How many words do small children learn a day at their peak?

[Nomaken]

Wasn't it something like 20 a day?  I'd like to know the approximate number.

[McGiver]

just by reading the title, even before i clicked, i found the number 19 bouncing around in my head.\

i think it can be several dozen, depending on the will.  and i an sure that there is differences in abilities.  and prime.
and numerous other factors which would make this a difficult question to answer.

lets stick with 19 for now.

[Nomaken]

I want to know because I want to try to shoot for learning that number of new words a day.

[McGiver]

the answer then is three.

in one year you will learn over 1000 new words.

will you post them here, so we can all learn with you?

[Nomaken]

Screw that, I want to learn at least 20 a day.  If they can learn several dozen, how many dozen can they learn?  I want to try to shoot for that.  I'd like a target that challenges me just to start.  Seems like the most we ever learn a day in a lifetime is a good start.  I want the real number so I can gauge how difficult I think it will be.  I think i'd have trouble learning over 50 words a day if i worked at it all day.

[McGiver]

by admission, you have already stated that you are lazy.

if you put the number at too high a cap then you will quickly abandon the great idea.
but if you put it somewhere manageable then i suspect that you would learn three times the total new words than you would if you went for 20 per day...

[El]

Good point, McJ.

Screw that, I want to learn at least 20 a day.? If they can learn several dozen, how many dozen can they learn?? I want to try to shoot for that.? I'd like a target that challenges me just to start.? Seems like the most we ever learn a day in a lifetime is a good start.? I want the real number so I can gauge how difficult I think it will be.? I think i'd have trouble learning over 50 words a day if i worked at it all day.

it may be more neurologically difficult to learn at that rate now than as a child but I'm not sure. ?I do knwo that there is a window of opportunity for learning a first language beyond which you may not ever be fluent in any spoken language (it;s relatively young, well before age 10 I think). ?(Genie and the Wild Boy of Avaron were the only children I know of where there was no first language excpet for deaf people in remote areas where sign language is not known, and thereforer they have no chance ot learn any language. ?I do know about the latter that a. a woman with no language was able to be a mother to a fair amount of children, and presumably a good one, but she had no name for any of tem and b. a new sign language developed amoung deaf children of one community. ?Enitrely new. ?I just think that's fascinating as hell.) ?There is also a certain point beyond which you will never be fluent in an additional language, though I forget when this is and it epends on how you define 'fluent.' ?For example, most people will never be able to talk without an accent in a newly learned language beyond a certain age even if they have been immersed in that language- i.e. have heard nothing else, like have moved to a country that only speaks that language- but they may hear and understand the language perfectly.

[Nomaken]

I have reason to suspect I have a great capacity to learn language.  I'll let you know what these feelings meant after I learn the languages though, because based on what I know, how i feel i came to that knowledge sounds like nonsense.

[Peter]

I feel that the education system here failed me when it came to language.  I didn't get any foreign language class until I was 12, by which time it was rather late in the game for learning that sort of thing, and the one they chose to teach us was French, which these days is about as pointless as learning Swahili.  There was precious little English too before I was 12; primary school seemed to have been mostly about giving us maths books to work through to shut us up, which, having discalculia, wasn't exactly an ideal situation for me.  The education system failed me at pretty much every turn, actually.

[CuriousPrimate]

...which these days is about as pointless as learning Swahili.

Outrage 

Swahili is a very useful language. It would stand someone travelling through Africa no end (as, actually, will French).

There was precious little English too before I was 12; primary school seemed to have been mostly about giving us maths books to work through to shut us up, which, having discalculia, wasn't exactly an ideal situation for me.

Curious I too was eventually diagnosed as having discalculia. Buggered up reading tape measures when I did surveying with me Dad, but maths in general was fine - even ended up teaching the stuff. Just had to take extra care reading numbers. It was pointed out to me when I did teacher training that the people who tend to teach maths at primary school level were really crap at it when they studied and tend to pass on their dislike to the kids they teach. A good school would have a teacher specifically educated to give mathematics tuition to pupils.

[Lucifer]

schools manage to fuck up most enthusiasm for learning, as far as i can see, even more so since the introduction of the national curriculum here.

but ilove teaching maths - well, the number stuff, mostly - and i think i transmit that to the kids, as my enthusiasm is from my own love of it, and i can usually think of interesting ways to get them to understand it.  place value and fractions are particular favourites, cos i get them all singing stuff to learn it, involving falling out of bed, and bottoms (never fails).

[Nomaken]

While I do agree that schools are evil standardized processing plants that turn unique and curious individuals into consumers slaves, I mean children before they get into school, when they are first learning language.

[BeeBee]

Yale has studied this.  Its finding of "over 10" seems to be refered to often in the parenting journals I read.

I couldn't find the study but here is a recap of it.

http://www.yale.edu/opa/v29.n17/story15.html

BeeBee

[Nomaken]

I don't know if I am actually gifted at learning language or if everyones ability to learn language is this good but they just don't see that you can't learn language just from books or how schools tend to teach it - with repetition, rather that the best way to learn it is to hear it in real conversation and seeing it used in appropriate situations.? I mean you can learn it the other way, but it is harder and I don't think you learn it at the same quality.? When you learn it in a book you can't get a feel for the emotions behind the word, and its appropriate usage.? Even if the word has a bunch of synonyms that have emotional weight behind them if you only know a few of the terms the words are empty... there is less there to associate with, which I think is the key to learning quickly and effectively.

I have this... suspicion that human word acquisition ability doesn't go down nearly as significantly as people have been believing.? I think it goes down as a consequence of ineffective teaching methods, with the justification that it is not cost efficient to teach it the right way, and repetition is good enough.? And then it doesn't go back up because we're trained that you should be able to do it through repetition, and not through immersion.