mistamark's first post + following two paragraphs are relatable to recent topics:

"The core idea of the 1990 book is that through careful analysis of both the target language and the needs of particular groups of learners, instructable portions of a second lexicon can be identified and the effects of knowing them predicted. For example, computer analysis shows that about 80% of the individual words in most written English texts are members of the 2000 most frequent word families, so that any second language reading course should ensure that its users meet and know these words. After roughly the 2000 mark, however, the pay off for direct learning trails off, and at that point learners should either rely on inferencing strategies or else move on to direct study of items that are frequent not in the language at large but in chosen areas of study or interest such as academic texts in general or domains of study like economics in particular. Either way, the goal is to arrive at a point where 95% of the running words are known in an average text, which a series of experiments show is the point where independent reading and further acquisition through inference become reliable." (par. 2)

"Many TESL teacher training programs still do not have a course in "pedagogical lexis" while the standard course in pedagogical grammar is offered year after year without a second thought. This is truly odd, given that the jury is still out on whether grammar is even teachable. As this book makes clear, vocabulary instruction is fascinating, it can be done systematically, and its results are predictable. And language learners walk around with dictionaries in their pockets not grammar books." (last paragraph)

Thanks to whoever revived this thread, a very interesting read, that article was. Kinda interested to read the book now.

No problem. I had the chance to meet Paul recently, a very nice fellow with that funny Zealandy intonation!

It is no doubt a good read! Whenever I see the posts in which people begin flaming each other about beliefs of language learning and methods... I am reminded of the quagmire of SLA in the context of TESOL (take a look at Rod Ellis's SLA tome if interested...[in dying of boredom due to exhausting in-conclusion and calls for more research in the field of SLA]).

Keep Calm,
Four strands,
Carry on.


A

Interesting about how translation is the best way to learn a word apparently.

I think it's a good exercise to learn words with definition, then hopefully be able to recognise what the definition is describing.

Also helps when you don't have a great vocab yet (say 3000) and you need to express something you don't know the word for. Cause you have a sense of how to describe things with the other words in your vocabulary.

AKITOD Wrote:Interesting about how translation is the best way to learn a word apparently.

It's the most EFFECTIVE way to BEGIN learning the meanings of words. Wording!
Once you can deal with monolingual definitions, they are, of course, the best and most thorough way to understand words in any given language. That's why I always used both in my anki cards before I could make heads or tails of Japanese definitions. I knew it would be good for me *someday*..! (and it is.)

drdunlap Wrote:Once you can deal with monolingual definitions, they are, of course, the best and most thorough way to understand words in any given language.

That's not a given.
Consider,
フジツボ科・イワフジツボ科の甲殻類の総称。海産で、岩や船底などに固着する。殻は石灰質で円錐状をなし、中に体が倒立した状態で収まっている。頂部から蔓(つる)状の六対の脚を伸ばし、プランクトンなどを集めて食べる。種類が多い。

vs.

'barnacle, acorn barnacle'.

Okay, 船底などに固着する is a dead giveaway in this case, but other critters might not have such an obvious characteristic. In any case, even if you go through such a native language definition, when you realize what it is, you go 'Oh, they mean a (barnacle/lion/giraffe/etc)', not 'Oh, now I have a clear picture of what a 富士壺 (or whatever creature) looks and acts like'.

In general, very specific concrete nouns - places, chemical elements, plant an animal names, etc., are much more easily and completely understood with a native language gloss.

More general and abstract nouns are certainly defined better by native language dictionaries; however, I don't think that's intrinsic to what language the definition is in - it's just that as a general rule bilingual dictionaries provide a gloss (an equivalent word or words), not a 'definition' in the sense of an actual -description- of the meaning.

A definition certainly beats a gloss any day for anything that doesn't have an actual 1:1 correspondence the way that highly specific nouns do. Abstract and multipurpose descriptive words and verbs are definitely better understood with a thorough definition. Until someone decides to make language dictionaries that provide definitions instead of glosses (you can safely read that as: 'forever'), that means native dictionaries are better for large ranges of word types. Just not for everything.

"in any given language," "most thorough" -- knowing that フジツボ relates to "barnacle, acorn barnacle" is all well and good but that's not going to help you if the person with whom you are speaking is a Japanese monolingual and doesn't know what a フジツボ is in the first place. Of course that's a huge stretch with more simple things like "giraffe" but...
enough splitting hairs. This is exactly why I have both in all of my cards.

(And, coincidentally, exactly why translation is being held up as the best way to begin learning vocab. Of COURSE it's always going to be faster to learn words through translation- especially simple nouns that can be explained through nothing more than a picture- but it will be more thorough with a definition in the target language.)

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:'barnacle, acorn barnacle'.

'Siimajalkainen' (='flagellum-legged'). Sounds like a protozoon of some kind.

drdunlap Wrote:" フジツボ relates to "barnacle, acorn barnacle"

If 'relates' was only the right word. My point is that for words where 'is' is the right word - キリン、二酸化炭素、大地溝帯 - there's no extra value in reading the Japanese definition. I already have far more knowledge about most of these things than any dictionary definition would have anyway (as do most educated adults). The value of 国語 definitions is in describing words that don't have an -exact- equivalent that you already have deep knowledge of.

Having read the definition won't allow you to describe the term in your own words, and I certainly wouldn't want to -memorize- definitions in Japanese for every plant, animal, mineral, chemical, and geological structure that I want to know the word for.

I'm not saying 国語 definitions aren't good, just that you can't say that they are 'the best' for every word.

Thorough. ffs.