One of the hardest things about learning a foreign language is to get to the point where you know enough words to be able to decipher texts and speech, and to express your own thoughts.
So naturally, when we’re just starting out, we do lots and lots of vocabulary study.
Preparing flashcards, writing lists of words with translations, checking meanings in the dictionary, memorizing.
Repeating, repeating, repeating.
Typical beginner behavior. This sort of stuff is necessary at first, and feels terribly useful.
Plus, given that you can hardly understand anything anyway, you don’t have many other learning options.
But that phase soon passes.
You won’t stay a beginner for ever.
One day, you’ll get to the point where spending time learning new words offers what economists call ‘diminishing returns’.
The more time you spend finding out the meanings of the words you don’t know, the less overall value you get.
You may have already got there.
Not all words are equal
Some words you really must know: numbers, basic verbs, common nouns, adjectives and adverbs. Words for jobs, animals, and countries. How to ask for a beer.
But there’s an awful lot of vocabulary in any language that you could easily live without.
And that you SHOULD live without, at least at first.
For example, if you were studying English, you’d probably want to know the difference between ‘look’, ‘watch’ and ‘see’, right?
You wouldn’t get very far without those.
But what about the myriad verbs which all basically mean ‘look’?
‘Glance’, ‘glimpse’, ‘stare’, ‘gaze’, ‘observe’…
Plus verbs for the other things you DO with your eyes: ‘blink’, ‘wink’, ‘weep’ and so on.
And TO your eyes: ‘wipe’, ‘rub’.
And the actual PARTS of eyes: ‘lash’, ‘lid’, ‘brow’, .
All of these words I have taught (to paying clients) many, many times. And I can tell you for a fact, such vocabulary is the desperate last resort of a teacher who doesn’t know his/her job properly.
A waste of their time and money. (Sorry guys!)
Most languages have hundreds of thousands of words. Some have millions, many of which even native-speakers will never write or say in their lives.
And if you’re honest, you’ll admit that once in a while you even come across a word in your own language that you recognize but would be hard-pressed to accurately define.
I don’t believe there is anyone alive who knows every word in their own language.
And I don’t believe that a ‘normal’ person needs more than a few thousand key words to reach their initial foreign language learning objectives.
So why try?
Beyond a certain point you may find yourself committing to memory words that you will never, ever use (unless you’re a pretentious git), and will rarely hear.
In short, you’ll be wasting your time.
Don’t you have anything better to do?
Another useful term from economics is ‘opportunity cost’.
Learning ten (useless) new words might take you, say, thirty minutes.
Well, you HAVE thirty minutes, so what’s the problem?
You may as well learn as many words as you can, right?
Wrong.
The cost of learning each of those ten words was three minutes of your life.
The ‘opportunity cost’ represents what you could have been doing to improve your Italian in each of those 3 minute slots.
Reading an Italian newspaper, working on improving your listening, carrying on a love affair with a native-speaker who doesn’t know your language.
Something useful and fun.
Sure, take a course. Study. I’m not saying don’t do that.
But, when you’re watching an Italian film, or reading a newspaper article or a novel in Italian, and you come across words you don’t know, what you should do is…
just ignore them, and keep doing the fun stuff.
But I won’t understand!
Here’s a short extract from a novel I haven’t written yet, but which I hope will earn me more than teaching foreign languages does.
It’s approximately 60 words long, but 10% of those words are missing.
Take a look. Read it all through.
Giulia XXXXX at Paolo. He a was tall, handsome man, with a beard. And no ring on his finger.
Paolo knew she was XXXXX at him. He XXXXX nervously. Had he done something wrong?
He hoped she wasn’t angry with him. Paolo liked Giulia a lot. Embarrassed, he XXXXX his eyes.
“He doesn’t like me” XXXXX Giulia. She XXXXX down too.
The moment had passed.
Sweet, huh?
So, how much of a problem were the missing words?
If they were, even a little, little, little bit of a problem….
then you have a learning strategy issue that you need to work on.
You have a brain, don’t you?
They’re standard issue, like underwear.
And like underwear they’re on for most of your waking hours, and do a lot of their best work without you noticing.
You read, you listen, and all the while your squishy gray pal is doing the hard stuff in the back room.
Suppose you buy my future novel and come across this:
“He doesn’t like me” XXXXX Giulia.
and this:
“But, oh, he’s such a dish!” Giulia XXXXX.
and this:
Giulia XXXXX Paolo must love someone else. Most men didn’t react like that around her.
Your back room linguistic expert is busy connecting up the dots and comes up with a working hypothesis, which would look something like:
XXXXX = “think/thought”.
Good enough to be going on with, and nothing that brain would need to worry you about. Just routine stuff.
The working hypothesis will get filed away until it’s encountered again, at which point it’ll be taken out, dusted off, and tweaked a bit.
Until one day, no significant doubt remains. The word has been ‘learnt’.
Garbage in, garbage out
Italians complain that they only English they ever learnt at school was “The pen is on the table”.
I’ve heard that SO many times.
But every now and again, I meet someone here who can actually speak and understand English well.
They tell me things like:
“I read all of the Harry Potter novels in English when I was a kid”
or
“I have all the series of Friends on DVD and watch them in English”
The lesson?
After you’ve got the basics down, you actually have to USE the language to develop the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
It’s not just a case of ‘learning’ the grammar and as many words as you have time for, then opening your mouth and, magic, out comes perfect Italian.
No, you’re going to need to get out there and DO the language.
As soon as possible.
As much as possible.
And anxiety about unknown words is more likely to hinder you than to help.
So get over it.
Just ignore the words you don’t know.
Turn the page, change the subject.
Keep getting your brain the good-quality input that it needs to do its job of gradually putting the pieces together.
In time, you WILL begin to read like you do in your own language.
And one day you WILL be able to participate in conversations in Italian without being a liability.
I promise.
This really works.
P.S. I love it when people tell me I’m wrong… Leave a comment on this article.
LV says
Fantastic article. I really like your approach here talking in terms of opportunity cost. I know when I first started learning a foreign language, I was swimming in anxiety about not knowing every single little word I was trying to understand, and wasted a lot of time on words that were practically useless in everyday speech just because I heard them once or twice. Couldn’t tell you what they are now.
Italian is my fourth foreign language I’m learning, and I realize that I haven’t done much in terms of flashcards/memorizing, but relying more on conversations and movies, and it’s so much easier to understand because, as you said, my brain is filling in a lot of blanks as I go.
So I totally can vouch for what you say here! 😀
Keep the awesome advice coming, and good luck with your French!
-LV in Livorno
Daniel says
Thank you, LV.
Interesting you say that Italian is your fourth foreign language, and that you’re taking a similar approach.
I’m finding the French way, way easier now I know Italian (and know how to learn).
Certainly, the more languages you study, the easier it gets!
What are your other languages??
Daniel
LV says
It definitely gets easier as your brain adapts to different learning strategies and you get familiar with the different “phases” of comprehension.
I was fluent(ish) for a while in Japanese, still pretty good at Chinese, and studied Korean for a bit as well. Needless to say, those languages don’t do much in helping my understanding of Italian, but at least knowing a lot of latin roots from English helps me guess at a lot of words.
Cheers,
LV
Daniel says
Yes, I’d imagine the similarity between Korean and English wasn’t a big help…
Lee says
Bravo Daniel. It has taken me many years to understand this. However, at times I can’t help myself. It ca be an uncontrollable urge. And then I have missed the rest of what someone was saying. Shame on me. Lee
Daniel says
I found my innate lazy streak to be a big help, at least with THAT sort of uncontrollable urge…
Joan Leotta says
Hai ragione
Daniel says
Shame… I’ll have to think of something more controversial to write next time.
Katy Wheeler says
Hi Daniel
Sorry to disappoint you but you are not wrong here! Such an interesting and useful, practical article, all of which I can identify with both now while learning Italian and when I was learning (and still learning) French. The underlying text is that we should *relax* and not get caught up in the tiny details – something I am not so good at, generally speaking, so perhaps this should be a recipe for life in general too!
Katy
Daniel says
Ah, now that would be another website, Katy. Here I make no pretence at providing advice about life in general…
John Thomson says
Point well made Daniel BUT
I reckon I am level A2 and when I try reading say a newspaper article or a film review I find it difficult to get the gist of it
Why don’t you select an article of a decent length ,post it then interested members could read it, then without using a dictionary translate it and post what they come up with they think it means
just a thought
John
Nina Rault says
Just one little question : I think you’re English, so is there any reason you always use American spelling? Is it a deliberate choice or does your computer “correct” you?
Daniel says
Good question, Nina. And well spotted!
Yes, I’m British, but long term resident in Italy.
This site’s visitors come from all over: South America (Brazil, Argentina, etc.), North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
When I write in English, I try to aim for the typical reader.
For other websites, I also write in Italian. It’s a lot harder.
Either way, though, it’s about communication, and not putting obstacles (different spelling, grammar, cultural knowledge) in people’s way.
My aim, is to help people learn languages… So I adapt the way I write accordingly.
(This comment: standard British English)
July Rice says
Reading an Italian newspaper at my A2 level is frustrating and anger making. There are just too many words to guess at. Also, the writers often use flowery language – $10 words instead of $5 words. So, I’ve given up on that one as an aid to learning. (Trashy, gossipy Italian magazines are a bit easier to understand, but not not much.)
I too have got masses of bits of paper with vocabulary lists, which I never look at again once they have been written. Waste of effort, I agree.
Oh, Daniel, not wanting to discourage a budding author, but judging from your novel excerpt, I would advise you not to give up your day job! (Of course, this is a joke, as I think was yours. If you were not joking, however, I have really caused offense to you and to others. You never know!)
Being a liability in a conversation, as you say, is something we learners experience a lot – the glazed, despairing look in the eye of the person we are trying to talk to. Really discouraging. But we’ve got to start somewhere and force our liability, stumbling selves onto people. So, I took a dim view of your choice of the word “liability.”
A presto! July (pronounced like the month, Paulo!)
Daniel Stephens says
Hi July,
I was wondering about the pronunciation of your name.
Sorry, by the way, you had problems posting your comment. As you can see, I did it for you…
This time I’m using Internet Explorer, but sometimes trying another browser helps.
Write your text first in some other application, then copy and paste it here.
Hope that helps!
Daniel
Katy Wheeler says
Hi Daniel and July
Re the intermittent problems with posting to the website, using another browser is a good idea. Also, last week, when I experienced the same problem again (browser told me I had not entered the numbers correctly, when I had), I simply refreshed the page, copied in my message text and then it worked. Life is full of “workarounds”, huh? 🙂
Katy
Donald Giorgi says
Daniel, I admire your straight talk and telling it like it is. It would give me great pleasure if one day I could come to Bologna and participate in your classes. I am sure I would progress many times faster than I have up to this point, although I am strong-willed and am not one to give up on anything. I am a piano teacher for many years and see a parallel in your suggestion to ignore words and get on with reading and speaking. Your advice is extremely interesting and refreshing. If I can teach my students to be brave and take risks to get effects, I certainly should be able to follow your advice and get over my bad habits when learning Italian. Thank you for persisting in your efforts to get the point across. Donald
Daniel says
You know what they say, Donald,
“And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.”
sandslane says
I agree with you. I have learnt a lot of Italian words using the spaced repetition method which is the most effective method I have found and it has helped me to read a variety of texts. However during the learning you come across a lot of words which mean similar things and you don’t know which is the more common one, on which occasion it is used, or even if it’s archaic. For that you have to read/converse/listen. I do a lot of gardening so learnt what I thought were relevant words but it was only when talking about it at an evening class that I found out for example that la tagliaerba and not la falciatrice was the one I should be using when talking about doing my own garden.
I am still learning words (it’s easy and addictive) but I am trying to balance that with a mixture of grammar learning, reading and listening. I think what I really need now is an Italian Skype/pen pal!
Daniel says
Hi Sanslane,
Yes, it’s true what you say. It’s not just a question of learning words, but working out which words are used when, which is often different from what it would be with a direct translation.
If you have money, you could try our Skype Italian lessons to work on your speaking. Or join in the free weekly webinars/online meetings.
Another idea is to look for a site which will match you up with an Italian who wants to learn your language. Such sites exist, but I’m afraid I can’t recommend one as I’ve never tried. Maybe someone else has an idea?
sandslane says
Hi Daniel, I have had a trial of your Skype lessons which I found very useful and am hoping to have some later this year. I am also in the process of investigating and saving up for a week at the Bologna school. In the meantime I’ll carry on learning, hopefully find a time when your webinars fit in with my work ( I am curious as how the Skype works when its one to many rather than one to one) and maybe search for some of those match up sites!
Daniel says
Hi Sandslane,
It’s Skype (at the moment) for the paid-for individual lessons, but the free thing we’re doing with a different system. It’s experimental, which is why it’s currently free.
If you let us know what days/times are good for you, well, maybe that will help! Like I said, it’s an experiment…
A presto!
Daniel
David says
I’ve been using mylanguageexchange.com. You can set up a profile for free and send “hi’s”, but to send an email you have to have a membership, which is actually pretty cheap. (You can always send a “hi” and if the other person has a membership, they can email you.) I’m corresponding with several people in Italy right now off and on, and I hope to get to the point where I’m confident enough to skype with some of them.
Daniel says
Thanks for your comment, David, and welcome to OnlineItalianClub.com!