#300 Steve and Alex - Passive vs. Active Vocabulary (Part 2) #300 Steve und Alex - Passiver und aktiver Wortschatz (Teil 2) #300 Steve and Alex - Passive vs. Active Vocabulary (Part 2) #300 Steve y Alex - Vocabulario pasivo frente a activo (2ª parte) #300 スティーブとアレックス - 受動態と能動態の語彙（パート2） #300번 스티브와 알렉스 - 수동형 어휘와 능동형 어휘 (2부) #300 Steve e Alex - Vocabulário passivo vs. activo (Parte 2) #300 Steve och Alex - Passiv vs. aktiv vokabulär (del 2) #300 Steve 和 Alex - 被动词汇与主动词汇（第 2 部分） #300 Steve 和 Alex - 被動詞彙與主動詞彙（第 2 部分）

Alex:    You and I both have taken those English vocabulary tests or whatever.

Steve:    Oh, yeah, yeah.

Alex:    And there are words on there that you recognize that you’ve probably never spoken before.

Steve:    Right.

Alex:    You see it in a book or whatever, but it’s not something you would just bring up in a conversation with someone, right?

Steve:    Right.

And I don’t know how accurate that test was either, because they had some strange words there. For example, there was a word from rugby - ruck - if I remember correctly. Er was bijvoorbeeld een woord uit rugby - ruck - als ik het me goed herinner. Mark has played rugby; he knows what it is. I haven’t played rugby; I don’t know what it is.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    I don’t know. From that small sample they deduce that you have a vocabulary of 22,000. Aus dieser kleinen Stichprobe wird abgeleitet, dass Sie einen Wortschatz von 22.000 Wörtern haben. Из этой небольшой выборки они делают вывод, что ваш словарный запас составляет 22 000 слов. I don’t know how accurate it is. Ich weiß nicht, wie genau das ist.

Alex:    But even then it’s the thing of where do you draw the line, right? Alex: Aber selbst dann ist es die Frage, wo man die Grenze zieht, oder? So you’re taking that test and you’ve seen this word, the word ‘gregarious', and you’ve seen it 50 times and you’ve heard it, but you don’t really say it very much, perhaps. Steve:    No. You know what it means, but you’re unlikely to use it.

Alex:    Exactly, and that’s a word you would know.

Steve:    Because you would almost feel that it’s a bit pretentious to use that word. Steve: Weil man fast das Gefühl hat, dass es ein bisschen prätentiös ist, dieses Wort zu benutzen.

Alex:    Yeah, exactly.

Steve:    Yeah.

Alex:    But you still know the word, right?

Steve:    You might use it in writing. You might use it in writing, but you would consider it a bit pretentious. Вы можете использовать его в письменной форме, но вы сочтете это несколько претенциозным. The other question that comes up is okay, well you’re talking about numbers of words that you know. Die andere Frage, die sich stellt, ist: Okay, du sprichst von der Anzahl der Wörter, die du kennst. Should you base this on what they call ‘word families' or should it be based on sort of every single occurrence of the word? Должны ли вы основывать это на том, что они называют «семействами слов», или это должно быть основано на каждом отдельном вхождении слова? Of course, it has all kinds of implications because there are languages where the noun has six or seven different forms. In English we basically just have singular and plural. In fact, if you consider singular and plural in Czech, there’s 14 forms for each noun, so it’s going to be a lot more words. Wenn man Singular und Plural im Tschechischen berücksichtigt, gibt es sogar 14 Formen für jedes Substantiv, es werden also viel mehr Wörter.

The other thing though is so you say okay, we’ll go for word families, but where do you draw the line? I know that certain forms of the word are more difficult to remember. Ich weiß, dass bestimmte Formen des Wortes schwieriger zu merken sind. Like a lot of people have trouble with a third person singular in the present tense in English, you know? ‘I go, you go, he goes', not very difficult. There’s only one of them that changes.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    How many people do you know, non-native speakers, who say ‘he go'? And I find in Spanish the third person of the past tense is difficult to remember. It’s just difficult to remember. So, to some extent, the different forms of the words are different. In gewisser Weise sind die verschiedenen Formen der Wörter also unterschiedlich.

Alex:    And so then claiming that you know the word. Alex: Und dann behauptest du, dass du das Wort kennst.

Steve:    Yeah.

Alex:    So claiming you know the word, I mean what if you don’t know all the different forms.

Steve:    That form. Steve: Dieses Formular.

Alex:    That’s the thing too, right?

Steve:    Well, yeah, but in Korean the different forms of the words actually imply…

Alex:    Well, Korean is a bit different because Korean is the word plus a grammar particle.

Steve:    Right.

Alex:    So you can have countless nouns.

Steve:    But, therefore, you have to count all of those.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    Although, the grammar particles repeat.

Alex:    Yes, exactly. So, in fact, it’s a bit trickier to count.

Steve:    Right.

Alex:    But that’s the same problem of even stepping back from that and saying well, how do you really say you know a word. Alex: Aber das ist das gleiche Problem, wenn man sich davon distanziert und sagt, wie kann man wirklich sagen, dass man ein Wort kennt.

Steve:    Right.

Alex:    I think for everyone that’s a different definition.

Steve:    Right.

Alex:    But having a definition that’s so severe as saying you have to be able, as this guy said, to produce it at-will, even in your own native language there are thousands of words you can’t do that with. Alex: Aber wenn man eine so strenge Definition hat, die besagt, dass man in der Lage sein muss, es nach Belieben zu produzieren, dann gibt es selbst in der eigenen Muttersprache Tausende von Wörtern, mit denen man das nicht kann.

Steve:    And getting back to this discussion about word families. If you take the case of English again -- I’m just thinking quickly of an example -- you’ve got ‘act', ‘active', ‘react'. Alex:    ‘Action.' Steve:    ‘Action', ‘actually', ‘activity'. Now, is that one word family? ‘Acting'… Alex:    Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Steve:    I mean ‘acting' is a form of ‘act', but it’s also another word. So I think it becomes, therefore, quite arbitrary. So I just say, because at LingQ it’s easier to count them as individual words, it’s just the easiest way for us to do it, but it has some validity. Ich sage nur, weil es bei LingQ einfacher ist, sie als einzelne Wörter zu zählen, es ist einfach die einfachste Art für uns, es zu tun, aber es hat eine gewisse Gültigkeit. It’s an indication of your progress, for what it’s worth. It’s nothing you can go brag about.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    It’s there, yeah.

Alex:    But that’s the case for all of these. Alex: Aber das ist doch bei allen der Fall. I mean every word is at a different stage on the known or cloudy or foggy level. Ich meine, jedes Wort befindet sich in einem anderen Stadium des Bekannten oder in einem wolkigen oder nebligen Stadium.

Steve:    Well, that’s right.

Alex:    I mean even words that you’ve seen a lot, there’s still that subtlety that takes years and years of experience to really like nail that down. Alex: Ich meine, selbst bei Wörtern, die man schon oft gesehen hat, gibt es immer noch diese Feinheiten, für die man jahrelange Erfahrung braucht, um sie wirklich zu erkennen.

Steve:    Plus, different people have different words that they like to use. That’s another reason why I always think that your passive vocabulary has to be much bigger than your active vocabulary because you have to understand what everybody else says. Different writers have their favorite vocabulary.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    I have to be able to read, whatever it is, Dan Brown. Steve: Ich muss in der Lage sein, Dan Brown zu lesen, was auch immer es ist. Isn’t that the guy who wrote… What was that book about… Ist das nicht der Typ, der... Wie hieß das Buch noch gleich...

Alex:    The Da Vinci Code?

Steve:    The Da Vinci Code, yeah, yeah. So all these authors, they have their favorite vocabulary, different from mine. So you can’t have a one-to-one relationship to your passive vocabulary because you’re going to use the words that you’re used to using, but you have to be able to understand everyone else and the words that they like to use, whether in talking to them or listening to the radio or reading a book. Sie können also keine Eins-zu-eins-Beziehung zu Ihrem passiven Wortschatz haben, weil Sie die Wörter verwenden werden, die Sie gewohnt sind, aber Sie müssen in der Lage sein, alle anderen und die Wörter zu verstehen, die sie gerne verwenden, sei es im Gespräch mit ihnen oder beim Radiohören oder beim Lesen eines Buches.

So, yeah, I think people tend to scorn passive vocabulary. Also, ja, ich glaube, die Leute neigen dazu, passives Vokabular zu verachten. ‘Well, that’s just passive vocabulary.' Passive vocabulary is big, in my opinion.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    And maybe in teaching languages they should put the emphasis more on passive vocabulary and, certainly, that’s how I learn languages. Steve: Und vielleicht sollte man im Sprachunterricht den Schwerpunkt mehr auf den passiven Wortschatz legen, so lerne ich jedenfalls Sprachen. I want to go in there and just acquire as much passive vocabulary as I can and I know eventually some of it will become active. That’s my number one goal. Then I go in later and I worry about grammar and pronunciation and stuff like that, but the first thing I want to do is really just become a glutton for passive vocabulary. I think it’s a very positive thing, passive vocabulary, and we forget it. Ich denke, es ist eine sehr positive Sache, passives Vokabular, und wir vergessen es.

Again, the number of people on my YouTube channel said “Steve thanks, because I was really getting discouraged that I keep on forgetting and stuff.” Yeah, we forget and we ya, ya, ya, forget.

Alex:    It’s funny, just a brief example too. Alex: Das ist lustig, auch nur ein kurzes Beispiel. I was going through some of my videos on my computer just trying to clear up some extra space and I saw a video that I recorded of myself two and a half years ago, actually.

Steve:    In Korean.

Alex:    And it was in Korean, yeah.

Steve:    Yeah.

Alex:    And I used a word in that brief presentation that I actually forgot that I even knew.

Steve:    Yeah.

Alex:    I forgot the word and as soon as I heard it I’m like oh, yeah, I remember that word, but I hadn’t used it in like two years. Alex: Ich hatte das Wort vergessen, und als ich es hörte, dachte ich: Oh ja, ich erinnere mich an das Wort, aber ich hatte es seit zwei Jahren nicht mehr benutzt.

Steve:    And the other strange this is… Well, I have experienced this. Steve: Und das andere Seltsame ist... Nun, ich habe diese Erfahrung gemacht. I don’t know if you have. Ich weiß nicht, ob Sie das haben. Over the two years, of course, your Korean has improved. You know many more words. You can read stuff more easily. You can understand people more easily and, yet, there will be some words that you knew two years ago, very simple words that you’ll forget now.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    You won’t be able to find them when you need them.

Alex:    Yeah.

Oh, and that’s totally it. Oh, und das war's auch schon. As soon as I heard the word, I was like oh… I remembered knowing that word, but that was nowhere within the grasp of... Sobald ich das Wort hörte, dachte ich: Oh... Ich erinnerte mich daran, dass ich dieses Wort kannte, aber das war nicht in Reichweite von...

Steve:    But even very simple basic words you’re going to forget, which you don’t do in your own language, but you do in other languages. Steve: Aber selbst ganz einfache Grundwörter vergisst man, was man in seiner eigenen Sprache nicht tut, aber in anderen Sprachen schon.

Alex:    Yeah.

Well, you do, I think even in your own language.

Steve:    Yeah.

Alex:    Say if you spend a lot of time in a foreign country and working in a different language, then it’s possible to kind of stumble with that for the first little bit as you get caught up again, right? Alex: Wenn man zum Beispiel viel Zeit in einem fremden Land verbringt und in einer anderen Sprache arbeitet, dann kann es sein, dass man in der ersten Zeit ein bisschen stolpert, wenn man sich wieder einarbeitet, oder?

Steve:    Exactly.

So, I mean to me the message is always to not get frustrated. We have a tremendous ability to learn, but we have a tremendous ability to forget. Wir haben eine enorme Fähigkeit zu lernen, aber auch eine enorme Fähigkeit zu vergessen.

Alex:    Yeah.

Steve:    But I don’t think we ever completely lose it. Steve: Aber ich glaube nicht, dass wir sie jemals ganz verlieren werden. So we’re rusty when we start up again and then as we stay with it then we’re able to recoup very well. Wir sind also eingerostet, wenn wir wieder anfangen, und wenn wir dann dabei bleiben, können wir uns sehr gut erholen.

Alex:    Yeah, exactly.

Steve:    Anyway, that was a bit of a discussion on vocabulary, passive and active vocabulary and what it all means. I hope people found it interesting and please send in your comments.

Alex:    Yeah.

I mean it would be interesting to hear you guys' experiences as well. Steve:    Exactly.

Alex:    Let us know. Alex: Sag uns Bescheid.

Steve:    Okay, bye.

Alex:    Thanks for listening, bye.

Steve:    Thank you. Bye for now.