Low frequency words, why they are the key to achieving a good level
in any language that we're learning.
Very often we are told that we need to master the high frequency words, and
I've always been against that concept because in fact, we learn those anyway
'cause they show up all the time.
I think it was, uh, Paul Nation had his n plus one:
we should always read material that has very few unknown words, typically
unknown words are lower frequency.
I don't agree with that.
I think we have to allow ourselves to be exposed to a lot of low
frequency words through massive input.
And that way we not only eventually acquire these words, but we
also get used to the language.
So I'm gonna talk a bit about acquiring the necessary experience
to be a successful language learner and, um, why I came to that thought.
Now one of the things that I've learned through experience, and I'm gonna
talk a lot about experience because language learning is about acquiring
experience with the language, with the language learning process, rather
than deliberately learning the words,
so experience is important.
And another thing I find is that very often, you know, our
thoughts and we have lots of random thoughts and experiences every day.
And sometimes we don't know what's gonna lead to what.
And I think that's an important concept in language learning, that we needn't
try to deliberately learn certain words.
They will, you know, slot into our memory reserve if we continue to
pursue things of interest to us.
So at any rate, I was out canvassing for the local candidate in our
Canadian federal election, and I had to use this app, which is
used nowadays for canvassing.
I canvassed for the opposite party some 20 years ago, they had no apps, but now
they have an app and they have information about the people who live in the area
and I'm supposed to input, you know how they might vote or we don't know how
they're gonna vote, or it's undecided or they need help or they don't need help,
they need more information, they don't know where to vote.
All this stuff I have to put into this app.
So it took a while to get used to it because I didn't have the
experience, and I've had that same experience in language situations.
Even if I've learned the language, I have to be in a situation where
I experience something for the first time with great difficulty,
I cope and gradually I get better.
So language learning is a matter of getting used to the language and the
language learning process, and that's where low frequency words come in.
And I wanna drive this point home because very often we hear people say, you've
gotta master the basic vocabulary or learn the high frequency words, and you
know, the most common 500 or a thousand words of the language account for 70%
or more or less of any given content,
all of this is true, but it's not enough.
If you wanna learn the language and we know that the frequency of
words declines very, very quickly.
So pretty soon we're chasing a lot of low frequency vocabulary.
And I think that's a good thing and we should enjoy that process.
And if I think back in my language learning, when I was in Hong Kong 50
years ago, more than 50 years ago, learning Chinese, I would constantly be
scouring the bookstores for more content, more interesting material to read.
I didn't know Stephen Krashen's theory of, uh, meaningful input, but I sense
that that was how I was gradually acquiring more vocabulary and becoming
more and more confident with the language.
Oh, and I should add by the way that, uh, you know, everything
requires it getting used to even, you know, using that app, for example,
canvassing learning how to use LingQ
and of course learning the language, which is much more difficult
than learning how to use an app.
But it's all a matter of developing this almost subconscious sense,
subconscious knowledge, familiarity.
And gradually based on that, we start to, you know, learn
more sort of specific details.
Now, of course, when I was learning
chinese or Japanese, I didn't have a list of how many words I
knew, such as we have at LingQ.
I didn't have this sort of ability to set a goal and to, you know, achieve certain
milestones in acquiring vocabulary.
I didn't have this.
I've often referred to the sort of known words total on LingQ as being like the
mechanical rabbit that the, you know, the greyhounds that compete in dog races,
they pursue this mechanical rabbit.
And that, that, uh, known words total is a bit like that.
But it is important because it keeps us going and we do have to keep going
in order to acquire familiarity with the language and acquiring these
increasingly low frequency vocabulary items is kind of a marker of how
you're progressing in the language.
So the low frequency vocabulary not only is, uh, you know, these are things we
need to acquire, but also it's, it's a stimulus, it's a goal, it's a motivation.
At least it has been for me.
Another major advantage of low frequency vocabulary is that in order to pursue low
frequency vocabulary, you have to leave the comfort of easy material where it's
overwhelmingly high frequency vocabulary.
You have to pursue things that are inherently more interesting,
and therefore, again, sort of unintended consequences.
By pursuing language, which is richer or has more low frequency
words, you're dealing with more interesting content and that leads
you to other things of interest.
So for example, as a result of learning Turkish and visiting
Turkey, then I got interested in the Hittites and then ancient history,
and now I'm reading a book about the Assyrians through my Persian podcast.
I got interested in, for example, the Rosetta Stone and Napoleon, and
Egypt and so I read a book on that.
Again, unintended consequences, but you can only broaden your knowledge if you are
pursuing genuinely interesting material things that are of interest to you and
typically these are more difficult, have more difficult content, have more
low frequency vocabulary, so you can't avoid the low frequency vocabulary.
In fact, it is a stimulus to broadening your knowledge.
Now my next point is that when we talk about low frequency vocabulary.
We are no longer talking about obviously the top 500, the top thousand high
frequency vocabulary items, which we need when we get started in the language.
There's no question.
Our mini stories in LingQ are based on the idea that they're full of
high frequency verbs, especially.
So in the beginning you need these because you don't have enough
experience with the language.
You don't have a base.
However, later on, to me, it doesn't really matter whether this particular
word is in the top 3000 most frequent or top 5,000 most frequent.
They're all so much less frequent in terms of how often they appear than
the high frequency vocabulary items.
There's a tremendous drop off in frequency, and so what's gonna matter
much more is whether this is content of interest to you, and if it is and
if you're staying with one podcaster or one author, and it's the same
subject, chances are these relatively low frequency items are going to
appear a little more frequently.
And if you are focusing in on the content itself and not worrying
about whether you remember the word, then you'll continue to.
Increase your familiarity and experience and comfort level in the language.
So you need to worry about whether this word is worth learning or not.
Don't bother, don't even try to learn it.
Just expose yourself to the word you are accumulating this experience.
And gradually when you least expect it, these words will be more and
more familiar to you and you will eventually be able to use some of them.
So I, I think the, the key message here is to not get frustrated with.
Your slow pace because we know that once we pass the first, that early
period where we're, you know, enjoying the fact that we have easier material,
high frequency vocabulary, once we're in that, what we call the doldrums,
the plateau, where it seems we'll never learn all the words we need to know.
It's important at that point that you enjoy the language, enjoy what you're
able to do, don't worry about what you can't remember, and be confident
that gradually you are accumulating familiarity, you are accumulating
exposure, you are accumulating a memory reserve of words that gradually will
become more easily retrieved by you.
And every time you're not able to retrieve that word, don't worry about it.
So I hope this was interesting to you.
It's sort of, uh, an extension of my thoughts this morning as I
was out canvassing on behalf of our local member of Parliament.
Thank you for listening.
Bye for now.
