Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
Isn't it what you need? I mean if you understand the concept of the word, you know its meaning. I did the test again - yesterday, funny that I did it at about the same time as you, a coincidence  - for some words I checked my understand via online English Russian dictionary. Could not put ticks next to 4-5 words, because my understanding was incorrect or not precise enough. I am sure that at some point of time I knew meaning of another 10 words when I was memorising words every day during factory shifts for 4 years. Obviously, I didn't put ticks next to them. I am afraid that my vocabulary has shrunk a bit since moving to the UK. Although, I picked up a few new&odd words too
Yesterday I got 20.500 or something like that. Probably because I learned the word opsimath between these tests
There was a German word leitmotif that sounds exactly the same in Russian (surely the word migrated from German) but besides knowing the word and remembering it in classics books I have no clue what it means
Vocabulary for citizens of Western Europe countries is a lot easier to master if their mother language German, French, Datch, Italian, Swedish.
I know some very intelligent British people got about 28-32K. They are like walking encyclopaedias. Yet, they don't know any foreign language and the test results are lower than some "foreigners" score.
It made me question the validity of the test |
1/ By "concepts", I meant I only get some vague ideas about their true meanings. I almost always make wild guesses from the contexts.
Take the word "grumble" for instance: by experiences, I know that people "grumble" when they're upset, and that word describes when they're likely to talk quietly a little more than usually, with sarcastic or bitter comments.
(The same goes for "lycanthrope" or "apocalypse" or "termite"...)
So, I have in mind a "picture" of the word, "drawn" by myself. I "know" what it means, but I don't really know its meaning
By this way, I remember a word better. Looking up any new word I bump into and I'll forget its meaning after 5 secs.
(Of course, built-in dictionary is for the words I don't know beans about!)
2/ How do you know about when I took the test?
