Phrases with Steve (1)
STEVE: So yeah, phrases, like we talked about the importance of words.
You know, one of the debates in language learning is, should you speak right away or should you first get the language in you? In my own view it depends on what you want. If people want to speak, try and speak, not a problem. But I don't think you have to speak, and even if you speak mostly what you're getting is the language that the other person is using, because you don't have a language in you – you have to get the language. And so we talked about the importance of words obviously, and Tom you're always making the point that in order to be very good at using the language you have to use the language accurately and powerfully.
In fact, you need lots of words, and we've gone over this. The more words you have the more colors you have on your palad. If you're painting a picture obviously the better the picture is going to be, so the more words the better. But it's difficult to learn words individually, and also certain words tend to be used with other words.
‘Tend to be used' for example is in effect a phrase: certain words tend to be used with other words. Unless you're familiar with that phrase ‘tend to be used with', you might struggle putting words together. “Words are usually used with other words,” you might say, but actually ‘tend to be used' has a slightly different meaning from ‘are usually used with other words'. So to that extent (‘to that extent' is a phrase) or from that point of view, learning phrases is very useful for three reasons actually:
It gives you these little components that you can use over and over again.
It gives you these components that are ready to use prefabricated, like sections that you can simply assemble; It helps you to learn words; and Typically a phrase also embodies (there's a word) the structure. If we remember the structure from the grammar rules, it's difficult. But if we get used to certain phrases, we are actually capturing the grammar, because that's how you're supposed to say it. So for all of those reasons I think saving phrases at LingQ or focusing on phrases is very useful. Do you find that when you read or when you listen you're paying attention to phrases? Emily, do you find that you're trying to pay attention to phrases when you're reading? EMILY: Yes, I would but phrases are sometimes difficult to remember.
STEVE: Okay, difficult to remember?
EMILY: Yes.
STEVE: One thing I say over and over again, which I really believe is everything in language learning is difficult to remember.
EMILY: Sometimes it depends on the cultural references.
STEVE: The cultural content?
EMILY: Yes.
STEVE: Here's a phrase: the cultural context.
That's a phrase you can use, it depends on the cultural context. But I can say don't worry about not remembering. It doesn't matter, you can't control what you can't remember. Some things you can remember tomorrow, and some things all of a sudden in three months, bingo, There it is! So yeah, hard to remember. That is why in saving phrases I find it useful not to save phrases that are too long, because if you save shorter phrases you're more likely to see them again, right? They're highlighted now, so that the next time you come to that phrase you'll see it highlighted again and again and eventually your brain is going to remember. TAMAS: What did you want say, that everything is what you say over and over again where everything is hard to remember?
STEVE: Right.
TAMAS: Did you want to say anything else?
I was just wondering. STEVE: No I was just saying it's hard to remember, so I don't rely on memory.
To me it's a matter of exposure. So you can get exposure by seeing…the phrases come at you in text that you're reading. If you highlight the phrases, and so now they're highlighted in yellow, and then you come across them, that helps. They're more noticeable now, you're going to notice them more. To me language is more about noticing, not about remembering. If you notice it many, many times eventually you're going to remember it. So highlighting the phrase, if the phrase is short enough that it'll show up again and again and eventually you're going to remember. Then you can review the phrases in flashcards or a dictation, and that's what is going to help you notice. I just find that if I do enough noticing and then I'm listening, there's that phrase, and I still forget, it doesn't matter.
I think people get too worried about what they forget. It doesn't really matter, eventually it will settle in there. So you find it difficult to remember the phrases, but you do save phrases? EMILY: Yes.
STEVE: You too, have you been saving phrases?
TAMAS: Yes, mostly phrases.
For example, while I was reading your book, it's not too difficult the language and the context and everything – it's understandable for me. But when I try to reproduce the same or something similar, while I was writing the blog post, it's so difficult. I mean, I understand everything, even the words, but how to use those words, I tend to use the same words all the time while I'm trying to use new ones and create a richer text. It's really hard. STEVE: I think that's where you have to believe in the process, it's just not overnight.
Even if you go to the gym, it's not like you go to the gym twice or three times and all of a sudden you look like some guy out of a magazine or something! You just slowly and slowly get better. Already all three of you speak English very well. If you go back to where you started, you weren't able to put those words together, you weren't able to speak as well as you do now. So just continue. I think focusing on the phrases is a way of…and we can get into this as well but I find that when you get onto the new system next week – the beta system where every time you highlight the phrase you hear the text to speech automatically. I find that very powerful, because it's the combination of sound and reading that eventually helps those words to become part of you.
If you can hear them then it is easier to reproduce them, I find. Anyway, how about you, have you been saving phrases? HANNA: Yeah, I save phrases a lot, saving more words and phrases.
But for me it's more easy to remember in phrase than just words. So usually in phrase I know the meaning but I don't know how to use it. So there's no difficult words but saving phrases makes me remember how to use it, so it's really helpful to me and that's why saving phrases is a lot. But still, if I don't know about the words in that phrase it's kind of hard to save that phrase, for me. STEVE: I agree.
You will find when we talk again next Friday, that in the new system it's easier. You save a phrase and the whole phrase will be in yellow, but the words in there that you don't know are still in blue within that phrase. Right now they appear in a separate box, but actually they'll appear right in the phrase, then you click on the blue word and you save the word. So in fact you do a bit of both. I think the whole process with phrases is actually easier in the beta system than it is in the what we call classic system. But it's true, like I see phrases and I say, “Geez, I'd really like to be able to use that phrase.” but then when I speak I go back to my more limited range. It's just that you are speaking and you have to quickly say something, and so you can't reach back there and find this wonderful phrase that you'd like to use. But slowly that becomes a part of your vocabulary, it just does, subconsciously. It's the same with the words.
If I look at the number of words I have, supposedly 30,000 or 40,000 words in Korean or something, that's not many really. I think the number is not real, but if I read something in Korean, I actually know the words. They just suddenly became part of me. Now, I don't speak much Korean, it's difficult for me to speak, but I understand those words. That's why one has to go out and speak, right? The more you speak, slowly you pull out this new phrase and this new word. It's just a gradual process but phrases I think are…and especially since they're repeatable. Ideally you don't say 15 words because you will never see those 15 words again. Every sentence is unique, but the phrases repeat. And to be really good you want to save those phrases, that are just two or three words that are very good and efficient ways of saying things, and then they may in fact repeat. TAMAS: That's great.
STEVE: Plus the dictation, have you tried the dictation?
TAMAS: Oh, that's perfect really, I just tried it like two days ago and it was strange like you said before.
I knew the function of the phrase, but I don't know, I haven't used it. And then when I started it was so good, really. STEVE: Did you find that in fact, even if you speak English very well and you understand, I mean I speak to the three of you and you understand what I'm saying, however I found that listening to the dictation in fact at first I didn't hear what they were saying, and I started writing it differently.
Did you find that? TAMAS: Yeah.
STEVE: The dictation not only trains our spelling and writing, but it helps us to hear more clearly what's being said, even though it's text-to-speech.
So I don't think many people use the dictation, especially for phrases. Say phrases, and then go in there…and you know you have phrases only in the vocab section, and then you can go by creation dates and get more recent ones, which is very helpful because if you're dealing with phrases that you've just saved in something you've been reading, it's more meaningful to you than if it's a phrase that you learned three weeks ago, right? And then you do the dictation, I find that really powerful. Unfortunately, Ukrainian doesn't have text-to-speech.
Google text-to-speech doesn't exist for Ukrainian. So I was doing it for Polish, and I was completely misunderstanding what they were saying in Polish. Ukrainian doesn't have it, so I can't do it. Hungarian does, 10 million Hungarians and 40 million Ukrainians but Hungarian has text-to-speech. TAMAS: Yeah, they worked hard to create the system.
STEVE: Okay, I think that's probably enough on phrases, we're going to chat in a while about the blog post.
If we're having a conversation, and you know what we're talking about, so you know the context, everything is comfortable, you kind of have to anticipate what I'm going to say. If you go into a store and you expect the person to say something, but the person says something different, sometimes it's a bit of a “oops, what was that! ?” If the person doesn't follow the script, if the person doesn't say, “what would you like?” If the person says something else, like maybe they comment on the weather or something you weren't expecting, all of a sudden you're thrown off guard, whereas if you have experienced that many, many times then you are ready for it because you already have that experience. So you almost anticipate one of the possible things that the person can say.
