Essential Vocabulary
Going from the known to the unknown
The main focus of this post is on vocabulary. Every language learner needs some words, but what words, how many at any given time, and in what way should we present the vocabulary?
While discussing these points we need to keep in mind the conclusion of our last discussion; every language learner needs confidence every step of the way.
Let’s take one of the worst possible scenarios for learning a language and analyze why it has little or no use to the language project.
Imagine that you have decided to learn a new language. You travel to the capital city where that language is spoken and stand in the middle of the bustling city center and listen to people’s conversations. I’m sure you’d agree that you’ll probably learn nothing of any value whatsoever. That’s not surprising, but why not? What’s missing?
To reveal the missing factors we can look at a similar situation where language learning would be promoted.
Now imagine you are in that same city and a good Samaritan takes you by the hand. She begins her lesson by saying some words clearly as she points to some familiar and common physical objects; buildings, a park bench, the street, and so on. You’re probably going to understand a great deal.
What’s the difference between scenario one where you’re standing in the middle of traffic and scenario two where you have a good Samaritan to guide you through the city?
In the first scenario, the language is just noise. You have no idea what the sounds correspond to. Even if you were in a crowded place where your own language was being spoken, you’d have to really focus to discern any one of the hundreds of speech blurbs that you are being exposed to.
In the second scenario, you are shown what each word corresponds to. The language is no longer just noise; it has a use and is connected to a familiar object.
As a language learner, you have to know what you are listening to. The words have to relate to things you are familiar with.
This is going from the known to the unknown. Your good Samaritan starts by pointing to a bank. You’ve seen and used many banks in your life; that is the known. She then tells you the word for ‘bank’ in her language. That is the unknown. The unknown becomes known very quickly and effortlessly.
The language learner needs to learn words for familiar objects, but at first glance, this task seems daunting. There must be thousands of familiar objects in the world. How many of these words should be given in one session?
My answer is ‘not many’, perhaps ten or less.
I hear cries from students and teachers, “Only ten? How will I ever learn/teach all this vocabulary?”.
The answer to part of the vocabulary dilemma has already been solved by lexicographers. These people have created frequency lists for vocabulary items ranging from one to ten thousand (one being the most frequently used word in the language and then ranking all subsequent words upwards; the lower a word’s rank number the more frequently it is used). The words for universally familiar objects fall into the A1 and A2 frequency lists and are among the 2,000 most frequently used words in languages. These are the words every language learner needs before any others. For example, the word agriculture (B2) is not going to be nearly as useful as the word farm (A1).
The A1 and A2 vocabulary lists contain two essential types of language items; the majority of the language’s grammar words (a, the, be, to, in, and, etc), and content words, (nouns; time, man, child, non-auxiliary verbs; say, go, get, lexical adjectives; old, other, tall, and lexical adverbs; up, here, now).
All learners, from beginners to advanced, need to focus on these essential words. A1 and A2 words are not solely for A1 and A2 students. These words need to be revised, reviewed, revisited, and expanded at every stage of the language project. Any language is impossible without them. Equally true is that every language is possible with only these 2000 words. (With only these 2,000 words you would certainly find yourself lacking vocabulary when discussing some specific topics, but for basic everyday conversation you really do only need these essential words.)
The content words from these two lists are pretty much universal. For example, the most commonly used noun in English is time. A quick check on the internet will show that the word for time is the most (or one of the top ‘three’ most), frequently used noun in most languages (if not every language), that you can find a frequency list for. (I’m being generous for saying top ‘three’, just to be safe. On the many lists I checked, Russian was the only language where the word ‘time’ was not the most common noun; it was ranked second following ‘year’ which was the number one noun.)
I suggested learning at most ten new vocabulary items a day. I have given you a list of 2,000 items. We can take out the grammar words and reduce the list to around 1,000 words. That’s 10 a day for 100 days which is around three months. Not too bad and don’t forget, students are going to acquire more words here and there simply through exposure to the language. Really, the daunting task has become more manageable.
Let me discuss some of the awesomeness of A1 and A2 content vocabulary.
I’ll use the word blow (A2) as an example where I can. Look up the word in a dictionary. (I recommend using The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary.)
Polysemy
(polysemy- a vocabulary item with many meanings)
Notice how many meanings there are for the word blow.
The polysemy of A1 and A2 words is extremely high.
Easily Understood
Essential vocabulary will translate in isolation quite well. Images are best for demonstrations but if you don’t have access to images (hard to imagine in this day and age), you can easily look up the translation for the basic meaning of the word.
Metaphors
A1 and A2 words are where all the good metaphors are! Try to make connections. How does meaning eight (to blow a fuse) connect to meaning one (sending air from your mouth)?
Irregular forms
A1 and A2 words are where you’ll find the irregular items; verbs (blow-blew-blown), nouns (child-children) and adjectives (good-better-best). This area lends itself well to grammar explanations and exercises and pronunciation.
Phrasal Verbs, Expressions and Set Phrases
These words are where you’ll find the vast majority of phrasal verbs (blow up, blow over, blow away etc.)
They also have many associated expressions (blow your mind), and set phrases (something/somebody was blown off course).
Phonology
These words all contain the most essential phonological elements of the target language. This is also a good place to point out the inconsistency between English spelling and expected pronunciation.
Essential Requirements
These words are required for everyday conversations.
Now that we’ve seen how awesome A1 and A2 vocabulary is, we need to decide how to present it. Learning lists is useless and doubly useless if the words are unrelated. What we need is context. I suggest using topical dialogues. They are easy to construct and can be found anywhere in the real world.
Try to think of a naturally occurring conversation between two people. What are they going to talk about? They’ll begin with the standard “How are you?/Fine thanks” question and answer greeting used in every culture, they might make a few comments on their surroundings and when the conversation starts to fizzle out they’ll either say goodbye or resort to talking about the weather.
Talking about the weather has all the features students need to feel comfortable; it’s familiar, needs no specialized knowledge, and only outliers don’t agree on it. In short, it’s safe. This is the perfect place to begin our language project.
The dialogue might go something like this:
A: Hi Jake, how are you today?
B: I’m fine thanks, Celia, and you?
A: Great, thanks. It’s a nice day, isn’t it?
B: Yes, it is, but it’s going to rain tomorrow.
A: Oh, too bad.
Short and sweet! Every learner will have the confidence and ability to practice this and as we’ll see in future discussions, we can expand on this dialogue by adding more vocabulary, we can use it for grammar explanations and practice and we can also use it for that badly needed pronunciation practice.
I strongly suggest learning to talk about the weather in lesson one. It builds confidence immediately and gets people talking. It’s a perfect warm-up exercise. (Consider a yoga class. You’ve got to do some simple mindless stretches before you do the complicated moves!) In the language project, beginners can easily have short conversations about the weather and more advanced learners can discuss it in greater detail. Whatever the case may be, if at any time during the language project you find yourself at a loss for words you will always be able to resort to commenting on the weather! It’s a surefire way to avoid the dreaded language block.
Basic topics, like the weather, all require A1 and A2 words. By starting with the weather you can easily move to different basic topics connecting vocabulary and other language features as you go. I’m sure you’ll quickly see how the following topics connect.
weather - travel - time - jobs/school - family - leisure
If you have good weather, you’ll have a good holiday. You’ll probably spend a lot of time on the beach. All good things must come to an end, so after the holiday, it’s back to work. After work, many people like to spend time with their families. If the weather is good you might take a walk in the park with your family or play a board game.
Every word in that paragraph is at the A1 level except the words might and board, which are at the A2 level.
To summarize today’s discussion:
-The language project needs small doses of vocabulary, at most ten new words a day.
-The words should be on the A1 and A2 frequency lists.
-The words should be presented in short dialogues about universally familiar topics.
Anyone learning or teaching languages should focus on the topics mentioned above. With those topics and the vocabulary that accompanies them under your belt, you can easily move on to more specific topics.
