Name: 6分間英語-「All About Language」英語メガクラス!1時間の新しい語彙 (6 Minute English - 'All About Language' English Mega Class! One Hour of New Vocabulary!)
Uploaded: 2021-03-06T18:30:22.000Z
Duration: 1 h 7 min 7 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English– the  show that brings you an interesting topic,  

authentic listening practice and vocabulary to  help you improve your language skills. I'm Rob…

Watashi no namae wa Neil desu.  And that means 'my name's Neil'.

So Neil, here's a question for you – can  

you speak any languages other than  English of course? I think you can!

Un poco de español that means a  little bit of Spanish. Some Japanese,  

which I tried at the beginning and also a bit  of Czech language - Dobrý den, jak se máš?

Very impressive. So what tips can you give  for learning to speak another language?

Well, practise, practise, practise – and don't  be afraid of making mistakes as I no doubt have.

Of course. Well my aim this year  is to master the Spanish language.  

Muy bien! Well you're not alone. A survey by the  British Council found learning a language is a new  

year's resolution for about one in five Britons  in 2018. So learning Spanish is a good start Rob  

but do you know approximately how many languages  there are in the world altogether? Are there…

Well I know there are many but  surely not 7,000 so I'm going to say  

b) 700 – but don't expect me to learn all of them.

I won't Rob. But I will give you the answer later.  

So, we all know learning another language is  a good thing – it brings us many benefits.

Yes, we can communicate with  people from other countries  

and when we're travelling we can understand what  signs and notices say. So we don't get lost.

That's right – but many scientists also  believe that knowledge of another language  

can boost your brainpower. A study  of monolingual and bilingual speakers  

suggests speaking two languages can help  slow down the brain's decline with age.

All good reasons. But Neil, learning another  language is hard. It would take me years and  

years to become fluent in say, Mandarin – by  fluent I mean speak very well, without difficulty.

Well this depends on your  mother tongue. In general,  

the closer the second language is to  the learner's native tongue and culture  

in terms of vocabulary, sounds or sentence  structure - the easier it will be to learn.

there is so much vocabulary to learn – you  know, thousands and thousands of words.

Maybe not Rob. Professor Stuart Webb, a  linguist from the University of Western Ontario,  

may be able to help you. He  spoke to BBC Radio 4's More  

or Less programme and explained  that you don't need to do that…

For language learners in a foreign language  setting – so for example, if you were learning  

French in Britain or English in Japan,  

students may often really struggle to learn more  than 2,000, 3,000 words after many years of study.  

So for example, there was a study in Taiwan  recently that showed that after nine years  

of study about half of the students had still  failed to learn the most frequent 1,000 words.  

Now they knew lower frequency words but they  hadn't mastered those most important words.

So Rob, don't waste your time  trying to learn every single word.  

Professor Webb spoke there about  research that showed students  

knew lower frequency words but weren't  learning enough high-frequency words.

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 exactly?

For example, with English, I would suggest 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 foundation for which you may be  able to learn the lower frequency words.

Fascinating stuff. And good to know I just need to  learn about 800 words – or what he calls lemmas.

Yes, a lemma is the simplest form or base 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 basics from which  you language learning will develop. Simple

Thank goodness I am learning  just one new language!

But how many languages could you potentially  be learning Rob? Earlier I asked you,  

approximately how many languages there  are in the world altogether? Are there…

No Rob, you were wrong. There are around  7,000 recognised languages in the world  

but UNESCO has identified 2,500 languages  which it claims are at risk of extinction.

A sobering thought Neil. Now  shall we remind ourselves  

of some of the English vocabulary we've  heard today. Starting with master.

To master a new skill, in  this context, means to learn  

thoroughly or learn well. "Rob hopes to master  Spanish before he starts a new job in Madrid."

That's news to me Neil! But it would be  good to be fluent in Spanish – or any  

language – or to speak it fluently – that's  speaking it well and without difficulty.

Now our next word was frequency. Here we are  referring to high and low frequency words – so  

it means how often they occur. Examples of a  high frequency word are 'it', 'the' and 'and'.

And our next word is inflections. These are the  changes to the basic form of words according to  

their function in a sentence. Such as adding  an 's' to the end of a word to make it plural.

And don't forget lemma which  is the simplest form or base  

form of a word before an inflection is added.

And finally foundation which means  the basics your learning grows from.

That just leaves me to remind you  that you can learn English with  

us at bbclearningenglish.com. That's  it for today's 6 Minute English. We  

hope you enjoyed it. Bye for now.  Na shledanou. Hasta luego. Ja-ne.

is 6 Minute English from BBC  Learning English. I'm Neil.

Georgina? I said, I want to ask you  something… are you listening to me?!

Mm-hmm, just a second, Neil, I'm texting a friend…

Ah, has this ever happened you?  Someone too busy texting to talk.  

With the huge rise of mobile phones in  recent decades, communicating by text  

has become more and more popular and scenes  like this have become increasingly common.

…and send! There, all done!  Now, what were you saying, Neil?

In this programme, we'll be investigating  why people often choose to text,  

instead of talk to the people  in their lives. We'll be asking  

whether this popular form of communication  is changing how we interact with each other.

And, of course, we'll be learning  some related vocabulary as well.  

My quiz question, Georgina, which is this. Young  people are often the biggest users of mobile  

phones, but in a 2016 study, what percentage  of British teenagers said they would prefer  

to send a text rather than speak to someone,  even if they were in the same room? Is it:

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6分間英語-「All About Language」英語メガクラス!1時間の新しい語彙 (6 Minute English - 'All About Language' English Mega Class! One Hour of New Vocabulary!)

perceive

phrase

decent

situation