Don't worry about your active vocabulary

Mohammed Asad Khan   Friday, January 04, 2002, 22:25 GMT
You both have great logical perception, I can not disagree anymore.
I liked your this Ideology when I read it, and It has reasonable and logical sense.

This article reduces my tension of using my passive vocabulary to
some extends. But the main problem which I have, my active vocabulary
is not up to the mark.

Would you please write me a particular amount of active vocabulary.
in English. I can not across my message by my present active vocabulary.

I know so many passive vocabularies but miracally,I'm not able to utilize them.According to your point of view, there is no limitation of passive vocabulary,perhaps It can be infinite, though, from your latest update shows that we people have a minimum active vocabulary in English which might help to express our daily life conversation. I know so many passive vocabularies in my own native language(Urdu) but the natural miracle is that " I can express very long speech or any information by the help of my active vocabulary. "
And I guess there is a big ratio between passive and active vocabularies.
Passive vocabulary is 8 times larger than 2 times of that active.
(Your point has strong griping stuff). 100 Marks so far.

I have active words of English but they seldom transfer my message. It means the level of my active vocabulary is
neligible. Learners problem is that to upgrade the level of active vocabulary and this is our severe tension. And we never thought about using our passive vocabulary.we can not fully remember of our passive vocabulary. Its a natural phenomena of brain memory, a human brian can not remember all passive words for longer time of period. There is a process of erasing and restoration.


I personally think that Active vocabulary are made up from time to time by the help of our passive vocabulary . Its a fact. When we use a few passive words many times in our daily routine conversation, they become our automatically active vocabulary. so the conclusion is that both are "interlinked." "It is necessary to know the
use of passive vocabularies where they are used ,after sometime goes on
we usethese passive vocabularies many times in our life ,they become our
hardcore power of expressing ideas. I mean our " active vocabulary".

Your point is that " Reading is a source to improve vocabulary.Both includes passive and active. Guys, you see, Infact, Active are derived from passive. When the more you use your passive vocabulary, the more your passive vocabulary is converted into active. This way your above point have come true - Reading is a main source.


Q-"Lets suppose ,We think that in your native language, there are thousands of words that you don't use
(but you understand them all). There are literary words, formal words, scientific terms, slang phrases, etc.
which you understand, but you don't use. If you open a book written in your native language, you will see many such words."
" If you dont learn to use those passive words, then Michal's point has become invalid, READING is a main source to improve word power. Isn't it ? because those such passive words we read in many books.



Q- why we people are waisting time in order to read books. we should spend our much
time to learn " Active vocabulary " ,we should learn peculiar vocabulary I mean they are normally use b/w two people conversation, at hotel reservation , on airplanes, at book stalls and so on . They help improve your English instead of reading books, when you think usage of passive words are "vain" and students
gain passive vocabulary through books and dont use. And there is no "tension" occured. from your prospect of this article. It had better throw books infront of you and concentrating on learning your active vocabulary.


Q- The next time you see a difficult English word, you don't need to worry "Will I be able to use this word in conversation?".


If I dont worry about learning whenever I see a dificult word, How can I improve my word and how your point is valid. Reading is a sources of upgrading word power. If we dont worry about that , our vocabulary level will be zero.

It is taken from Tom's Introduction page :

I started appending lots of words from the books that I read. I would come back from school,and then sit for an hour or two and append new words to my collection.After two years, my collection had 3,000 English words.


this point shows that you learned your passive vocabulary with the help of your super memo.You considered those compilcated words to add to your super memo. you see many passive words that you understand all of them but dont use, and you see some of them in books . And it has proved, you have also learned your passive words because you were able to append many words through books to super memo. And use them during conversation after that they became your active.

so your point has become invalid that we should not worry about our active vocabulary . Infact, whatwe use our active vocabulary, they are derived from passive vocabulary so that we should worry about the using of
learning passive vocabulary in order to enhance your active vocabulary.

my final question is that on this issue " Tom and Michal - would you please tell us how did you get your active vocabulary? "from where those active words you got "? Dont you think " passive and active words both
are interlinked"? In have seen a picture in my case, there are 200 active words and 800 passive words. And I should not worry about learning that. Don't you think some of them will be needed when the life goes on towards linguistic. Could you tell us " you can write a whole book on the basis of your active vocabulary." different speaker have different levels of active vocabularies. " mostly passive words you see in books and you learn. so you should worry about using those thousands words".
Mohammed Asad Khan   Friday, January 04, 2002, 23:23 GMT

I forgot asking a question. Was this article written by only michal.
While I was reading this article, I thought that Michal was suggesting this advice to me, because the tune of explaining the article was similar to Michal's. The language of expression was nearly about Michal's.
I can surely say that this article was written in Michal's writting.
Is that right?
Michal Ryszard Wojcik   Saturday, January 05, 2002, 21:47 GMT
Tom   Sunday, January 06, 2002, 13:02 GMT
<<<<
When we use a few passive words many times in our daily routine conversation, they become our automatically active vocabulary.
>>>>
Yes, I think you've made an accurate observation.

<<<<
why we people are waisting time in order to read books. we should spend our much time to learn "Active vocabulary"
>>>>
Before you can add a word to your active vocabulary, you have to add it to your passive vocabulary.

<<<<
If I dont worry about learning whenever I see a dificult word, How can I improve my word and how your point is valid.
>>>>

You don't have to WORRY ABOUT USING difficult words, but you should pay attention to them, LOOK THEM UP in a dictionary, etc. You should make sure you understand them.

The statement says nothing about LEARNING. It is about WORRYING.

For example, suppose I'm reading a book and I encounter the word "cantankerous". I look it up, I understand the sentence in the book, I append the word to SuperMemo.

Even after these steps, I might still worry: "Fine. I understand the word. But would I be able to use it if I needed it in conversation?" Our article says I should stop worrying and think about these things:

- "It seems I can already say anything I want in English. I have no communication problems. If I didn't use "cantankerous", I'd use another word."

- "Even in my native language, there are many words which I don't use".

- "So my English is about as good as my native language. What more could I want? Why should I worry about this particular word?"