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Learning an alien lexicon : a teach-yourself case study

University of Newcastle upon Tyne

This article uses diary data to examine a British learner's self-study experience of Hungarian, with reference to lexis. Though European in orthography and cultural background, Hungarian has no cognates and few borrowings from other European languages, enabling close focus on lexical acquisition strategies and processes per se. From this learner's experience, it is suggested that building a working lexicon is the single most important task facing the learner. In this there appear to be two key enabling aims: gaining a large enough stock of core lexemes to use etymological strategies on complex vocabulary, and developing the ability to read real texts. Reaching these thresholds is likely to be a hard task; beyond them learning may well become more enjoyable. A combination of studial and output-practice strategies is seen as crucial at all proficiency levels, however. Self-study coursebooks are also discussed; key factors identified are: leamability, reference value and the provision of personalized, message-based practice.

Second Language Research, Vol. 11, No. 2, 95-111 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/026765839501100202


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