Fill in the Blanks Language learning p.2Online version Fill in the gaps by Oksana Koval 1 single base suggest basics frequent recently struggle Fascinating setting lemmas exactly frequency foundation Professor Stuart Webb , linguist , University of Western Ontario For language learners in a foreign language ? so for example if you were learning French in Britain or English in Japan , students may often really to learn more than 2 , 000 , 3 , 000 words after many years of study . So for example , there was study in Taiwan that showed that after nine years of study about half of the students had still failed to learn the most 1 , 000 words . Now they knew lower frequency words but they hadn't mastered those most important words . Neil So Rob , don't waste your time trying to learn every word . Professor Webb spoke there about research that showed students knew lower words but weren't learning enough high frequency words . Rob Right , and frequency here means the number of times something happens ? so the important words to learn are the high frequency ones ? and how many are there ? Professor Stuart Webb , linguist , University of Western Ontario For example , with English , I would if you learn the 800 most frequent lemmas ? which is a word and its inflections ? that will account for about 75 per cent of all of the English language . So that learning those 800 words first will provide the for which you may be able to learn the lower frequency words . Rob stuff . And good to know I just need to learn about 800 words ? or what he calls . Yes a lemma is the simplest form or form of a word . And the inflection here refers to how the base word is changed according to its use in a sentence . Knowing these things give you a foundation ? the from which you language learning will develop .
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