h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello everyone,

I'm Marinamer.

Well on the article of Learning Languages, my experience tells me that it is quite discouraging to look up every word up in the dictionary as suggested in the article. I know that, as adult learners, we wish we understood every single word we lay eyes on but probably if we try to improve our vocabulary in this tedious way, we wont advance much and become frustrated because we'll fell that there's just too much to learn and so little life and time and money to invest on that. Besides, reading literature would become a NO NO instead of it becomming a useful passion that aids us in learning a language.

I would advice, like experts advice, picking out books that are achievable and at our level. Plus, it's better if we get the meaning of words by context and get the overall meaning of the story. In time, we'd be experiencing improvement in the way we write and even in speech (including vocabulary). The important thing is exposure to the language through enjoyment.

But hey, looking up words in the dictionary is one of the many techniques that may or may not work for people. That it does work depends heavily on each person's learning style.

Thanks for reading.

I think that adults in a class think they're required to know the exact meaning of every word, whereas children want to Get On, and assume that the sense will be made obvious in due course. Of course, they don't rationalise this, but the question remains - who learns faster? In many cases there isn't an exact interpretation (I use this word deliberately. Translation is an academic exercise) of a word. The meaning varies according to context, in any language. I'd like learners to forget English, and 'live' temporarily in the language they want to learn. After all, if I bang on the table, bellowing 'Voici une table' most people would eventually gather that I'm pointing out that this is, guess what, a table. For the same reason, I'm very reluctant to allow them to see the written word, which they /do/ want. Forget it, you idiot, and listen to Me. I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!