老外教你：如何将單詞分類記憶，事半功倍

Part1: The Lexical Categories of Language

Whenever you are learning a foreign language, it is important to be familiar with the lexical categories of a language. The words in a given language play different roles in the transmission of information, and they also have varying degrees of importance or

relevance for the learner. We will identify and describe three very broad categories of words that exist in all languages in order to assess the student’s learning priorities, as well as to devise effective ways to approach those priorities in the best way possible.

Here are these three broad categories:

第一部分：語言的詞彙分類

當你學習一門外語時,熟悉詞彙分類很重要。特定語言的詞彙在資訊的傳播中扮演不同的角色，對于學習者來說重要程度和相關性也不同。為了評估學生的學習重點和設計盡可能有效的方法來接近這些重點，我們會區分和描述三大類在所有語言中都廣泛存在的詞彙。這是這三大類：

Group 1:Grammatical or structural words: ~2% of all words in a language

These are words that are very important to the comprehension of a language. At any skill level, there are certain structural words that learners should become familiar with, except perhaps for the very advanced levels, where the emphasis is on communication, not grammatical perfection. Examples of these grammatical or structural words are question words, prepositions, personal pronouns, articles, and so on.

第一組：文法與結構類詞彙：占一類語言總詞彙的2%

這類詞彙對了解一類語言非常重要。不管對這類語言掌握程度如何，學習者都需要對一些結構類詞彙很熟悉，除非非常熟練，不需要注意文法的完美，而是更注重溝通。一些這些文法或者結構類詞彙的例子，比如疑問詞，介詞，人稱代詞，冠詞，等等。

A speaker of a language cannot be deemed to know completely the language without knowing all of its grammatical words. Imagine an English speaker who doesn’t know what the word “How?” means, or the preposition “in”, the pronoun “we”, or the conjunction “however”. This is the category of words with the highest importance and priority. Of course, at the beginning level, a subset of more basic grammatical words will be the priority.

不能認為說某種語言的人可以在不知道全部的文法詞彙的情況下完全掌握此類語言，想象一下一個講英語的人不知道單詞“How”，介詞“in”，代詞“we”,或者連詞“however”的意思。這一類的詞彙是最重要，最高優先級的。當然，在初學時，此類詞彙中還有一部分更基礎的更需要優先學習。

Grammatical words are also called structural words because they express some relationship within the different parts of the phrase or syntax. Grammatical words may appear as a group of related words, but a single word generally does not exhibit multiple forms or morphological changes. However, a single word’s position within the

sentence is often very important.

文法類單詞也被稱為結構單詞，因為他們表達了不同短語或文法之間的關系。文法類詞彙經常以一組相關的詞彙出現，但單獨一個單詞通常不會展示多種形式或形态變化。然而，單獨一個單詞在句子當中的位置通常是非常重要的。

Group 2:Vocabulary: ~90% of all words in a language

This category of words is important for understanding the meaning of

concepts related to a particular topic. The vocabulary category consists largely of nouns, simply because everything has a name. Nouns can have a small number of

well-determined forms or permutations, usually expressed through their endings, in order to express things such as gender, and number.

第二組：詞彙：占一類語言的90%。此類詞彙對了解一個特定話題中一些概念的意思很重要。這類單詞很大部分由名詞組成，因為每個東西都有個名字。名詞可以有少量确定的格式或排列，通常在他們的結尾處顯示，來表達一些例如性别和數字的事情。

The importance of knowing a certain vocabulary word depends on how necessary the word is for the learner to speak about a certain concept. Vocabulary words are interconnected within families of words that come from a particular root, and the interrelated nature of these word families, along with the existence of synonyms, makes it possible for the learner to infer the meaning of unknown vocabulary words from the context. Because of this, out of the three categories of words, the category of vocabulary words is the least essential to master.

掌握某些單詞是否重要在于，對于學習者來說講述某些概念時這些單詞有多必要。詞彙單詞一般來自出于某互相關聯并來自共同根源的單詞家庭中，而且這些單詞家庭互相關聯的特性，再加上同義詞的存在，可以讓學習者根據語境猜測未知單詞的意思。正因為如此，在這三大類詞彙中，這一類單詞是相對最不必要去掌握的。

Nonetheless, this category is very important, and its importance increases as the

student moves into the upper-intermediate and advanced levels. At a beginning level, a subset of basic vocabulary, usually related to frequent life situations, takes a higher priority over a more advanced vocabulary.

盡管如此，這類單詞仍然非常重要，并且當學生在中上層和上層水準進步時這類單詞重要性增加。在初學者水準，這類單詞中在日常生活中經常使用的基礎的一部分，要比進階詞彙具有更高的優先級。

Group 3:Verbs: ~8% of all words in a language

This category of words shares characteristics with both the categories listed above, grammatical words and vocabulary words. These words are highly structural, as they are considered the“bridge” between the subject and the object in the sentence. Because of this, their correct placement within the sentence is invariably crucial. However, the most important characteristics of a verb are the numerous permutations that it can have, and the information that those permutations convey, usually through a system of suffixes.

第三組：動詞：占一類語言總單詞量的8%

這類單詞與上面兩類單詞有共同的特性，文法類單詞和純單詞。這些單詞是高度結構化的，因為他們在句子中的主體和客體之間起到橋梁的作用。正因如此他們在句子中的位子總是至關重要的。然而動詞最重要的特性是他們無數的排列，以及這些排列傳達的意思，這些通常通過字尾表達。

Verbs express a temporal relationship (tenses), an aspect (duration or state of completeness), mood (i.e. subjunctive, imperative), and person (verb forms that go

with ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, etc.). Since verbs have so many different avenues for meaning, students spend the majority of their time learning and practicing these various verb forms.

動詞表達了一個時間關系（時态），一個方向（持續時間，完成狀态），語氣（即虛拟語氣，祈使語氣），和一個人（動詞随“我”，“你”，“他/她”的形式變化），既然動詞有如此多的途徑表達意思，學生需要用他們大部分時間來學習和練習這些動詞的形式變化。

Like vocabulary words, verbs need to be learned within the context of an example and are studied in a particular way. Verbs express actions, and a verb can be the root from which a whole vocabulary family is derived. The beginning levels focus on verbs that represent actions that are tangible, visible, frequent, or useful, whereas in the late-intermediate to advanced levels, verbs tend to be more abstract, and related in general to complex human relationships, thoughts, and processes

類似純單詞，動詞也需要在一定的語境例子和特定的方法中學習。動詞表達了行動，也可以作為一個根衍生出一個單詞家庭，初學者水準重點在于那些表達有形的，可見的，頻率的，或有用的動作上，而中上等水準和上等水準的學習者重點在那些更抽象，與人類複雜關系，思想，過程相關的詞彙。

Sometimes, the formation of a certain ending of a verb depends on knowledge of another verb tense, and commonly, a language course is organized by following a pre-determined sequence of verb tenses to teach/learn. This way of organizing a language course has an analogy in how a child develops linguistic skills. For example, a 5-year-old child commonly can say state something in the present, and past, but not say a phrase like: “If you had taken your umbrella, you wouldn’t have gotten wet.” The tenses in the previous example, namely the past perfect and the conditional, are part of a later stage in the linguistic development of a child. A language course for adults tries to, but does not faithfully recreate this natural order of learning in a child, instead, it is ordered in a way that the formation of verb tenses (the endings of verbs), is more

intuitive and cumulative, going from one concept to the next。

有些時候，一個動詞結尾的結構取決于另外一個單詞的時态，通常，一個語言課程通常遵從一個已定的動詞時态序列來組織，這種課程組織方法與小孩學習語言的方法類似。例如，一個小孩可以陳述現在的和過去的事情，但是不會說比如：“如果你已經拿了你的雨傘，你不會像現在這樣被淋濕了。”在前面例子的時态裡，即過去完成時和從句，屬于小孩子的後期語言學習。大人的語言課程，争取但不是完全重制小孩子學習語言的天然順序，相反，大人學習動詞時态的結構的順序是更加靠直覺和積累，從一個概念到另外一個。

The necessity of verbs in sentences makes this category just as important as grammatical words, if not more

動詞在句子中的必要性讓動詞與文法類單詞一樣或更重要。

Part 2:approaching the Lexical Categories

Any functionally complete learning of a language should integrate a substantial amount of words from each lexical category. This should be the case whether the student is a self-learner or working with the guide of a teacher. We will examine some psychological aspects of learning a foreign language, and then we will look at techniques for an effective assimilation of material from each of the three lexical

categories.

第二部分：接近詞彙類别

任何一個語言學習的功能性完成都應該是大量的每一類單詞的集合。根據學生是自學還是有專人指導應該有一定區分，我們應該調查一些學習外語的心理因素，然後尋找一定的手法來有效的消化每類單詞。

When a child is learning their mother tongue, she or he is in a stage of development of linguistic skills. The child interprets definitions of words, and gradually builds syntactical structures (different word orders within the sentence), general grammatical areas (i.e. tenses, ways of forming a plural, etc), and also memorizes well-known exceptions to those rules (i.e. irregular forms of verbs). Later in life when the person learns a second language, right at the moment of being presented with a grammatical structure that is different from the mother tongue, the student will build a mapping from the mother tongue version, and the new language version, in order to logically understand and learn how to use the second version.

當一個孩子學習母語時，他/她正處于發展語言技能的階段。小孩子解釋單詞的定義，逐漸的建立句法結構（不同詞語在語句中的順序），一般的文法規則（即時态，複數的寫法，等等），以及記住例外常見的規則。（例如不規則動詞的形式）。在之後的生活中，當這個人再學習第二種語言時，一旦看到其它語言不通的文法結構，為了邏輯的了解和學習第二種語言，他腦海中就會立馬閃現他母語的文法結構，和新語言的版本。

As a learner of a second language, the student is not, for the most part, building new linguistic areas in the mind, but forming a mapping or road, at least for initial understanding, between the known and the new language. The formation of this mental mapping between languages that are distantly related, or entirely unrelated, is more challenging. Because this mapping relies on what the learner already knows, the effectiveness of learning a language via this process depends upon the learner’s conscious understanding of the linguistic areas present in the mind

作為一個第二語言的學習者，學生大部分不是在大腦中建立一個新的語言區，而是在畫一個地圖或者路，至少為了對已知的語言和新的語言之間關系的最初了解。這種相差很遠的或根本無關的語言間的思想構圖格式更加具有挑戰性。因為這種地圖要依賴于學習者已知的，通過這種方式學習一種語言的有效性依賴于學習者對頭腦中學習區域的了解。

Take care not to confuse a linguistic area with a grammatical representation. The linguistic area or concept is an abstract understanding not related to words at all. It is manifested in language with particular grammatical representations, which may differ from language to language. A person may know perfectly the grammatical rules of a particular grammatical structure in the new language, but still be unsure of all its permutations in the mother tongue, however, this is no obstacle for learning the new

language because both depend on a solid possession of the abstract mental linguistic area.

注意不要混淆學習區域和文法表達，學習區域或概念是一種與詞彙完全無關的抽象的了解，它表現在語言中帶有特定文法表達的地方，随語言的不同而不同。一個人可能完美的了解一個新語言中的文法規則，但仍然不确定他們在本國語言中的排列，然而，這并不是學習新語言的障礙，因為他們都建立在對抽象思想語言區域的一個穩固掌握。

In any case, the student should move away from frequently comparing the new language with other languages that he or she knows. For instance, consider the case of the subjunctive, an area that often stymies native English speakers who are learning romance languages. The subjunctive exists in English as a mood, but since it is not

explicitly marked in the verb, there are no explicit rules as to when its use is mandatory.

在任何案例中，學生都需要避開把新語言與已知語言頻繁比較的誤區。例如，虛拟語氣，經常成為英語母語的人學習浪漫語言的障礙。虛拟語氣作為一種語氣存在在英文中，但是既然它們不是被明确的标注為動詞，沒有明确的規則規定在什麼時候必須使用它們。

Compare these two English sentences:

a. I demand that he be crowned (subjunctive mood)

b. I ask for him to be crowned (passive voice)

比對這兩個英文句子

a. I demand that he be crowned (虛拟語氣)

b. I ask for him to be crowned (被動語态) In a number of romance languages, the mood of expressing a wish coupled with the relative pronoun “that” in example A above will call for the verb “to be” to show the subjunctive mood through its ending.

As a consequence, a native English speaker who is newly acquiring this knowledge must construct a mental linguistic area, which consists of examining and identifying different verbs that express the “wishing” (or other moods expressed by the subjunctive), and then proceed to formulate practice sentences within this particular

context. The student must also have studied beforehand the particular verb endings for the subjunctive

在一些浪漫的語言中，一個表達願望的語氣加上了關系代詞“that”.在上面例子A中需要動詞“to be”在結尾表示虛拟語氣。作為一種結果，英語母語的人在新掌握這種語言時必須建構一個思想學習區域，該區域由檢查和識别不同的表達希望意思的動詞組成（或者其他由虛拟語氣表達的語氣），然後進一步規劃根據特定上下文來練習句子的計劃，學生必須同時已經提前學習了動詞虛拟語氣的形式。

Notice that this activity is separate from actually learning the verb endings for the subjunctive in the new language, which is actually the corresponding grammatical system of the language which will express the mental linguistic area. Maybe in a new language the subjunctive is not shown through a suffix, but an infix, a particle added in the middle of the verb! These grammatical representations are arbitrary, but should be mostly consistent within a particular language.

需要注意，這個活動與學習動詞虛拟語氣是分開的，實際上是相應表達心理語言區域的文法系統。可能在一種語言中，虛拟語氣不通過加字尾的方法表達，而是一個加在動詞中間的中綴。這些文法表現形式是随意的，但是在一種語言中，大部分是一緻的。

This example illustrates that building a new mental linguistic area is more involved and challenging than building a mental mapping between the grammatical structures of a known language and a new language.

這個例子表明，建立一個新的思想語言區域比建立一個新舊語言對比的思想構圖更複雜和具有挑戰性。

老外怎麼記單詞？對他們來說腦袋裡對單詞早有根深蒂固的分類。根據詞根，詞綴的分類，在此概念的基礎上記憶不僅快還能輕易記住類似的詞。

你得先學會将大腦分區，再把單詞分類放入。