Active and passive vocabulary Vocabulario activo y pasivo Vocabulaire actif et passif Vocabolario attivo e passivo 能動態と受動態の語彙 Vocabulário ativo e passivo Активная и пассивная лексика Активний та пасивний словниковий запас 主动和被动词汇 主動和被動詞彙

Hi there. Hola. こんにちは。

Steve Kaufmann here, talking to all of you who want to learn languages. ここでスティーブカウフマンは、言語を学びたいすべての人と話しています。 Steve Kaufmann está aqui, a falar para todos os que querem aprender línguas. I’m very happy to share with you my experience, my views, and I think my views should count for something because I have learned 12 languages to varying degrees, I have another two that I’m working on, yet my views I think are very much in the minority. Tenho muito gosto em partilhar convosco a minha experiência, os meus pontos de vista, e penso que os meus pontos de vista devem contar para alguma coisa, porque aprendi 12 línguas em graus variados, tenho outras duas em que estou a trabalhar, mas penso que os meus pontos de vista são muito minoritários. Okay? Está bem? I’m going to talk today about active and passive vocabulary and I’m going to say that there is far too much emphasis placed, both in terms of how we teach languages and the things that people worry about when they learn languages. I'm going to talk today about active and passive vocabulary and I'm going to say that there is far too much emphasis placed, both in terms of how we teach languages and the things that people worry about when they learn languages. Vou falar hoje sobre o vocabulário ativo e passivo e vou dizer que há demasiada ênfase, tanto em termos da forma como ensinamos as línguas como das coisas com que as pessoas se preocupam quando aprendem línguas. There’s too much emphasis on active vocabulary. Dá-se demasiada importância ao vocabulário ativo.

It’s this old question of developing an ability to speak or, rather, focusing on building up your understanding of the language. É a velha questão de desenvolver a capacidade de falar ou, pelo contrário, de se concentrar na compreensão da língua. It is impossible to be fluent if you can’t understand. It is impossible to claim that you are at some level. É impossível afirmar que se está num determinado nível. They have all these numbers B-1, B-2, C-1. Têm todos estes números B-1, B-2, C-1. Whatever you claim, you can’t claim that you speak at that level if you don’t understand at a much higher level because the native speaker with whom you’re going to speak is always going to have a bigger vocabulary than you do. You have to understand what that person is saying. É preciso compreender o que a pessoa está a dizer. What’s more, in any language, even our own, we usually spend more time listening than we do speaking. Além disso, em qualquer língua, mesmo na nossa, normalmente passamos mais tempo a ouvir do que a falar. You’ve got to understand what people are saying around you. Temos de perceber o que as pessoas dizem à nossa volta. What do they do in classrooms? O que é que eles fazem nas salas de aula?

They try to force people to speak correctly. Tentam obrigar as pessoas a falar corretamente. I read something recently about how anything that we cram will only stay in our short-term memory. لقد قرأت مؤخرًا شيئًا عن كيف أن أي شيء نحشوه سيبقى في ذاكرتنا قصيرة المدى فقط. Czytałem ostatnio coś o tym, że wszystko, co wkuwamy, pozostaje tylko w naszej pamięci krótkotrwałej. Li recentemente qualquer coisa sobre o facto de que tudo o que acumulamos só fica na nossa memória a curto prazo. Anything that we learn against the grain is only going to stay in our short-term memory. أي شيء نتعلمه ضد التيار سيبقى في ذاكرتنا قصيرة المدى. Tudo o que aprendemos a contragosto só vai ficar na nossa memória de curto prazo. Things that we acquire through regular and enjoyable repetition is going to stay with us and that is why a language-learning method that is based on lots of listening and reading – I know I’m a bit repetitious on this – is going to stay with you. As coisas que adquirimos através da repetição regular e agradável vão ficar connosco e é por isso que um método de aprendizagem de línguas que se baseia em muita audição e leitura - eu sei que estou a ser um pouco repetitivo nisto - vai ficar consigo. You’re going to be able to revive and refresh those languages easily as I have done with my Italian, which I haven’t touched for the longest time. Poderá reavivar e atualizar essas línguas facilmente, como fiz com o meu italiano, que não toco há muito tempo. Then a couple of weeks of listening and reading, talking a little bit with our tutors at LingQ and it comes back stronger than ever before. Depois de algumas semanas a ouvir e a ler, a falar um pouco com os nossos tutores no LingQ, a língua volta mais forte do que nunca. It’s in there soundly because it’s built up based on this very large passive vocabulary. Está lá bem porque é construído com base neste vocabulário passivo muito vasto. There was a talk at TED that showed up on my YouTube channel, you know how they recommend things for you to watch. Houve uma palestra no TED que apareceu no meu canal do YouTube, sabe como é que eles recomendam coisas para ver.

Maybe I’ll put a link here, but there was this linguistics person saying things which I considered simply to be untrue. ربما سأضع رابطًا هنا، ولكن كان هناك عالم لغويات يقول أشياء اعتبرتها ببساطة غير صحيحة. Talvez eu coloque um link aqui, mas havia uma pessoa da linguística que dizia coisas que eu considerava simplesmente falsas. He said the biggest obstacle people have in language learning is their fear of not being able to speak and the way around that is you don’t need so many words, you just need a few key words and then you can speak. Ele disse que o maior obstáculo que as pessoas têm na aprendizagem de línguas é o medo de não serem capazes de falar e que a forma de contornar isso é não precisar de tantas palavras, só precisa de algumas palavras-chave e depois pode falar. But you won’t understand anything, that’s an even worse situation. Mas não entenderá nada, o que é uma situação ainda pior. To me, the biggest fear I have is not understanding what people are saying to me. I mean there’s no question that when you speak you are going to struggle, stumble. أعني أنه ليس هناك شك في أنه عندما تتحدث فإنك سوف تكافح وتتعثر. Não há dúvida de que, quando falamos, vamos ter dificuldades, tropeçar.

It’s embarrassing. É embaraçoso. You can’t say what you want. Não se pode dizer o que se quer. All of those things for sure, but if you at least understand what the person is saying, if you have a large passive vocabulary, you’re going to do better. Tudo isso, sem dúvida, mas se pelo menos entender o que a pessoa está a dizer, se tiver um grande vocabulário passivo, vai sair-se melhor. You’re going to understand better and now you have some time with less pressure to try and use, try to activate, some of your passive vocabulary and the passive vocabulary does get activated as long as you speak. Vai compreender melhor e agora tem algum tempo com menos pressão para tentar usar, tentar ativar, algum do seu vocabulário passivo e o vocabulário passivo é ativado enquanto fala. At some point you have to speak. A dada altura, há que falar. However, it is amazing how much you can learn just through a very consistent program of listening and reading. Someone asked as well here, do I listen repeatedly or repetitively to the same material or do I read or listen more extensively in order to acquire a large vocabulary? Alguém perguntou também aqui: ouço repetidamente ou repetidamente o mesmo material ou leio ou ouço mais extensivamente para adquirir um grande vocabulário?

Well, initially, in order to become familiar with the language you have to listen to the same limited material over and over because you can’t even, at first, tell where one word begins and the next word ends. Bem, inicialmente, para nos familiarizarmos com a língua, temos de ouvir o mesmo material limitado vezes sem conta porque, no início, nem sequer conseguimos saber onde começa uma palavra e acaba a seguinte. You have to get your brain used to the language, but within a month or two I move on to extensive because I want to cover lots of vocabulary with a system like LingQ. É preciso habituar o cérebro à língua, mas, no espaço de um mês ou dois, passo para o sistema extensivo, porque quero abranger muito vocabulário com um sistema como o LingQ. I hate to always refer to LingQ, but it’s possible to deal with text that has 30-40% unknown words, so I very definitely move in to a more extensive pattern of listening and reading with the goal of building up my passive vocabulary. Detesto estar sempre a referir-me ao LingQ, mas é possível lidar com textos que têm 30-40% de palavras desconhecidas, por isso, passo definitivamente para um padrão mais extenso de audição e leitura com o objetivo de construir o meu vocabulário passivo.

That’s why at LingQ the number one metric, the easiest thing to measure, is the passive vocabulary. لهذا السبب فإن المقياس الأول في LingQ، وأسهل شيء يمكن قياسه، هو المفردات السلبية. É por isso que no LingQ a métrica número um, a coisa mais fácil de medir, é o vocabulário passivo. How many words can you more or less recognize when you see them or hear them in a given context, even helped by the context? Quantas palavras consegue reconhecer mais ou menos quando as vê ou ouve num determinado contexto, mesmo com a ajuda do contexto? It doesn’t matter because all these words you’re going to see again and again. Não importa, porque todas estas palavras vão ser repetidas vezes. If they matter to you, if they’re important, they’ll come up again and again. Se são importantes para si, se são importantes, vão aparecer repetidamente. If you are listening and reading in an extensive way they’ll keep coming up. Se estiver a ouvir e a ler de uma forma extensiva, eles continuarão a aparecer. You’ll see them in different contexts and you’ll gradually get a better sense of what they mean. Verá os nomes em diferentes contextos e, a pouco e pouco, ficará a perceber melhor o seu significado. You don’t have to nail it down the first time you come up against it. Não é preciso acertar na primeira vez que se depara com ela.

When you are ready to speak and when you speak more and more these words will activate naturally as you speak. Quando estiveres pronto para falar e quando falares cada vez mais, estas palavras serão activadas naturalmente à medida que falas. I will do a separate video on the kinds of things you can do to help activate your passive vocabulary to help yourself prepare for speaking. Farei um vídeo separado sobre o tipo de coisas que pode fazer para ajudar a ativar o seu vocabulário passivo, para se preparar para falar. The idea that as you start into a language you’re going to try to speak the language to me is simply nonsense from a language-learning efficiency point of view. A ideia de que, quando se começa a aprender uma língua, se vai tentar falar a língua comigo é simplesmente absurda do ponto de vista da eficiência da aprendizagem de línguas. It may be what people want to do, I have no doubt about that, but most people are quite unsuccessful at language learning. Pode ser o que as pessoas querem fazer, não tenho dúvidas disso, mas a maioria das pessoas não tem sucesso na aprendizagem de línguas. When you, basically, don’t understand what the person is saying you aren’t going to have a very meaningful conversation. Quando, basicamente, não se compreende o que a pessoa está a dizer, não se vai ter uma conversa muito significativa. If we look at motivation in language learning, I grant you that people are motivated differently. إذا نظرنا إلى الدافع في تعلم اللغة، فأنا أضمن لك أن الناس لديهم دوافع مختلفة. Se olharmos para a motivação na aprendizagem de línguas, admito que as pessoas têm motivações diferentes.

Some people simply have the motivation to be able to say hello and give the impression that they speak the language, in which case to focus on a few key sentences and phrases to be able to trot them out is probably quite useful. لدى بعض الأشخاص ببساطة الدافع ليكونوا قادرين على إلقاء التحية وإعطاء الانطباع بأنهم يتحدثون اللغة، وفي هذه الحالة قد يكون التركيز على بعض الجمل والعبارات الرئيسية لتكون قادرًا على نطقها مفيدًا جدًا. Algumas pessoas têm simplesmente a motivação de poder dizer olá e dar a impressão de que falam a língua, caso em que concentrar-se nalgumas frases e expressões-chave para as poder dizer é provavelmente bastante útil. However, if the goal is to be able to participate comfortably in conversations or if you’re in the workplace, again, you have to understand what people are saying. ومع ذلك، إذا كان الهدف هو أن تكون قادرًا على المشاركة بشكل مريح في المحادثات أو إذا كنت في مكان العمل، فيجب عليك مرة أخرى أن تفهم ما يقوله الناس. No entanto, se o objetivo é poder participar confortavelmente em conversas ou se estiver no local de trabalho, mais uma vez, tem de compreender o que as pessoas estão a dizer. If the goal is to gain that kind of comprehension then you have to focus on your passive vocabulary. Jeśli celem jest uzyskanie tego rodzaju zrozumienia, musisz skupić się na słownictwie pasywnym. Se o objetivo é obter esse tipo de compreensão, então tem de se concentrar no seu vocabulário passivo. Now, I’m not saying you have to know every word in the dictionary, but you need a substantial vocabulary and it doesn’t matter whether you only count words as word families or whether you count every occurrence of the word the way we do at LingQ. الآن، أنا لا أقول أنه يجب عليك معرفة كل كلمة في القاموس، ولكنك تحتاج إلى مفردات كبيرة ولا يهم ما إذا كنت تحسب الكلمات فقط كعائلات كلمات أو ما إذا كنت تحسب كل تكرار للكلمة بالطريقة التي نتبعها. في LingQ. Não estou a dizer que tem de conhecer todas as palavras do dicionário, mas precisa de um vocabulário substancial e não importa se conta apenas as palavras como famílias de palavras ou se conta todas as ocorrências da palavra como fazemos no LingQ.

It doesn’t matter. Não importa. It’s arbitrary. إنه تعسفي. É arbitrário. Pursuing this passive vocabulary, I compare it to the mechanical rabbit that the dogs chase in dog races. في متابعة هذه المفردات السلبية، أقارنها بالأرنب الميكانيكي الذي تطارده الكلاب في سباقات الكلاب. Prosseguindo com este vocabulário passivo, comparo-o ao coelho mecânico que os cães perseguem nas corridas de cães. It’s something that you pursue in order to build up that familiarity with the language, to expose yourself to the language to build up your passive vocabulary. É algo que se persegue para construir essa familiaridade com a língua, para nos expormos à língua e para construirmos o nosso vocabulário passivo. You know I saw a video on how to motivate people because, obviously, motivation in language learning is extremely important. Vi um vídeo sobre como motivar as pessoas porque, obviamente, a motivação na aprendizagem de línguas é extremamente importante.

There was a study done that showed that insofar as motivating people to do tasks, for very simple basic tasks the more money you give them, the more motivated they will be to do it. Foi efectuado um estudo que demonstrou que, no que diz respeito à motivação das pessoas para realizar tarefas, para tarefas básicas muito simples, quanto mais dinheiro lhes dermos, mais motivadas estarão para as realizar. Move this pile of stones over there as quickly as you can and the fastest person will get the most money. Move esta pilha de pedras para ali o mais rapidamente possível e a pessoa mais rápida receberá mais dinheiro. Then that will work. Então, isso funcionará. However, if you’re dealing with more challenging tasks that involve concepts and thinking and creativity and so forth, the researched showed that giving more money, in fact, is counterproductive. ومع ذلك، إذا كنت تتعامل مع مهام أكثر تحديًا تتضمن المفاهيم والتفكير والإبداع وما إلى ذلك، فقد أظهر البحث أن إعطاء المزيد من المال، في الواقع، يؤدي إلى نتائج عكسية. No entanto, quando se trata de tarefas mais exigentes, que envolvem conceitos, pensamento e criatividade, etc., os estudos demonstraram que dar mais dinheiro é, de facto, contraproducente. There are three things that people are looking for in these kinds of challenging tasks and I would include language learning amongst them.

Number one is independence in the workplace. People want to have the feeling that they control their workplace and that they do things they want to do, number one. Number two is what’s called mastery, the sense that the challenge is something you can cope with it’s just a little bit difficult for you, that as you’re doing it you’re developing new skills. الرقم الثاني هو ما يسمى بالإتقان، بمعنى أن التحدي هو شيء يمكنك التعامل معه ولكنه صعب بعض الشيء بالنسبة لك، وأنك أثناء قيامك بذلك تقوم بتطوير مهارات جديدة. You’re becoming more powerful in terms of your abilities. You’re achieving this mastery over a set of skills, a task and so forth. So the first one was independence, the second one was mastery and the third one was purpose.

People like to do jobs they think are meaningful that serve a useful purpose. So if you can give an employee the sense that they are independent, that they can achieve mastery over the requirements of the job and that the job that they’re doing is important and useful, then that person will perform better than someone who you just simply reward with money. Now, how does this relate back to language learning?

Typically, people say well you have to learn English because you need it for your job. That’s a bit like giving them money. On the other hand, if you can devise a language-learning approach that allows you to learn from things that are of interest to you. So you’re not forced to study a specific curriculum. You’re not forced to learn parts of speech in the order that the teachers choose to give them to you. I, personally, don’t like that approach.

I like to pursue the language on my own. I learn those aspects of grammar that interest me when they interest me, when I come across them, when I have questions about them. I study things that are of interest to me, so I have that sense of independence in my language learning. The second thing is mastery.

If at a very early stage you are confronted with the task of getting your conjugations right, getting your declensions right and trying to find words and not understanding what the person is saying, all of this is frustrating, unless you’re in a situation where you don’t have that independence and the teacher is just drilling you and you’re just a robot responding to these prompts. إذا واجهت في مرحلة مبكرة جدًا مهمة تصحيح تصريفاتك، وتصحيح تصريفاتك، ومحاولة العثور على كلمات وعدم فهم ما يقوله الشخص، فكل هذا محبط، إلا إذا كنت في موقف حيث ليس لديك هذا الاستقلال والمعلم يقوم فقط بتدريبك وأنت مجرد روبوت يستجيب لهذه المطالبات. But if you want to be independent and then you want to achieve that sense of mastery, it is easier, in fact, to achieve that sense of mastery by doing a lot of listening and reading and watching your comprehension grow. You’re never confronted with frustration. أنت لا تواجه الإحباط أبدا.

It’s a little bit foggy at first then, gradually, following things that you have selected that are of interest to you it becomes clearer and you have that sense of achieving a higher and higher degree of comprehension, which is tremendously satisfying. And for most people, who don’t live where the language is spoken, it’s also quite easy to arrange. The third issue is purpose.

Obviously, you have to want to learn that language. If you are not interested in learning the language, again, you won’t have that sense of purpose. But if you are interested in learning the language for whatever reason, which could include for your job, but might be because of a partner, wife, husband, friend, interest in literature, culture, history, whatever it might be. So if you have that purpose, if you have an independent approach to your learning and if you have a sense that you are gradually increasing your mastery, these three things are going to keep you motivated. So those three elements, I guess for the person who is largely motivated to get into that active vocabulary early, could also apply.

I just feel in my experience that you will never be in a situation where your active vocabulary exceeds your passive vocabulary. You will always be in a position where your passive vocabulary exceeds your active vocabulary. Now, there could be situations where you have this passive vocabulary. It’s so passive and your listening skills are so poor that you don’t understand it when someone uses the word in speech; although, you may be able to understand that if you read it. I mean there are people who read very well and can’t speak, but people who understand very well and not just vaguely what it’s all about, but who genuinely understand clearly what’s being said when the language is spoken, people who understand that well and who have that kind of a passive grasp on the language are going to speak well. أعني أن هناك أشخاصًا يقرؤون جيدًا ولا يستطيعون التحدث، لكن أشخاصًا يفهمون جيدًا وليس فقط بشكل غامض ما يدور حوله الأمر كله، ولكنهم يفهمون حقًا بوضوح ما يقال عندما يتم التحدث باللغة، أشخاص يفهمون ذلك جيدًا ويفهمون ذلك جيدًا. أولئك الذين لديهم هذا النوع من الفهم السلبي للغة سوف يتحدثون جيدًا.

If they don’t speak well yet it’s because they haven’t spoken enough. But if they decide to go and speak with that kind of a grasp of the language based on passive vocabulary, they will very quickly become good active users of the language. So, a bit of a long rant here on this whole issue of active and passive vocabulary.

Thank you for listening, bye for now.