Advice in words to learn when you first start studying a language?
I tend to like learning new languages on my own, just for fun, but I always feel unsecure on which words to learn from the start.
Of course you should learn pronouns and conjunctions and whatnot, since they are so common, but do you have any good ideas on regular nouns as well?
I guess you should probably learn the words for everyday objects (houses, trees, vehicles etc), but anyway, mind listing some useful words?
Small conversation language.
Hi?
How are you doing?
Fine, thank you.
Can I help you with something?
Can you tell me what time it is?
etc etc
That is what you should learn besides the simple words, because well.. with words alone you can't really do anything besides say it and point.
I recommend learning verbs and particles of sentences, so you can put words together into sentences easier.
I'm taking Japanese 101 right now, the weeaboo I am, and we started off learning the basic phrases (How are you, Good morning, Hello, Good Evening, I'm sorry, No Problem, Goodbye, Take care, etc.)
Then we learned how to form sentences such as "I'm going to ______" and "I eat/drink/buy _______" after learning the e and o particles and some verbs and nouns. We learned basic things like how to say a few different foods/drinks, and things to buy like books and shirts. We also learned basic places like home, school, and coffee shop, but we mostly focused on how to form the sentences. I enjoy how we're learning and I'm doing pretty well, so I recommend you try that! I feel like nouns are easier to learn later, but it's more important to start off with building sentences until it becomes second nature.
In the German course set I've been taking throughout high school, we began learning basic verbs and classroom objects first off. Seeing as how you won't be in a classroom and being tested on such material it isn't really relevant. In your case, I"d start off learning nouns of things in your home or things you use at work/school a lot so that you can practice while confusing your friends. Foods, places in a town, and words dealing with travel are good to know if you intend to put the language to practice in the native country.
Learning languages is fun; try finding out words that you actually want to know and work around that, making sentences to use with your favorite nouns.
"Everything has a purpose. It's your life's mission to find yours."
Swear words.
Duh. :rolleyes2
lol, QFT.Originally Posted by Yaridovich
Seriously though. There are the basics like Food, drinks, general expressions, and verbs and such. There are also some useful categories like clothing (although a bit boring for my tastes), body parts (to describe and whatnot), and colors are always good. There's a large variety to choose from. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.
Yo ho ho ho...!!
learn common household names. If you don't have an object to point to, then knowing the name of it is invaluable.
Otherwise it takes five minutes to find out where the towels are kept!
Yes, definitely. My sister wanted a mousetrap when she was living in Spain so she had to mime it when she was in the store as they didn't speak English. Very funny just watching that btw. They figured it out quick enough, but my sister wanted the kind that didn't kill rats, just trapped them. Yeah, they didn't have that.
Mousetrap in Spanish is Raterera, fyi.
Greetings, things like "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me," and how to structure verbs and complete sentences! Verbs especially, verbs are very very very very important! Verbs and pronouns! Mostly verbs.
Especially verbs like "go" and "be."
If you're learning on your own, the practical immersion will be low, so polite expressions like "please" or "how are you?" are not very helpful; they don't increase your general fluency.
One option is to acquire a word frequency list for the language in question, preferably one that amalgamates grammatical variations (like der/das/die in German or le/la/les in French and so forth). Wikipedia has a few for various larger languages that are drawn from Wikipedia articles, which is kind of useful. Or you could (try to) find a list based on literary material, spoken language, etc. The most common 1000 - 1500 words will often let you (sort) or read simple written stuff.
Learning general nouns, though, is not terribly efficient. Yes, you will eventually need to know them, but household items will most not figure highly into whatever texts you read for practice. I have honestly used the German word for towel maybe twice ever, and I'm completely fluent in the language.
That said, if you have an actual textbook, learning nouns is fine -- the textbook is designed to drill them into your head, and will use them enough that they're sort of relevant. If you're not lazy, you could learn words for stuff you encounter often, and recall them whenever you interact with said objects. Or learn song titles/lyrics of songs in said language if there you are any you like...(though this will only work if you're learning Japanese and have an interest in Anime/the relevant composers).
Is there a language in particular that you're considering?
Well, if you're teaching yourself, you can always post-it every item in your living area with the word to help you learn those things.
I think verbs are probably something you should focus on though, especially ones like "to be", "to have", "to know", "to want", "to like" etc.
That being said, I've only really learned romance languages and had a very small introduction to German. So, once you understand how the language you're going to be learning is structured grammatically, and you've considered where you may be using it, that'll probably direct your focus better than any smattering of random words suggested by strangers.
I always thought you should learn other languages how you learned your first- by listening and talking, not memorizing lists of vocab (unfortunately, my Spanish teacher this year is the only Spanish teacher who teaches the right way, so those first three years were wasted to me)
the problem with learning like you're a little kid is that you have grown up thoughts and not being able to express those because you simply don't have the vocabulary is infinitely frustrating and might be a hurdle to continuing learning.
That's why the teacher's there. I can't count how many times I've said "Como se dice...."
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