5.2 Learning using words Flashcards
Words, language and Minecraft
Words are the building blocks of language. When they begin to talk, the first language items that children learn are individual words. Only later do they gradually acquire some rules for putting words together into sentences. Words also play a central role when you learn a foreign language as an adult. You may be able to get your meaning across even with very poor grammar, but
without the necessary words, verbal communication is impossible.
How long will you be learning vocabulary
Learning vocabulary is an ongoing task that continues as long as you go on using a language, whether you are a beginner, an advanced learner or even a native speaker.
*** What does it mean to ‘know’ a word?
Of course, knowing the word’s meaning is essential, but it is far from enough. Take, for example the
French word soir. In order to be able to use it you must know that it means ‘evening’, but unless you pronounce it correctly the chances are that you will not be understood. If you need to use it in writing you also need to know its spelling. Whether you are writing or speaking, in order to form sentences with the word you need to know how the word ‘behaves’ grammatically in
the language to which it belongs. Soir, for example, is a masculine noun. In French this means that any article or adjective related to it (e.g. ‘the’, ‘this’, ‘nice’, etc.) needs to take the masculine form. As you read, listen and interact
in French, you will learn to expect the word in proximity to other words, for example, in the phrase matin, midi et soir (literally, ‘morning, midday and evening’, i.e. ‘three times a day’) or du matin au soir (literally, ‘from morning till evening’, i.e. ‘from dawn till dusk’). You may remember that this is called a ‘collocation’, and is another important dimension of word knowledge.
***what are the main things that
you need to know about a word when you learn a new language?
—How are any of these elements affected by cultural factors
—You need to know the meaning, pronunciation, spelling, grammatical category (relevant categories, e.g. grammatical gender, vary according to the language), and collocations.
—Any of the elements that make up how you use a word may be affected by cultural factors. Take collocation, for example: the verb ‘to earn’ has some similar collocations in English and French (‘earning your crust’/gagner sa croûte). Other collocations in French and Spanish feature the word ‘bread’: gagner son pain (French)/ganarse el pan (Spanish) (‘to earn your daily
bread’). Bread has been a staple food in Western Europe for many centuries, and it is not too surprising that the link between earning a living and purchasing bread, i.e. being a breadwinner, made it into many European languages.
Different languages represent reality in different ways. in terms of word meaning different languages segment or cut up the world they represent in different ways. I’m not sure the point they are trying to make here in relation to word meaning but give some examples and explain (with another example) how this is relevant in terms of the way speakers of different languages express themselves?
-guarani (“ñande” and “ore”)
-scottish Gaelic yes and no
-differences between word genders in different languages
-How is it relevant. Spider example
Is grammatical gender arbitrary
it is fairly arbitrary and simply needs to be learned for every noun
Why are the genders of words often the same in French, Italian and Spanish_
both languages evolved from Latin and have retained the original gender of most Latin words. The history of a language therefore shapes the meaning and
collocations of its words, as well as their gender, pronunciation and spelling.
How can the meanings of a word be?
How are they learned and what is more difficult for a foreign language learner?
–They may be either explicit (e.g. the meanings you might find in a dictionary) or implicit (for example, as a result of meaning associations from your childhood).
–Explicit meanings can be consciously learned, whereas implicit meanings are often
unconsciously acquired and used, which makes them more challenging for foreign language learners.
