I think Stansfield is referring to how many people incorrectly use uncommon (usually not English) in completely incorrect ways. Or how people tend to take a fairly reasonable word and slap incompatible Latin or Greek roots onto them to make an unreasonable word all in the name of sounding smarter. Personally, I think people who use words like that sound dumb. Making up words is all well and good if you're trying to explain something with a limited vocabulary or a word for it doesn't exist (or more likely is so far removed from your language that you don't know it), but doing so in an effort to sound smart when a common, reasonable, and effective word already exists is just irritating.

Not to mention that smashing words together to make new words that are effectively worthless sounds really unprofessional.

All you can do in cases where someone uses such a word is to guess what they mean through which words or parts they happened to slap together.

Zgarbas wrote:

Yes but see, if OP is into Philosophy then big words are a given. In any language. So many Latin&Greek terms onto which everyone keeps projecting new meanings, pompous terms, etc... it's ridiculous.

If you truely wish to be silly with latin, go for: floccinaucinihilipilification

I still remember some of the nasty words I picked from from university papers: minutiae, defenestration, antediluvian, niggardly, phenomenology, etc. I wouldn't expect any non-native to bother learning such words (unless required in their field/interests) and I would not bother using them in conversation.

It is plausible that you may stumble across such vocaulary in books; for example, David Eddings uses defenestration a few times in one of his series. I am pretty sure he just wanted to show off a 'funny word' he had found/been introduced to!

I still remember some of the nasty words I picked from from university papers: minutiae, defenestration, antediluvian, niggardly, phenomenology, etc. I wouldn't expect any non-native to bother learning such words (unless required in their field/interests) and I would not bother using them in conversation.

I know these words, except for niggardly and phenomenology. I'll probably look them up just for fun.
I listened to a lot of SAT vocabulary tapes/ mp3s though, so I learned a lot of "useless" words. The sad part is that learning them is a complete waste of time unless you know most common words. Since I don't think I know enough common words yet, I'll resume my SAT studies in a few months.

Yes but see, if OP is into Philology then big words are a given.

Yup. I'm currently studying a corpus of phonetic words and most of these words are rarely used in conversation. I don't mind because I love linguistics and take pride in knowing rare words even if I can never use them. Sometimes, I read dictionaries for fun.

@nadiatims
You come across as a bit pessimistic which surprises me since you seem to have devised a good method for vocabulary learning.
Acing exams and most importantly, finally being able to read pretty much any book without having to use the dictionary thousands of times--and the dictionary doesn't always help me understand "problem" sentences either...--are my main goals.

What's happening to my immersion environment is proof that I need to improve if I want to keep using English on a daily basis. I spent years without watching TV in my native language and now I spend more and more time watching TV in French. That's bad for many reasons. Sure, I haven't bought DVDs in a couple of years so maybe that's the problem, but I doubt it.
I'm frustrated because there are lots of words I still don't understand.

Frankly, learning English is the best use of my time. Now, I just want advice on how to best go about studying vocabulary.

RawToast wrote:

Zgarbas wrote:

Yes but see, if OP is into Philosophy then big words are a given. In any language. So many Latin&Greek terms onto which everyone keeps projecting new meanings, pompous terms, etc... it's ridiculous.

If you truely wish to be silly with latin, go for: floccinaucinihilipilification

I still remember some of the nasty words I picked from from university papers: minutiae, defenestration, antediluvian, niggardly, phenomenology, etc. I wouldn't expect any non-native to bother learning such words (unless required in their field/interests) and I would not bother using them in conversation.

It is plausible that you may stumble across such vocaulary in books; for example, David Eddings uses defenestration a few times in one of his series. I am pretty sure he just wanted to show off a 'funny word' he had found/been introduced to!

This one time, I managed to use it in a sentence for an essay (for which flocchinaucinihilipilification oh god why do I still remember the spelling for that aside, I got a low grade because the teacher was sure I'd used a dictionary when writing it ). It was the greatest achievement of my life, since it doesn't make much sense as a word.

I wonder if your discontent with your grip on "simple words" is actually a sign of growing sophistication?  That is, those little words are looking more complicated because of increasing fluency and an improving awareness of nuance, and you're becoming aware of shades of meaning and alternative usages?

This is partly true, but I'm mostly worried about basic words I don't know at all.
I'm trying to take care of that right now. I borrowed some translations books and I'll be studying them over the weekend.
I worked extra hard on my research paper today so that I can have some more time to myself tomorrow. I still have this insanely long list of vocabulary to learn, but since this list is full of examples sentences, all I need to do is make MCD-style flashcards.

I don't know how to find decent translations for these "light" and "sounds" words. I have a couple of expensive paper dictionaries that I bought for college so I'm hoping they'll be useful.
I love online dictionaries and CD-Roms but there just aren't any good bilingual dictionaries online.

My best bet would be to read a lot, but I don't have the time right now. Then again, I'd rather learn these tricky words *before* using my 2 Kindles. Consolidating knowledge is easier than trying to memorize something new.

I did my reps today and everything went well, except for the fact that I still haven't translated the words I'm studying (which is a big problem since I'm taking translation exams...).
I know I can't reproduce Anki on paper but I now have three bags: an easy one which I decided not to touch anymore for now, a medium difficulty one, and a hard one. I've been studying the medium and hard words.

Last edited by mel685 (2013 February 08, 6:59 pm)

I understand where you're coming from but my ultimate (dream) goal is to become a college professor. I'd be okay with teaching junior high or high school kids (I've done it briefly before during an internship) but I'd much rather end up in a university.

My English needs to be really, really good if I want to do this. Moreover, becoming bilingual is a dream of mine. I'm pretty sure I'll never learn a third language, so I might as well improve my English as much as possible.

I studied German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese in the past, but these languages don't interest me anymore. After a year of study, I hated Chinese with a passion and couldn't say anything in the language. Most of the other students found Chinese pretty easy and passed the exam with flying colors--not me. I got an F and dropped the course.

Anyway, I worked a lot today and I feel great. Raking in 7 hours of listening before 7 P.M. is a big achievement (for me anyway, since I tend to wake up very late on weekends).

I also made 60 flashcards that I'll review later.

I'm trying to become a translation teacher so I *need* to know English extremely well. It's not like I'll be teaching something else in English.
I don't use Anki but I use paper flashcards. Paper flashcards are really handy to memorize words, but I usually end up not reviewing the words after a while, and then I forget them. It's not a big deal when the words are pretty useless, but it's more problematic when I'm trying to rote learn words that are useful but incredibly boring to learn like "sparrow" or "starling".

I have a couple of picture dictionaries and I read a book about birds some time ago.
I learn the words with their translations and now I'm learning them with their collocations--apparently, a sparrow can "twitter" and "chirp".
I'll probably print a tiny picture of some of the birds I'm learning if I still can't memorize their names. I used to know the name of all of the common (and less common) birds but I forgot most of them. Since I lost the deck I had made for the occasion and don't want to learn isolated words again, I'll make a new one someday.

Sorry for eavesdropping, just wanted to share an awesome resource for vocabulary (AND KNOWLEDGE) in any domain you choose : say Maths, Biology, Philosophy, History, Physics...etc
ALL courses by TTC (The Teaching Company). These courses are awesome ! Each comes with an outline detailing every lecture (a lecture is approximately 30 minutes) and are thorough, informative and vocabulary-enriching ! They can be expensive... (though, I believe many are on sale now)...... OR, if you're just a liiiittle bit of the shameless downloader I am, you can get TONS of them off The Pirate Bay (via torrent)

Do browse their website : thegreatcourses.com (you won't be disappointed, and won't feel like wasting time listening to a lecture or two a day. As long as you choose a subject/material which interest you)

I might be late but based on your writing ability I think I know the problem: you have an obvious learning gap. The gap I am referring to is the one that often occurs when a parent is trying to figure out what the heck the kids are saying these days. In other words, your English is sophisticated, but not juvenile.  What you are not understanding is, in fact, juvenile language.

As an adult you likely learned how to understand mature and sophisticated English. This is only natural, as no mature individual would spend much time on childish endeavors. In order to fill that gap, however, you need to go backwards. I highly recommend comics and juvenile television. Most of the words you alluded to having difficulties with stem from those sources.

To be frankly honest, it is rather unnecessary for you to go out of your way to learn these kinds of words. It will have no effect on your education whatsoever, and I assure you your communication skills are more than adequate for your success in higher education. I'm only mentioning this because the gap really seems to bother you.

If you find it helpful, the age range you should shoot for is 7-13.  Sounds crazy but the gap I'm seeing is what we usually experience as kids watching cartoons and reading batman

Last edited by amtrack (2013 March 01, 3:12 am)

I'd honestly have mistaken you for a fellow native speaker (and I have a degree in English Lit, so hopefully my grasp of my native language is decent at least). So, I understand the frustration but I don't think you need worry too much. Reading is probably the best way, though games might help too, especially text-heavy ones, I've learned quite a few words from them - I think really my own vocabulary does come largely from reading, since there are plenty of native speakers who don't read so much and also struggle with unfamiliar words (certainly many people have trouble with Dickens).
Maybe you need (well-read) native speakers to talk with and ask about words you're uncertain of? A dictionary can tell you the definition, but they might be better placed to tell you how common the word is, and maybe pinpoint if anything particular is consistently causing problems (in some cases, they may not even know the word either). When translating, it's of course usual to go from the source text to your native language, so using a dictionary can still work.

Anki can make things easier, maybe try including a lot of picture cards, for words that's possible for.

English can be a pain, I know - English learners don't seem to get given nearly enough credit.

I answered your email

American series ! I used to spend hours everyday watching them ! And you have the widest range of genres !
Some titles I loved : F.R.I.E.N.D.S :') , Ghost Wisperer, Supernatural, Desperate Housewives, 90210, Grey's Anatomy, House.... (off the top of my head)
More titles I haven't watched but hear a lot about : Fringe, The Big Bang Theory (my friend brags of having watched it with no English subtitles ! ), CSI, Castle, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars....etc

Oh right ! Almost forgot ! Watch documentaries ! If you can subscribe(is this the word?) to National Geographic, do it ! It's worth every penny ! Of course you can torrent many of their (or other's) documentaries (I feel guilty mentioning downloading on this forum.. I feel I'd get some evil looks if I could see some of them O.O). I'll send you more links