tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post7776215721501852931..comments2024-02-28T05:25:12.859-05:00Comments on English, Jack: Idioms: interpreting the frequenciesBretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-66517007540084693902013-04-06T12:59:41.527-05:002013-04-06T12:59:41.527-05:00It would probably be more useful to use the most f...It would probably be more useful to use <a href="http://www.ngrams.info/download_coca.asp" rel="nofollow">the most frequent ngrams</a>.Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-24672011681345320132013-04-06T12:51:23.938-05:002013-04-06T12:51:23.938-05:00One good justification for teaching idioms is also...One good justification for teaching idioms is also common to teaching phrasal verbs. I have taught deaf students, who have many issues in common with second language learners, including the need for the 2,000 most common words, difficulties with function words, and difficulties with idioms. One HUGE need is to teach students to read chunks of text rather than reading word for word. Phrasal verbs and idioms both require reading the entire phrase or idiom in order to get the meaning. That being said, phrasal verbs may have more utility both in frequency of use and in teaching to read chunks of text.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09922209504245089224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-72399549396875177322009-06-28T22:51:59.478-05:002009-06-28T22:51:59.478-05:00Hello
Regarding native input, some interesting in...Hello<br /><br />Regarding native input, some interesting information can be found here:<br /><br /><a href="http://learnalanguageortwo.blogspot.com/2009/06/alls-well-in-tv-land.html" rel="nofollow">The link</a><br /><br />The blog is mine, there is too much to post in a simple comment!<br /><br />BTW, thanks for this post, it was rather interesting!Reinekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07698980784691138039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-90787549578585351792007-07-19T08:02:00.000-05:002007-07-19T08:02:00.000-05:00I think there's likely a good deal of truth in tha...I think there's likely a good deal of truth in that, Rick. I think there's also something in idioms that makes them easy to learn, for native speakers at least. First of all, as you say, all the words are known. Secondly, they've become idiomatic because they were particularly graphic, humourous, sonorous, or otherwise remarkable.Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02870575277556244419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31830497.post-58437627703236313792007-07-18T14:34:00.000-05:002007-07-18T14:34:00.000-05:00Idioms are almost always composed of quite common ...Idioms are almost always composed of quite common words, while non-idiomatic lexical items of comparable frequency are by definition uncommon. This makes idioms seem more familiar, and therefore more common than they are.<BR/><BR/>Also, I think we're culturally conditioned to pursue the meaning of an unfamiliar idiom, because the familiarity of its component words makes it seem colloquial and we have a strong motivation to understand colloquial usage. In contrast, low frequency non-idiomatic items (such as "anathema") are regarded by the masses as highfalutin, pedantic, etc., and we're either neutral about investigating the meaning (low payoff) or even antipathetic (don't want to appear pretentious). If we preferentially acquire idioms, this invokes something like <A HREF="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002407.html" REL="nofollow">the Frequency Illusion</A> to make them seem more common than they are.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com