Learning verbs and adjectives – better than learning nouns?

Nouns apparently make up around half of a language in general. You would think then, that they are the words you should be focusing on then, right?

I’m starting to think otherwise. I prefer verbs and adjectives these days. Let me explain why…

Verbs are the ‘base’ of language

If you think about it, sentences are generally build around a verb, not a noun. It gives you the action of the sentence, without which, your sentence doesn’t really give anything to relate to at all. Although in most circumstances you do need a whole sentence to express something, I can show how verbs hold more weight than their noun-ly friends.

If I say ‘house’, you can conjure up a rough image of a generic house, or perhaps associate it with a house you know.

If I say however ‘run’. there is more to think about. Firstly there is once again the imagery associated with running, but on top of that one can ask, is this a command? Is there danger? Then on top of it, that verb is also a noun anyway, and I’ll get back to why that’s good news.

In terms of the immediate advantages of absorbing loads of verbs in language learning, much of a language’s grammar is attached to verbs, and when you master the verb, you’re well on your way in a language. You don’t get that with nouns, do you?

Adjectives – explain your way out of anything

I think there are many who believe the lovely adjective is only there for making your language sound nice at a later stage. That’s all well and good until the day they don’t know a word. In that situation, they are probably really wishing they could describe what that pesky noun is like. If only they had a lovely collection of adjectives at their disposal, to help out whoever they’re talking to.

Adjectives help a language learner to avoid more often falling back into their first language to ask for help. In a language exchange context it might be ok to resort back to a first language, as your partner might know it, but you might not have that comfort say, in the country.

A good descriptive vocabulary also gives you the wonderful, and almost essential ability to use language more creatively. It’s essential simply because creativity aids memory and as I have said in previous posts, exploiting how your memory works is elementary to progressing quickly in a language.

Adjectives are more fun than nouns too. That’s a good reason to like them!

So what about those poor nouns?

Nouns are still important. As said at the start of this article, the make up around 50% of a language. With good command of verbs and adjectives however, you can increase your noun vocabulary in a more creative way. I quite like to focus on very general object nouns like ‘place’ or ‘thing’ and abstract nouns like ‘time’ which are kind of essential, and build up nouns by describing them. This way, you will learn new nouns, but they may just stick in your memory better as you have needed to create a definition of them in order to learn the word.

Finally, verbs, nouns and adjectives are all neatly entwined with each other. Often when you learn a verb or adjective, you get a noun with it. Remember ‘run’ from earlier? I would be happy ‘to run’ (verb) to a charity ‘run’ (noun). Two words for the price of one. I can shop in a shop, or dance at a dance, and although i can’t swim in a swim, I can definitely swim in a swimming pool.

The best news is that this works beautifully for most languages.

Brilliant stuff.

So don’t forget about your nouns, but a focus on verbs and adjectives can be very powerful if exploited creatively.

Thanks for reading!