Today, I want to talk about vocabulary, vocabulary learning,
and the importance of prediction in how we use language, how we learn
languages, how AI works and so forth.
A quick note following up on my video about my Arabic learning experience.
Some people thought that I had given up on Arabic or was finding it too difficult.
That's not the case.
I am continuing with my Levantine Arabic studies.
And before I move on to Hindi.
I will do a full interview with Samer where I will, we will just have a
conversation and you'll see that I am making progress despite the difficulties
that I pointed to in my previous video.
So vocabulary, I said, when I first founded LingQ, or co founded, vocabulary
is the best measure of where you are in a language, vocabulary is power.
If you don't have the words, you can't understand concepts.
Words are absolutely essential.
To progress in a language.
And I thought of this in connection with prediction, because I was
Listening to a presentation here in Palm Springs, there's a group called
the World Affairs Council or something.
People of my age get together and listen to people talk about different
things related to world events.
Uh, we had a, a speaker who happened to be a Canadian, Jim Boutilier
from, uh, Victoria, and who gave a wonderful presentation on the
history of Chinese Russian relations.
What struck me was, first of all, how masterful his presentation was.
His control of the subject, his control of the language was
and the way in which he would
And then he would actually say something that went counter to our expectations.
And this either elicited a laugh from people or were some of the parts of his
presentation that were the most memorable.
And I just thought about this, how we tend to predict, we
tend to expect certain things.
And when what we hear or what we read is different from our expectations,
we It makes an impression on us and that's very much part of the
study, the research that's now going on using what you call it, uh,
ultrasound, uh, mapping of the brain.
This N 400 response when something happens that's contrary to our expectations.
And that's an important part of learning, uh, which takes me
then to how do we acquire words?
And it starts, of course, in our native language at school.
And there are a number of myths.
One of these myths is that the reason why some children read better
than others, It's because they arrive with a larger vocabulary.
And so those parents that speak to their kids and use a lot of words.
And they're just, those kids have heard a lot of words and therefore they will read
better than their, you know, peers who've had a less word rich environment at home.
And I have said this before, because I've read, you know, all
studies that seem to imply this.
However, it's obviously not the case because first of all, we have
what's known as the English language.
Immigrant paradox.
So it turns out that first generation immigrants who came to the United
States, Canada, whichever immigrant receiving country, and their children
were five, six, eight, 10, or even if they were born there, but whose parents
didn't speak to them in say English.
If it's North America, those kids end up reading better.
Then the native born kids, and this is true, not just for Asians where it's
particularly marked, but it's also true for immigrants from Latin America.
And of course it has to do with other factors, the support that
kids have at home, the interest in learning, resources, perhaps that
are put into helping the child.
In other words, a whole bunch of factors, but the idea that those
kids who have heard a lot of words will necessarily be better at
reading turns out not to be the case.
It's also disproved because there are many examples of children in
the same family, uh, one child reads much better than the other.
So the family sort of environment for the child is not the deciding factor
on how well people will read at school.
Another myth you hear is that children are corrected when they
use the language incorrectly.
But this is also not the case.
So the interesting thing is four year olds will tend to use the What's called
over regularize the past tense in English and presumably in other languages.
In other words, they will say ate it instead of ate, uh, applying
the rule that their brain has already discovered as a pattern.
They'll apply that where it doesn't work.
And so four year olds will over regularize the past tense.
Whereas six year olds, even though they're exposed to lots of
examples of irregular forms and regular forms, they self correct.
So it's not because the children are corrected, nor even because they are
exposed to many examples of either the.
You know, regular past tense or the irregular past tense, just because
of the vast quantity of language content that they are exposed
to, they will through massive exposure, develop the correct usage.
If in fact, that's the usage that they're exposed to.
If they live in an environment where people say, I would have went.
Instead of I would have gone, then that's what will become the pattern for them.
In either case, it's this sort of probability of what's the correct
answer and then, uh, hearing it often enough that enables the kids to
speak correctly, not being corrected.
So that's also an important concept as we go forward in English.
How we learn words, word learning is in fact a probabilistic, I
have trouble with that word, probabilistic error driven process.
This also runs counter to another myth or popular theory, which
is Chomsky's universal grammar theory, which postulates.
And it turns out that a speaker of a language intrinsically, innately
knows what is correct in a language.
And there's all kinds of reasons why this is not so, because many of the
things that are correct in language A are not correct in language B.
And, and quite a wide variety of usage patterns are very
different in different languages.
So here again, it's more a matter of this error driven probabilistic Pattern that
determines how kids learn languages, not some innate, you know, language instinct.
In fact, this brain mapping has even shown that the white matter in the brain adapts
differently for different languages.
So that it's not that the brain determines a sort of a language instinct.
It's more that the language environment influences the brain.
So here again, some of these sort of accepted ideas, sometimes based more on
ideology than science, uh, confuse us when we think about how we acquire language.
We acquire language through exposure and through the ability of the brain to
develop patterns of what is normal usage.
So this pattern of massive amounts of exposure, developing sort of
a memory, A sense of what is the language actually enables the brain
to predict what's going to happen.
In some cases, of course, what we expect is not what happens.
And, uh, again, research shows that this N 400 or when something contrary to our
expectations, in other words, a different word than we expected or a grammatical
structure that we didn't expect it when we get a negative response, that spikes.
Something in our brain, this N400 response, and that's an
important part of our learning.
So it's this error driven function in the brain that helps us learn things.
And that apparently is very similar.
This idea of, of using a vast memory of words to predict what's
going to come is how AI works and the more AI progresses, the closer
it comes to how the brain works.
So given that our learning of words Uh, is based on a massive sort of
exposure to stimulus, then how much time should we invest in word mapping
or other instructional techniques to try to nail down individual words when
we're learning them, as opposed to how much time we want to spend giving
ourselves as much exposure as possible.
I have noticed, for example, in my Arabic that as difficult as I find
the Arabic writing system to be, it is far more difficult for me to
read a word written in the Arabic alphabet, which is not an Arabic word.
So it might be a, you know, a name from a foreign language or,
or something of a foreign word.
That's much more difficult for me than to read an Arabic word.
Right, because at some level, subconsciously, unbeknownst to me,
my brain has started to form some patterns around what is an Arabic word.
And ultimately for me in Arabic, I have a lot of trouble reading
a word that I don't already know.
But even in reading words that I haven't seen before, somewhere in the brain,
there is a sense of what is a normal Arabic pattern and what is right.
I would imagine that for people learning English, it's much, much the same.
So many words in English are not spelled the way they are pronounced.
So if you don't know the word, it's very difficult to read it out.
Uh, I think increasingly as we get, become better and better at reading, we
predict what that pronunciation should be based on some pattern that we have
internalized, or we know the word.
So it helps to know the word, it helps to have seen the word before, frequency
of exposure is a big part of learning words, but it turns out, according to
research, that frequency of exposure is more important for high frequency
words, and especially for nouns.
And when it comes to lower frequency words or verbs, it's more important to
encounter the word in a variety, in a, as many different contexts as possible,
because that word is connected with other words, both in terms of its, its
syntax or its function, grammatical function in the sentence, and in
terms of which words are normally used with which other words, and all of
that is part of that interpretation.
Developing that ability to predict what's coming, to predict what a
word means that you haven't seen before, which is all an important
part of increasing our vocabulary.
And I would add that the low frequency words are extremely important
because getting back to my original example, this, uh, presenter, Mr.
Boutilier has a wonderful vocabulary, which enables him to speak.
And if you don't have that vocabulary, you can't understand these concepts.
And certainly you can't, uh, express yourself on these concepts.
So what are we to do in order to acquire the vocabulary that we need?
Initially a rich passive vocabulary, and then ultimately an active vocabulary.
So, first of all, in, as I've said many times in language learning, the
key elements are your attitude, your motivation, and the time you have
available with or spend with the language.
So therefore.
It's important to do things that we enjoy doing, because you never know
in a particular sort of learning activity, how much of that is actual
learning, how much is going to stick.
We don't know.
So better to do something I enjoy doing where I'm likely to continue to do it.
The second issue is time is a major, the major constraint.
So it's important to try to do those things that we are
convinced or which objectively we can show are most effective.
So is it more effective to review a bunch of words in isolation, or is
it more effective to spend that time reading and listening or in conversation?
We have to make these choices.
So obviously if we have eight hours a day to spend on learning a language, as
I did when I was learning Mandarin, then I can do a variety of different things.
If I have one hour or two hours a day, then I have to really
make sure that I'm spending my time as effectively as possible.
And in that regard, my view is.
That studying words in isolation, doing flashcards, even investing a lot of
time in any activity to try to sort of activate vocabulary that you've just
learned so that you'll actually be able to use it right away or doing quizzes
or closed tests or any of this stuff is less effective than expanding my.
Basic passive vocabulary and eventually starting to speak.
And when we speak much as is the case in the AI model, we have this vast
memory of words and we reach into that memory and we attempt to speak.
We try things, there's sort of an element of prediction.
We think that this word is going to work.
We try it out.
It works or it doesn't work.
If it works, that reinforces our confidence in using that word.
We will use it again, or a given structure.
If it doesn't work, that also gives us an important message.
It's a sort of error driven.
Probabilistic learning process of the language.
So I prefer to engage in conversations on meaningful subjects of interest
to me, where I can attempt to pull out words that I have in my memory.
And in most cases, I can't pull them out.
And I remember the word after our conversation, but at least
it's a meaningful conversation and I enjoy doing that.
Whereas trying to scratch my head to remember the meaning of a word from a
list or from a quiz or from a flashcard is just not something that I enjoy doing.
The only time I use flashcards is immediately after having
encountered the word in a context.
Because I think that additional amount of reminding is effective
and only if it's a small number.
So if I'm in sentence mode on link, and I have three words in that
sentence, I might review three words.
I'm not gonna review 50 or a hundred words because pretty soon
I'm spending all my time doing something which I don't enjoy doing.
And also, another issue, of course, is this issue of repetition versus novelty.
So as I pointed out many times, uh, as Man Sch Spitzer pointed out the brain.
Needs repetition, but the brain likes novelty.
The brain likes relevance, likes important things, important to the brain.
So studying things of interest is important to the brain.
But when I start out in a language, because I have, you know, so few known
words, like maybe I'm 50, 60 percent unknown words, then I'm quite willing
to listen over and over again, In order to try to get a toehold and after
listening, then to read those words and to try to get a sense of what's there,
but as my percentage of unknown words declines, if there's only 10 or 15 percent
unknown words, then I cannot listen.