ahibba wrote:

But 800 words is enough to conduct basic conversations.

You can write the whole Bible using 800 words only!

Aha, nice plan. Let's dumb down the way that all Japanese people speak!
Better yet, lets make they speak English so we won't have to learn Japanese!

Sorry, but your plan is not good. It is probably easier to learn Japanese yourself, even with its tenths of thousands of words.

Last edited by mentat_kgs (2009 June 03, 11:44 am)

Tobberoth wrote:

ahibba wrote:

Aijin, a native Japanese says that most Americans need 7-10 months to pass JLPT 4.

But he is, like you said, a native Japanese. In Sweden, you're supposed to be able to pass JLPT3 after one year of studies. I can't really believe the difference is THAT big from the states.

*Points to the 'he'* I don't have a penis

Is it really only one year of studies in Sweden to pass JLPT3? Does that include study during the summer, or only two semesters? It might be that Sweden has better/more intensive programs than over here. I've only been in three states, so I can't speak for every American university, but in general over here: Japanese 1 = hiragana/katakana  Japanese 2 = katakana (some universities don't teach it with hiragana) and about 150 kanji or so. So, after two semesters students, in general, are supposed to be prepared for JLPT4. If students did Japanese 3 over the summer, then they should be about JLPT 3 level. So the average American student could do it in a year. Those who take their studies very seriously of course will have no problem doing it in a year, but I think that might be too short for students just taking it light heartedly and not putting too much effort into it.

As for this whole French in a week thing: I think the British have a term..."not bloody likely" or something I've only taken a few university courses in French, so I am not an expert by any means, but even if there are similarities to English there are far more differences. Since reading is the easiest part of the language you might be able to accomplish rudimentary reading in a short time span, but I think it's very unlikely that you'll be able to read Les Misérables in French anytime soon.

And grammar is going to be extremely important if you want to be able to read vividly and have the prose flow. Just translating raw words and trying to string them together into a logical translation would defile the entire process I think.

I don't understand why so many people seem to be so bent on doing things so quickly. Nobody gets a cookie for learning to read French or Japanese the fastest. Take your time and make sure you really process, internalize, and absorb all the vocabulary and grammar. Unless you're an old dying man I don't see why there's such a hurry

Language is an art, not a race, guys! Just take deep breaths, relax, and enjoy it!

Last edited by Aijin (2009 June 03, 12:23 pm)

mentat_kgs wrote:

Aha, nice plan. Let's dumb down the way that all Japanese people speak!
Better yet, lets make they speak English so we won't have to learn Japanese!

What is wrong in this?

I think you will be very satisfied if you can write a story like this in Chinese, or any other language you don't know, using 850 words:

http://ogden.basic-english.org/death.html

Many discussions in this forum, if not most of them, are written using less than 1000 words.

If most Japanese can write in English like this, they will be very happy.

Few weeks ago, I tested myself in English using some online vocabulary estmiators. It estimated my English vocabulary to be 1000-2000 words only!

But I'm satisfied with my English level. I know that I need to improve it, but currently it fulfills my needs. I think it is sufficient for me.

P.S. yesterday, I made an experiment with Turkish, a language I never studied before. It belongs to different language family from mine, and does not have many common words with English or Indo-European languages in general.

I memorized about 487 words at the rate of 6 words per minute. In the first 10 mins I memorized about 30 words. Then my speed increased. I finished in less than 2 hours, and I managed to read short texts in Turkish talking about the country (related to tourism.)

Note that the agglutinative languages are very difficult. If it was Persian, Urdu, Hebrew, or Greek, it could read longer texts or maybe short stories and fairy tales.

The Turkish text wrote:

Türk Turizmi, Ege ve Akdeniz kıyılarındaki arkeolojik ve tarihi alanlar üzerine yoğunlaşmıştır.

Türkiye'nin en büyük şehri olan İstanbul, Bizans ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun başkenti olması dolayısıylada birçok önemli alanlara sahiptir. Sultanahmet Camii, Ayasofya ve Topkapı Sarayı bunlardan birkaçıdır.

Diğer önemli turizm alanları; Roma İmparatorluğu döneminden kalan Efes, Truva, Bergama, Meryem Ana Evi'nin yanısıra Kapadokya bölgesidir.

Plaj bölgeleri, genellikle Türkiye'nin çeşitli şehirlerinde yaşayan insanlar ve batı Avrupa'dan gelen turistler için önemli bir turizm alanıdır. En önemli plajlar, Ege kıyılarından başlar ve Akdeniz'de Antalya yakınlarında son bulur. Bodrum, Fethiye, Marmaris, Kuşadası, Alanya önemli tatil yöreleridir.

Kaliteli tıbbi servisleri ve yetenekli doktorları ile Türkiye, düşük fiyatları ve Avrupa ile Orta Doğu arasındaki konumu ile Türkiye'yi önemli bir sağlık turizmi bölgesi yapmaktadır.

Yabancı turist sayısı 2002 ve 2005 yılları arasında, 12.8 milyondan 21.2 milyona ulaşmıştır, ki bu sayı Türkiye'yi "Yabancı Ziyaretçiler için En İyi 10 Ülke" arasına sokmuştur.

Aijin wrote:

As for this whole French in a week thing: I think the British have a term..."not bloody likely" or something  I've only taken a few university courses in French, so I am not an expert by any means, but even if there are similarities to English there are far more differences. Since reading is the easiest part of the language you might be able to accomplish rudimentary reading in a short time span, but I think it's very unlikely that you'll be able to read Les Misérables in French anytime soon.

Who are talking about the whole French in a week?

Understanding short articles or news about current affairs does not mean you mastered the French language.

I think you understand my English writing very well, though I cannot read the unabridged version of A Tale of Two Cities. (Actually, I don't know if I can read it or no. I never tried it.)

Aijin wrote:

I don't understand why so many people seem to be so bent on doing things so quickly. Nobody gets a cookie for learning to read French or Japanese the fastest. Take your time and make sure you really process, internalize, and absorb all the vocabulary and grammar. Unless you're an old dying man I don't see why there's such a hurry

Language is an art, not a race, guys! Just take deep breaths, relax, and enjoy it!

Hyreia wants to, not me.

Nukemarine wrote:

Seriously, we've got like 2 threads going talking about this guy, where is he? And what the hell got him so fired up to do something so fast?

I'm not the guy who started this thread

However, I recommend people to learn languages as fast as possible!

Sorry, "this guy" was still referring to the mythical beginner in my first paragraph. I wasn't commenting about an actual person.

I agree with learning fast, however I tend to notice those that want it "fast" really mean "no effort" (not on this forum mind you).

I know that you were talking about that mythical guy

But there are many people who need to learn so fast. Suppose you are going to apply for a job / or university and they require JLPT 1 and there are 3 months left until the test.

Some people learn a language for life, they see it as a continuous process. Others need to reach a particular level for a particular purpose in a specific period of time.

I had the same thought as Hyreai: why use a list of 3000 most common English words? Isn't there an equivalent list of French vocab? Can you assume they're similar enough? And you're likely to pick a less common word if you translate them yourself. (Besides, it would cut into your 1-week study time ). Seems odd.

btw: Aijin's estimate of 7-10 months included:  "someone just studying in their spare time and taking it at a slow and steady rate. I think that's the average for most Americans".

Last edited by Thora (2009 June 03, 3:55 pm)

Thora wrote:

I had the same thought as Hyreai: why use a list of 3000 most common English words? Isn't there an equivalent list of French vocab? Can you assume they're similar enough? And you're likely to pick a less common word if you translate them yourself.

No. It is not the most common words. It is the most important words! and it's universal, at least in the European languages.

Not all common words are so important, and there are many important words which do not appear frequently in a corpus.

The Oxford 3000 wrote:

The keywords of the Oxford 3000 have been carefully selected by a group of language experts and experienced teachers as the words which should receive priority in vocabulary study because of their importance and usefulness.... it may be that the word is used very frequently, but only in a narrowly defined area, such as newspapers or scientific articles. In order to avoid including these restricted words, we include as keywords only those words which are frequent across a range of different types of text. In other words, keywords are both frequent and used in a variety of contexts. In addition, the list includes some very important words which happen not to be used frequently, even though they are very familiar to most users of English.

Jeromin wrote:

Tried a vocabulary estimate at:

http://www.insightin.com/test/test.phtml

44/50, estimated vocabulary 8,800. Hmm, not bad.

This other test estimates it at 21,600

http://www.prolingua.co.jp/vocab_est_e.html
18,000 to 24,000 is the level of "most college graduates and professional people". They might be a bit optimistic about "most college graduates".

Either way, I have no intention of learning a language and settle for less than 20,000+ words. Starting with 850, on the other hand, would be a good way to break the initial barrier of communication.

Which one is more accurate?

Have you tried this one:

http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r21270/levels/3ka.html

and this one:

http://www.wordsandtools.com/vocdemo/gzram3.html

I see. Looks like the list takes into account both frequency and importance. How do we know that it applies to other European languages? (If it does, perhaps cultural diversity occurs in the next 3000 words? I would have thought there would be some differences)

btw Ahibba, your English is flawless on these forums.

Aijin wrote:

Tobberoth wrote:

ahibba wrote:

Aijin, a native Japanese says that most Americans need 7-10 months to pass JLPT 4.

But he is, like you said, a native Japanese. In Sweden, you're supposed to be able to pass JLPT3 after one year of studies. I can't really believe the difference is THAT big from the states.

*Points to the 'he'* I don't have a penis

LOL. It's good to know I'm not the only gender bender here.

From:
http://www.insightin.com/test/test.phtml

I found....

"Specifically, we are disappointed with the new emphasis on so-called high stakes testing as --an instrument-- to assess and rank schools."
a) a device     b) a test
c) a system    d) a way

"Survey show that the silence majority agree with me and not you."

"The holes should be a little larger than the coin or washer."

"Retail --petrol-- price decreased in April."
a) gas    b) oil

LOL. My English is severely lacking. 48/50

Jeromin wrote:

This other test estimates it at 21,600

http://www.prolingua.co.jp/vocab_est_e.html
18,000 to 24,000 is the level of "most college graduates and professional people". They might be a bit optimistic about "most college graduates".

Same here.

rich_f wrote:

Here's my surefire French in a week course.

Have you tried Michel Thomas courses before?

In 8 days, the French foundation course will teach you more than what Pimsleur does in 3 months!

By the end of the Advanced Course (another 5 days), you will be able to communicate in a wide variety of situations and form complex and sophisticated sentences. You will be able to use A-Level equivalent phrases and structures and have a natural grasp of the language and entire verb system.

You see, A-level and the entire verb system in less than 2 weeks!

Hundreds of thousands of people have used Michel Thomas courses. It is recognized internationally, not invented by me!

Many people can learn that amount of French (or any other language) in a short period of time. So why can not Hyreia learn to read newspapers in one week?

Cannot he understand something like this:

En route pour le sommet des Amériques, à Trinité-et-Tobago, le président américain Barack Obama a effectué une halte à Mexico, où il a eu des entretiens avec son homologue mexicain Felipe Calderon. Les deux hommes d’État se sont engagés à resserrer les relations entre leurs deux pays. Ils ont notamment l’intention d’accroitre la coopération bilatérale dans la lutte contre la crise économique mondiale, les changements climatiques et le trafic des stupéfiants.

There already are two college-level word decks on Anki. I'm trying to use one, but it has an example sentence with a blank line, and a hint as to the word. It's a bit illogical, because they should really just make an example sentence, highlight the word, and put the definition/hint in the answer section. But I can't seem to figure out how to switch the hints with the answers for all 2140 words. Can anybody help?