Till sidans innehåll
Svara

Vocab acquisition

av Hesiod, 22 februari 2014

Meddelanden: 9

Språk: English

Hesiod (Visa profilen) 22 februari 2014 22:01:18

I've just finished the first chapter of Teach Yourself, and they teach you (among other things) that "All nouns in the singular end in -O." Armed with this knowledge, and the knowledge that many words can be created by simply learning the affixes, I was thinking that instead of learning the affixes in an order not intended by the book, I would simply start learning vocab using the "dictionary" endings that have already been introduced.

My aim is to progress steadily through TYS, while learning vocab on the side (top 1,000 or so root words + Anki as an entrée). The question is whether or not I should use my limited knowledge as a point of attack, or if I should learn the affixes out of order. There's not much point in learning affixes if I have no vocabulary to attach them to in my opinion, but I suppose that's easy enough to remedy.

tl;dr: Is learning root words with a very limited knowledge of affixes a bad idea? Is learning affixes with a limited vocabulary, and in isolation a bad idea? I can't see why it would be.

I'm trying to attack this language similarly to how I would attack any other language, so I might be overdoing. Oh well.

Thanks!

lagtendisto (Visa profilen) 22 februari 2014 22:20:45

What does the introduction chapter recommends? Does author recommends to follow set sequences of chapters? Does author not compulsatory recommends how to go through the course?

Sounds like you try figure out some personal style which you want to apply universaly to other foreign languages, too. But every teaching book has its own concept to help learners through the book. Books which teach foreign languages are not same standardized by reading concept like i.e. scientific literature. What could be universal learning that could be to learn vocabulary in context. Its often recommended like some universal learning strategy. But if you like 'raw hammering root words into your brain' then simply do it because it seems to be best strategy for you.

In my opinion Esperanto language should be learned how author of regarding teaching book recommends to do so. First it could be not easy to accept but after some time someones gets used to authors intention how learner best will get it. Simply trust the autor. ridulo.gif

makis (Visa profilen) 22 februari 2014 23:33:29

What I did was to go through the book (I used The Esperanto Teacher and Complete Grammar of Esperanto not TYE) and put all the vocab from there and from the list here on Lernu (http://en.lernu.net/biblioteko/rakontoj/vere_aux_f...) and put them into Anki. That way I started learning words by rote but still progressed through the book in order.

That, for me, made it easier to understand the new grammar when it came along. I.E. Since I learned by rote, lia simply meant his, ŝia, hers, until I hit the chapter on possessive pronouns and it clicked; li+a, he+possesive. The same with the infinitives and all the other fun grammar stuff.

erinja (Visa profilen) 23 februari 2014 03:05:28

Hesiod:tl;dr: Is learning root words with a very limited knowledge of affixes a bad idea? Is learning affixes in isolation a bad idea and with a limited vocabulary in isolation a bad idea? I can't see why it would be.
You will be fine but remember that learning affixes is not always avoidable. You can't say much without using them -- you can't easily call something "cold" or "small" without an affix, you can't use certain verbs in their most common form without an affix etc. You can learn lots of roots in isolation but without learning some affixes there are some pretty basic things that you won't be able to say. The affixes really multiply your vocabulary and increase your ability to express yourself but the exact order of learning them isn't vital. I'm sure your course will teach you the most common ones first (it's hard to get far without mal-).

Miland (Visa profilen) 23 februari 2014 11:41:16

Hesiod:I've just finished the first chapter of Teach Yourself..I was thinking that instead of learning the affixes in an order not intended by the book, I would simply start learning vocab using the "dictionary" endings that have already been introduced.
I would suggest that you work steadily through the book first of all. However, if you are itching to do more about learning vocabulary, you could try the exercises on this website.

You may also find helpful to work through the courses Ana Pana and Ana Rekontas on this website, as they include tutorial help.

Hesiod (Visa profilen) 23 februari 2014 12:31:51

Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I've actually found an interesting pamphlet that has the affixes along with a short list of vocabulary for each, so hopefully this will satiate my curiosity for now. I think I'll glance over this list and follow your advice by sticking with the course.

Thanks again!

Bemused (Visa profilen) 24 februari 2014 06:30:02

Hesiod:Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I've actually found an interesting pamphlet that has the affixes along with a short list of vocabulary for each, so hopefully this will satiate my curiosity for now. I think I'll glance over this list and follow your advice by sticking with the course.

Thanks again!
You might find it useful to check wikipedia.
It lists the official and some "unofficial" affixes.
Some of the "unofficial" affixes are widely known and recognised, even if not accepted by all.

orthohawk (Visa profilen) 24 februari 2014 14:50:38

Hesiod:Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I've actually found an interesting pamphlet that has the affixes along with a short list of vocabulary for each, so hopefully this will satiate my curiosity for now. I think I'll glance over this list and follow your advice by sticking with the course.

Thanks again!
I've mentioned this a number of times in the past (to the point where some may wonder if I'm obsessed or have financial interest in its reissue; I'm not and don't, lol), but M.C. Butler's Esperanto-English dictionary is a goldmine in this area, if you can get a hold of a copy. Each headword lists its use with affixes and sometimes compounds that are found.

kaŝperanto (Visa profilen) 27 februari 2014 16:28:02

I highly recommend you learn all of the affixes as soon as you can. You can't fully utilize most dictionaries until you know them, especially when trying to understand a more creative use of a root with affixes. I can't count how many times I have seen a new word with affixes that cause the vortaro to not even recognize it, but as soon as you get to the root you get a definition. Even if you don't learn them fully you should at least get to the point where you know them when you see them.

I also highly recommend learning as many of the common prepositions as you can. They help you get the flow of the sentence better, and they pop up everywhere.

When I first started I made a concerted effort to learn all affixes and prepositions after I got fed up with frequently looking up the same words.

Tillbaka till toppen