Test your English vocabulary

[Thyndd]

4 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

This actually explains a lot! 

I'm dyslectic, my ortography is horrible in every language I use and I often struggle with grammar, even though I spend decent part of every day reading, including academic texts, and writing (both in Polish and English). I also have very poor visual memory (those kanji...). Relatively low English vocabulary definitely also comes from my lack of dedication in earlier years of learning and little interest in fiction literature or poetry, but in general there are important factors that can influence how hard it is for you to learn and how fast you make progress.

Obviously, hard, systematic work is always the prime component of success and learning new languages definitely is fun (I have a lot of joy learning Japanese now...). But its really not the same experience for everyone. :>

That sucks. Learning a new language is already hard enough, so I can see how that would be demotivating, but you know, there's no rush, it's better to enjoy the journey and results will eventually come. No point in getting frustrated over something yo do to enjoy yourself. That's my philosophy anyway.

My knowledge of what dyslexia is is somewhat shallow. I'm aware that dyslectic people have difficulties with the correct order of sounds and their corresponding graphemes, but I don't know the root of the problem nor how it affects to other areas of language. The fact that you find grammar hard or that your spatial memory is bad could have anything to do with your dyslexia? 

For example, do you struggle the same way ordering the strokes of a kanji or recognizing what kanji you are looking at in the same way you do when reading an English Word? 

[Plk_Lesiak]

2 hours ago, Thyndd said:

That sucks. Learning a new language is already hard enough, so I can see how that would be demotivating, but you know, there's no rush, it's better to enjoy the journey and results will eventually come. No point in getting frustrated over something yo do to enjoy yourself. That's my philosophy anyway.

My knowledge of what dyslexia is is somewhat shallow. I'm aware that dyslectic people have difficulties with the correct order of sounds and their corresponding graphemes, but I don't know the root of the problem nor how it affects to other areas of language. The fact that you find grammar hard or that your spatial memory is bad could have anything to do with your dyslexia? 

For example, do you struggle the same way ordering the strokes of a kanji or recognizing what kanji you are looking at in the same way you do when reading an English Word? 

 

Well, the kind of problems I sometimes have with using proper grammar, spelling of various English and Polish words, my slow reading and poor visual memory, mixing left left and right side (this one weirds people out) all match typical lists of symptoms (those lists are pretty expansive BTW, so it's not completely unreasonable to think dyslexia is a kind of catch-all term for various learning deficiencies). Kanji mostly take me a lot of time to learn honestly, but I still make mistakes with hiragana and katakana, for example switching symbols in weird situations where it really shouldn't happen at this point (also pretty typical). Certain parts of English orthography are completely beyond me, no matter how many times I go through them, but that's obviously present in writing, my reading and hearing comprehension are generally ok, both in English and the very limited Japanese that I know. :] It's very hard to compare kanji and English orthography, because in English I'm obviously using the same phonetic alphabet as in Polish.

And definitely, being able to take your time and finding your own motivation to learn is pretty much everything in my case. I've had German classes for 6 years in middle and high school and I honestly don't know any of it, I just hated being forced to learn it and never used it anywhere, Japanese I've picked up for fun and it's a completely different experience, even though it goes slooooow... :]

[Thyndd]

13 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

poor visual memory, mixing left left and right side

Well that's funny. I don't think I'm dyslectic, or at least I was never diagnosed and I imagine it's not something that goes unnoticed for a long time, but my visual memory is terrible as well, which causes me a lot of trouble when I have to orient myself. Take me out of the paths I've went through over and over, and I'll get lost inmediately. I also struggle to identify right and left. I'm not able to react inmediately without first thinking it over using the hand I write with as a reference. Because of that I had a really hard time taking my driving license practices and exam, and was always stressed out.

20 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

It's very hard to compare kanji and English orthography, because in English I'm obviously using the same phonetic alphabet as in Polish.

Well, actually, I think Polish writing system is phonetic, if a bit confusing with all those digraphs and trigraphs, but English... well... there's this classic joke :

How do we pronounce the word "ghoti"?

The answer is "fish".

How can "ghoti" and "fish" sound the same?

• gh = f as in rouGH
• o = i as in wOmen
• ti = sh as in naTIon

[bakauchuujin]

I also have dyslexia, but I haven't really found kanji to be that difficult. Most of what I have struggled with was in regards to grammar, spelling and slow reading speed (btw this is for all languages not specifically japanese). 

[Fred the Barber]

Clephas beat me: http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9518258

I felt bad because I had to dock myself terpsichorean because I couldn't remember what Terpischore was the muse of, and mawkish even though I looked it up like four days ago.

[Jptje]

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9521029

Not sure what everyone is so disappointed about... I actually expected a lot less. I consider myself to be fluent when it comes to speaking English, but I'm not nearly as confident when it comes to reading. High school Latin helped, I suppose. For a lot of these words, especially some of the 'easier' ones I don't know, I feel like I'd be able to judge what they are if I read them in context, like atorq mentioned.

[wyldstrykr]

my score was 9000 words.. i leave to you guys the judjing of translation quality...

[Gounter]

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9524014

 

there was a ton of words i already saw in some context and understood in the said context, but i had no idea what they meant ... not that bad i guess?

[ittaku]

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9563477

Guess I've been reading too much Japanese only the last decade.

[arakura]

I always run into words that I know from strange contexts that aren't exactly related to their meanings. Bugbear (d&d) and Melange (Dune) for example. I always am tempted to include them.

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9563970

[Odenvard]

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9571388

So much for being a native speaker

If knowing the definition of a word meant being able to state aloud the dictionary definition, then I would know 0 words, but that's mostly because I don't remember the definitions of words as a collection of other words, but directly. That is, for most words I know the definition of, I can't break down the definition for those words any further into other words the way that a dictionary does. I obviously know the meanings of the words, though.

On 1/27/2018 at 9:15 PM, arakura said:

I always run into words that I know from strange contexts that aren't exactly related to their meanings. Bugbear (d&d) and Melange (Dune) for example. I always am tempted to include them.

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9563970

Same for bugbear

[VirginSmasher]

http://testyourvocab.com/result?user=9596689

Average, just like my looks.