5000 book that were not in those courses. Those 5000 books which are commonly found (and sometimes ones that go to 15K), are good for giving a moderate depth of knowledge across all thematic areas. With Spanish in particular from English, extensive reading alone after the initial courses is probably doable if you are methodical in sticking to reading a thematic area so that you get enough repetition of your lookups.
    luke likes this.
  5. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    By "experts", I meant aficionados of explicit vocabulary study like you and Iversen.

    In mulling my question over in my head for a day or so, I'm thinking I'll keep with the original track. I.E., 5000 word freq list, at least until that becomes difficult. Then I should probably keep going, because it would mean I'm learning new words. My reasoning, beyond "frequency" is really that my leaving something on table with Assimil, certain books I've read more than once, etc, I will be encouraged to return to them in pursuit of micro-mastery.

    In the very big picture, I think internalizing certain courses like Assimil and FSI provide a long term base upon which to either build, or return to and re-constitute, if I later become obsessed with something different. Just like listen/reading a book you've already read and are familiar with gives you a huge boost, returning to a course you've mastered will give the same boost to refreshing a neglected language.

    Back to vocabulary, one other big picture item is that the 5000 freq dictionary plus the miscellaneous words in my personal corpus will give a nice, general representative sample.

    Some great language learners stockpile words, while others don't. I'm not a great language learner, but I'm more akin to the approach and goals (minus lots of languages) of a Professor Arguelles. He doesn't do flashcards or SRS.
  6. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    Both Dr. Arguelles, and linguamor on HTLAL indeed said they never used word lists or flashcards. They both did say however that one must spend HOURS a day in extensive reading to acquire vocabulary via that method. After learning the 20K words that Dr. Arguelles believes are necessary, he said 15 minutes a day in general reading or an hour with literature was sufficient to maintain that vocabulary.

    Even with a handy pop-up for online reading, you simply can't come across less frequent words often enough for them to stick unless you read for hours a day. Anki artificially alters frequency so that one gets that repetition, and Iversen's list method and perhaps Gold List as well, place more emphasis on learning a word up front so that it is known on the next free encounter. I find these methods to be more efficient time-wise than ER, and also without the danger of making wrong inferences of meaning through context. Again with Spanish, ER alone after beginning courses seems more reasonable, and the same with replacing ER with a couple hours of telenovela watching per day for a year or two.
  7. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    Good point. Mr. Anki tilts the frequency of "words to learn" in favor of an SRS, but like the fine Dr. and linguamor, I find it easer to read a book for a long session than fight through an Ironman Anki session.
  8. Iversen

    Iversen Member VIP member

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    Just one thing which can serve as a bridge between the book-eaters and the anki/wordlist ironmen: If you want to learn words from books then scan a paragraph or page and look the unknown words you find there up before you start reading that paragraph or page seriously to get the meaning. Coming from Novi Sad I have just heard prof. Arguelles speak about vocabulary learning from books, and he took it as a premise that the text should be comprehensible, preferably at a 98% level measured in word family coverage. But if you desperately want to read Les Fleurs du Mal by Beaudelaire and your French isn't quite up to the task then you should find ways to make the text comprehensible. And knowing the difficult words before you start reading in earnest is certainly one way of getting there. Using a bilingual version could be another, and again reading the (probably dreadful) translation first could be a good idea - although probably more relevant for prose. And if everything goes wrong and you end up solving puzzles, then do that, leave it alone for a week or so and then go back to read it again. The second time you might get the reading experience which eluded you in round one.
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2014
  9. neofight78

    neofight78 Member VIP member

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    This is what I do, although, at least the way I'm doing it, it is fairly slow. So I tend to read short articles rather than books, and it's more intensive than extensive. I've got a vocabulary of around 4000 words, so I don't know if I can do better than this currently?

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