Studying Your Native Language
post by Crux · 2016-01-28T19:23:25.404Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 7 commentsContents
7 comments
I've spent many thousands of hours over the past several years studying foreign languages and developing a general method for foreign-language acquisition. But now I believe it's time to turn this technique in the direction of my native language: English.
Most people make a distinction between one's native language and one's second language(s). But anyone who has learned how to speak with a proper accent in a second language and spent a long enough stretch of time neglecting their native language to let it begin rusting and deteriorating will know that there's no essential difference.
When the average person learns new words in their native language, they imagine that they're learning new concepts. When they study new vocabulary in a foreign language, however, they recognize that they're merely acquiring hitherto-unknown words. They've never taken a step outside the personality their childhood environment conditioned into them. When the only demarcation of thingspace that you know is the semantic structure of your native language, you're bound to believe, for example, that the World is Made of English.
Why study English? I'm already fluent, as you can tell. I have the Magic of a Native Speaker.
Let's put this nonsense behind us and recognize that the map is not the territory, that English is just another map.
My first idea is that it may be useful to develop a working knowledge of the fundamentals of English etymology. A quick search suggests that the majority of words in English have a French or Latin origin. Would it be useful to make an Anki deck with the goal of learning how to readily recognize the building blocks of the English language, such as seeing that the "cardi" in "cardiology", "cardiograph", and "cardiograph" comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning "heart" (καρδιά)?
Besides that, I plan to make a habit of adding any new words I encounter into Anki with their context. For example, let's say I'm reading the introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume. I encounter the term "proselytes", and upon looking it up in a dictionary I understand the meaning of the passage. I include the spelling of the simplest version of the word ("proselyte"), along with an audio recording of the pronunciation. I'll also toy with adding various other information such as a definition I wrote myself, synonyms or antonyms, and so forth, not knowing how I'll use the information but by virtue of the efficient design of Anki providing myself a plethora of options for innovative card design in the future.
Here's the context in this case:
Amidst all this bustle 'tis not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagant hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours. The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.
With the word on the front of the card and this passage on the back of the card, I give my brain an opportunity to tie words to context rather than lifeless dictionary definitions. I don't know how much colorful meaning this passage may have in isolation, but for me I've read enough of the book to have a feel for his style and what he's talking about here. This highlights the personal nature of Anki decks. Few passages would be better for me when it comes to learning this word, but for you the considerations may be quite different. Far from different people simply having different subsets of the language that they're most concerned about, different people require different contextual definitions based on their own interests and knowledge.
But what about linguistic components that are more complex than a standalone word?
Let's say you run into the sentence, "And as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation."
Using Anki, I could perhaps put "And as [reason], so [consequence]" on the front of the card, and the full sentence on the back.
What I'm most concerned with, however, is how to translate such study to an actual improvement in writing ability. Using Anki to play the recognition game, where you see a vocabulary word or grammatical form on the front and have a contextual definition on the back, would certainly improvement quickness of reading comprehension in many cases. But would it make the right connections in the brain so I'm likely to think of the right word or grammatical structure at the right time for writing purposes?
Anyway, any considerations or suggestions concerning how to optimize reading comprehension or especially writing ability in a language one is already quite proficient with would be appreciated.
7 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by tanagrabeast · 2016-01-29T02:27:52.565Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
As an American teacher of high school English, with a passion for spaced repetition software, I feel like it is my duty to respond to this post. My answer may surprise you.
If your goals are simply to understand more of what you read and to write more effectively, trying to skill up your general English skills strikes me as rather suboptimal.
Sure, a mastery of common word fragments will improve your ability to make at least some sense of unfamiliar words that use them -- I certainly teach these -- but you probably already know the most useful ones. I’m also unconvinced that etymology deepens comprehension much; usually, we want to understand someone, not somewords; this comes from understanding what that person intended to communicate, not from unlocking obscure arcana behind the words they happened to use.
Most of what is known to help reading comprehension is language independent, as is most of what is known to help you write better. I certainly don’t think Paul Graham’s skill as an essayist has much to do with his English; if he knows a second language even marginally well, I’m sure he would write in it nearly as effectively. To wit, he eschews esoteric explication. Writing is a craft, not a lookup table.
The strongest predictor of how well someone will do on a comprehension test of a given passage is how much they already know about the topic of that passage. A knowledge of the domain-specific vocabulary for that topic is either the second strongest predictor, or the same thing, depending on who you ask. General purpose vocabulary is farther down the list, and as an educated native speaker, you, again, are unlikely to find much low-hanging fruit in that area. So rather than take another level in English, I would suggest you consider which domains you want to be able to understand more of, and just start reading more in those domains, looking up words as needed. The language you do it in is almost irrelevant.
Consider: in the 6 credit hours of theory and practice for teachers of English Language Learners my state requires all teachers to take, I was taught that teenagers acquiring English as their second language are best off when they can continue learning domain specific concepts in their native language while waiting for their English to mature enough to transfer this knowledge over. Otherwise, they gain conversational English fluency but miss out on their first, best chance to learn foundational abstract concepts in, say, Science, Math, or Social Studies, leaving them without the ability to talk or even think about these subjects in any language.
With all the above in mind, when it comes to Anki cards and vocabulary, I am convinced that a great example sentence is much more useful than a great denotative definition. Connotations matter, and a visualizable, narratable context goes far both in conveying the extra implications of a word and in providing hooks for one’s memory. Still, you’re unlikely to absorb the deep flavor of the word -- the full intent of one who wields it fluently -- without encountering the word many times in varied contexts.
I say this in part because I acquired a sizable Spanish vocabulary from a time living in Spain decades ago, and there are to this day a number of words common to my internal monologue that are Spanish simply because they capture the flavor of the concept more perfectly than my closest English equivalents. But this is only the case for words that I encountered on enough authentic occasions to build that full connotative sense. Ones I merely studied out of the dictionary never reached that level, no matter how well I mastered them from a recognition and recall standpoint.
As any programmer will tell you, leveling skills in one language will have knock-on effects on your abilities in other languages, whether they are similar or not; the similar ones give you skills that transfer very directly, while the dissimilar ones broaden your conceptual toolset for approaching programs in general. If a problem might be more tractable within the intricacies of language suited to it, by all means, go deep into that language. But if you’re trying to understand say, an algorithm or a data structure, study that.
Replies from: Viliam, Crux↑ comment by Viliam · 2016-01-29T09:34:28.936Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I was taught that teenagers acquiring English as their second language are best off when they can continue learning domain specific concepts in their native language while waiting for their English to mature enough to transfer this knowledge over. Otherwise, they gain conversational English fluency but miss out on their first, best chance to learn foundational abstract concepts in, say, Science, Math, or Social Studies, leaving them without the ability to talk or even think about these subjects in any language.
Do you remember the source for this? Because what you described here was very fashionable in my country, at least a few years ago -- having schools where students not only learn English (as a second language), but also learn all subjects in English, so it deepens their language skills.
As any programmer will tell you, leveling skills in one language will have knock-on effects on your abilities in other languages, whether they are similar or not
Confirmed. On the other hand, there is also something that I call "writing C++ code in Java", that is: forcing the idioms of one language to another, even when the other language provides specialized tools to deal with the situation.
(Specifically: Someone with a history of C++ will prefer to use abstract class hierarchies, complain about the lack of multiple inheritance, and consider interfaces to be merely an inferior form of classes, when writing a code in Java. While the natural way of writing Java code would be to construct interface hierarchies, and treat classes as mere implementations of them. I am writing this here because it took me a few years to grok this.)
Replies from: tanagrabeast, CronoDAS↑ comment by tanagrabeast · 2016-01-29T23:49:24.825Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Do you remember the source for this? Because what you described here was very fashionable in my country, at least a few years ago -- having schools where students not only learn English (as a second language), but also learn all subjects in English, so it deepens their language skills.
I'm not sure this is the same thing in a country where English is the native language. In your country, a school that teaches every subject in English might be the only way to make sure students are sufficiently immersed in the language. Your teachers are well aware of the limited English possessed by their students and no doubt adjust their instruction accordingly, perhaps even dipping into the native language as needed to communicate difficult ideas. English fluency at graduation is a selling point for those schools, I bet, and they are willing to take a hit to the efficiency of instruction to get it.
Here in the US, there is little worry that students will not be sufficiently immersed in English. The texts I remember I would summarize as saying that bilingual instruction is great, but that in reality most students are left to "sink or swim". The good news is that most students will, eventually, "swim" and become fluent in English whether we help them or not.
The concern here is what they lost while treading water. You see, graduation rates for students new to English here are not so great.
Which takes us back to the issue of whether academic instruction in the native language is important while the English is weak.
There is a good deal of irony in how and what I learned from these required courses. For reasons that melt into partisan politics, my state is one of a handful that specifically forbids (by law!) instruction in any language other than English (with obvious exceptions for classes teaching foreign languages as second languages). My 6 credit hours were required as part of a federal court settlement -- the state was sued by students who felt ill-served by this law -- which amounted to saying, “if you’re going to mandate English-only instruction, all of your teachers better know best practices for teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) using only English.”
But back to sources. I went to a very dusty bookshelf for you...
Alas, the one text I have left from this era is “Echevarria, Vogt, and Short. Making Content Comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP Model 2008.”, which is a book on best practices focused on English-only instruction... but even this still touches on the value of “L1” (the students’ native language) fluency in making sure students are receiving “comprehensible input” -- an important term in this field, as language that does not reach the threshold of comprehensibility for a given student will not help them build language fluency or academic subject knowledge.
Echevarria, Vogt, and Shorts say their model still allows for students to be “given the opportunity to have a concept or assignment explained in their L1 as needed. Significant controversy surrounds the use of L1 for instructional purposes, but we believe the clarification in students’ L1 by a bilingual instructional aide, peer, or through the use of materials written in the students’ L1 provides an important support for the academic learning of those students who are not yet fully proficient in English.” These authors seemed to be glad that, thanks to internet technologies, all classrooms “should have some resources in most of the students’ native languages.”
Another relevant passage:
“In fact, the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth found that academic skills such as reading taught in the first language transfer to the second language.”
Summarizing findings from the National Center for Research on Education, Diversity, & Excellence, they listed as a bullet point that “Academic literacy in the native language facilitates the development of academic literacy in English”
I remember stronger endorsements for bilingual instruction in books now lost to me, but even these acknowledged that bilingual instruction generally doesn’t exist for a variety of budgetary and political reasons, so we had better learn to help ELLs get by in an English-only classroom.
Replies from: Viliam↑ comment by Crux · 2016-01-30T00:35:05.462Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I’m also unconvinced that etymology deepens comprehension much; usually, we want to understand someone, not somewords; this comes from understanding what that person intended to communicate, not from unlocking obscure arcana behind the words they happened to use.
Perhaps "etymology" was a misleading word choice. I didn't mean to suggest that it would be useful for me to develop a deep historical understanding of how English words evolved. Instead, I was referring to the simpler task of learning to reliably see the parts making up English words. The goal wouldn't be to deepen my comprehension of individual words; the point would be to make it easier to remember large swathes of esoteric vocabulary.
For medical terminology, for instance, I imagine it would be efficient to learn the most commonly used Greek and Latin elements before trying to acquire a large jargon base.
I certainly don’t think Paul Graham’s skill as an essayist has much to do with his English; if he knows a second language even marginally well, I’m sure he would write in it nearly as effectively. To wit, he eschews esoteric explication. Writing is a craft, not a lookup table.
Paul Graham is famous for having an extremely plain-spoken and easily comprehensible way of writing about complex subjects. While I appreciate that kind of style, making a life philosophy out of it seems far too limiting. There are plenty of occasions where having a knack for complex grammar and esoteric terminology is useful.
Spoken English and written English certainly have plenty in common, but they're different tools. To see Paul Graham seeming almost incredulous that people don't write the way they speak was pretty odd. Being able to look up any word you don't know without interrupting the flow of discussion is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to why written language is so divergent from spoken.
With all the above in mind, when it comes to Anki cards and vocabulary, I am convinced that a great example sentence is much more useful than a great denotative definition. Connotations matter, and a visualizable, narratable context goes far both in conveying the extra implications of a word and in providing hooks for one’s memory.
Certainly. I would never learn a word out of context, whether in a foreign language or in English.
My Anki deck is over 1 GB, as over 500 of my notes contain a 5-30 second video clip. Often when I encounter a new Japanese word in a show I'm watching, I grab the clip to act as a contextual definition.
Note that my example for how to enter the word "proselyte" into Anki also operated in terms of a contextual definition. It was a quote from Hume that made the meaning clear to me.
Still, you’re unlikely to absorb the deep flavor of the word -- the full intent of one who wields it fluently -- without encountering the word many times in varied contexts.
Very true, but it's far easier to absorb all of that information if you have the word securely lodged in your mind. Picking up connotations efficiently calls for making sure every new word acquired is remembered as being form A with meaning B within context C, that is until a richer set of associations begins to take hold.
Most of what is known to help reading comprehension is language independent, as is most of what is known to help you write better.
Note that I have two main concerns.
First of all, I would like to delve more deeply into certain sciences which have a large memorization burden for terminology, such as medicine and physiology. Although most important is to understand the material, forgetting the words over and over would be a huge time waster. Just like learning how to type with proper mechanics optimizes writing efficiency, coming up with a good system for memorizing new words seems crucial. My time is limited.
Secondly, I want to level up my writing ability. Seeing as you invoked Paul Graham in an earlier passage as evidence, I suppose we may have deep disagreements here. I believe that knowing thousands of words similar in obscurity to "profligate" would be very useful. My solution for making sure these terms don't make my writing inaccessible and opaque is to use common words which sort of do the job before repeating myself in uncommon words I feel are more fitting.
With that said, I don't really understand your point. Certainly understanding itself is language independent, but using language isn't. I tried to address the tendency to make a distinction between one's native language and one's target foreign language(s) in my original post, but I suppose I didn't go into enough detail.
I'm sure you have no disagreements with my daily study of Japanese, as I'm still only halfway through the journey to sounding like a native speaker. What's so different about English? There are plenty of words and grammatical devices I don't use because I'm not familiar enough with them. You may say that I should simply read more and write more, but why neglect tools like Anki which could make for more disciplined and consistent improvement?
Your post seems appropriate as a response to someone who's at risk of outstripping their conceptual understanding with their language usage. Such people exist in very large numbers. They grab words at random from a thesaurus or weave narratives using words their favorite scientists use without really knowing what they're talking about. But I don't believe I'm one of these people. There are plenty of thoughts I have which I find difficult to represent with English.
comment by [deleted] · 2016-01-28T20:38:50.744Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I would not say it feels so clearly that in a foreign language, I learn words, and in the native, concepts. When I read about math in English it is frustratingly 'alien', I even find it easier to read a paragraph without immediately trying to tie the terms to 'just the good old things we all know and love', and just trace its syntactic connections. I can even manipulate the 'English math concepts' in my mind, at least a bit, but actually believing that they relate to the same things takes additional work.