Subject: RE: [hackers-il] RFI: Recommendation for a good Vocabulary Builde r

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:53:36 +1100

> The thing is that: I many times encounter in correspondence 
> or on the Web 
> words in English that I don't understand. So I look them up 
> in the online 
> Merriam-Webster Dictionary. However, afterwards most of the 
> time I forget 
> them again. I don't want to forget them as I want to enrich 
> my English 
> vocabulary which is pretty good, but still not as good as a 
> native English 
> speaker.[1]

I think your english is better than many native speakers I've heard :-)

Anyway, I don't have a software package for you, but I can offer you the
system I use to learn new words.

Get a pack of index cards.
One each card, write the word on one side and the definition on the other.
each card should have two numbers on top: (m,n).
You start with (1,1).
You go over the cards, if you didn't get the word, you write (m+1,n) on top,
if you did get the word correctly, you write (m+n,2*n).
You order them in lexicographic order, according to the (m,n), and go over a
fixed number of them daily. When you are done, you reorder the cards
according to the new indices.
This system ensures that words you know well, you will see very rarely, but
still see them, so you won't forget, and words you don't know, you'll see
every day until you know.

I used it when studying russian - for learning words and grammer rules, but
it could be used for just about anything that needs memorizing.

If you like this method, you can write a software package that implements
it. Should be easy.

Thanks,
Chen

________________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
Security System. For more information on a proactive email security
service working around the clock, around the globe, visit
http://www.messagelabs.com
________________________________________________________________________

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:02:05 +0200

> I think your english is better than many native speakers I've heard :-)

Yes, but I corresponded with several people (not all of them native speakers) 
who said some words for which I had to look it up in the dictionary. And they 
were not particularly King's English words - they were just relatively 
uncommon.

I realize the English of some native English speakers is very poor. (just as 
the Hebrew of many Hebrew speakers is very poor). But it still doesn't mean 
my English is good enough. I can usually express myself very well, and have 
enough words at my disposal (at least for areas that I'm familiar with - I'm 
not familiar with many technical or specialized terms), but I still want to 
improve my English faster than it does now.

> Get a pack of index cards.
[Snipped ... ]

Cards? Too low tech for me. I live, eat, and breath computers and Internet. If 
I can I usually prefer even reading a book in the computer.

(note that I did not yet had time to fully understand your system. I think a 
simpler system where a word is shown and I have to recall its meaning would 
be better for me.)

> it could be used for just about anything that needs memorizing.

OK.

> If you like this method, you can write a software package that implements

Of course, writing a basic vocabulary builder that does what I want should not 
be too hard. However, I follow the advice of the Great Patriarch Raymond in 
the holy scripture "The Cathedral and the Bazaar":

<<<
2. Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and 
reuse).

(and naturally the Great Patriarch Joel Spolsky has a few things to say about 
it too)

I'm looking for a full-fledged and complete solution, not some ad-hoc 
re-invention of the wheel that I'll need to maintain and embellish later on.
I'm pretty sure someone wrote something like that that can be configured just 
like I want it to. 

I recall looking for a good images' viewer, going over the Freshmeat search 
page by page, and eventually finding gimageview/gimv 
(http://gtkmmviewer.sf.net/), which is the best image viewer that I know and 
that can ever exist and works just like I want. (the comments there say so 
too). You may have a hard time acknowledging it, but it's even better than 
ACDSee. (which isn't too bad at all, either) So writing something like that on 
my own would have been a grand waste of time.

I'm not against re-inventing wheels, because it sometimes yields wheels that 
are more interesting in some respects. But this is a case where I'm looking 
for something someone else did and perfected (and I may perfect a bit myself) 
rather than writing an ad-hoc one for myself and only for myself. There's not 
enough code re-use in the world, and it's not a good thing.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/

I don't believe in fairies. Oops! A fairy died.
I don't believe in fairies. Oops! Another fairy died.

---

From: Eugene Teo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 17:32:47 +0800

<quote sender="Chen Shapira">
> I think your english is better than many native speakers I've heard :-)

I am a native speaker, though I speak Chinese most of the time.

My suggestion to you is to speak English as often as you can
for this will helps you improve your command in English, and 
without much effort at all. Alternatively, tune in to BBC or
other English-speaking radio stations, preferably those from
the UK. Index cards are a good idea too but you will end up
killing more trees than you should. An electronic index card
system will be more ideal, think I saw a vietnam version some-
where.

Eugene

> Yahoo! Groups Links

-- 
Eugene TEO -  <eugeneteo%eugeneteo!net>   <http://www.anomalistic.org/>
1024D/14A0DDE5 print D851 4574 E357 469C D308  A01E 7321 A38A 14A0 DDE5
main(i) { putchar(182623909 >> (i-1) * 5&31|!!(i<7)<<6) && main(++i); }

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 12:00:47 +0200

> system will be more ideal, think I saw a vietnam version some-

My experience is somewhat different: I have found that getting experienced
with *written* English and *spoken* English are quite different. Some people
speak excellent English, but find it very difficult to write good English,
and sometimes can't even spell properly. Other people can read and write
very well, but find it difficult to speak the language in a quick,
understandable, manner. For example, I know native English speakers whose
level of English writing is several levels below mine, but who can speak
English much better than I can.

So if you are interested in improving your written English skills, including
your vocabulary (which is much more important for written English than for
spoken English), you might want to do what generations of teachers always
recommended for improving your language skills: read.
Read books in English, articles, web-pages, and so on. You'll be amazed how
you'll find yourself learning new words without even noticing. This is what
happens to me: I sometimes find myself writing some rare word, that I don't
even know how I had learned. Some books are especially full of complicated
words I don't know, and then I remember this book :) For example, from a
single book I read last year (about evolution), I learned the words
"fecundity", "junk" (a kind of ship), and "cul-de-sac". Look those up in
m-w.com if you don't know what they mean.

P.S.
Writing good English is not only about vocabulary of individual words. The
next level of complexity is the context of these words, and idioms, and these
are harder to learn from cue-cards and dictionaries. For example in a recent
posting on this list I wrote something like "Either one of us ponies up the
time ... or somebody ponies up the money". To "pony up" is an idiom, that
should be used in specific contexts. You cannot say "I volunteer to ponie the
time" like you did in your reply - not only is this a spelling error, it
also misses the vital "up" (check "pony up" in m-w.com).
When you read (but also listen, see movies, etc.), you pick up those idioms
and start to intuitively know which words best fit which contexts. This is
many times more important than impressing your reader with some obscure word
that nobody uses.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Sunday, Feb 15 2004, 23 Shevat 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-790466, ICQ 13349191 |May you live as long as you want - and
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |never want as long as you live.