Active vs Passive Vocabulary

[davoosh]

Hello all,

I was wondering how everyone deals with active and passive vocabulary. As most of you probably know, the passive vocabulary of an individual is significantly larger than the active vocabulary (even in their native language), but this gap is even bigger regarding a foreign language.

My problem is this, my passive vocabulary in Chinese seems reasonable as I can read and listen to most things without the need of a dictionary and any words I don't know I can guess from context. However, when it comes to myself speaking and forming sentences I often think 'I'm sure there is a better way to phrase this', which essentially means 'I wish I had more words in my active vocabulary to express this', sometimes I will hear a sentence and think 'oh how come that wouldn't have come to my mind if I wanted to express the same thing...'.

Anyway, how does one go about transferring passive vocabulary into the active vocabulary? What methods do you all use? I think something like writing small passages making sure to use the desired vocabulary, or maybe telling yourself to use the words in conversation during that day? Any suggestions / insights would be great!

Thanks!

[aristotle1990]

Having encountered this problem myself many, many times, I eventually resolved to do something about it. Now, whenever I want to express a thought I come up with during conversation more coherently and/or elonquently in Chinese, I'll take note of it, research the English phrase and/or related Chinese words with Engkoo (find what it is I want to say, usually by entering a word or two) and Baidu (I use this to weed multiple possible candidates down to one) and Lingoes, get a Chinese sentence that seems to mean what I want to say, and then put them both into Anki, English on the front, Chinese on the back.

I find this method to be extremely effective -- if I'm talking in Chinese, and suddenly I need to say "fills use their gills to take in oxygen," I now know how to, thanks to Anki and the research I've done beforehand. Obviously, you should only do this with phrases and words you think you'll have a decent probability of actually encountering in the wild -- 厉害, for example, would be a candidate for this type of memorization, while 利害 would probably not be.

[c_redman]

I've found that translating arbitrary things, e.g. movie scripts, from L1 to L2 is good practice, not just for vocabulary, but also for grammar patterns. If I just practice spontaneous speaking or writing, I stick closely to words and phrases I already know, avoiding words even if I known them half-way but am not completely confident about. Translating another person's words doesn't give that option, so I'm forced to learn new words and structures. But this really requires a native speaker with a lot of patience to correct your mistakes and answer your numerous questions.

[rezaf]

I also have this kind of problem that's why I recently have started learning all the common words in my dictionary. I have native speakers choose the words for me which is an average of 10 words per page(the dictionary has 2100 pages). I write them and maybe some interesting example sentences down in my notebook. I review parts of those words everyday. For example one day I try to recite all the words I know for a1 ai1 ai3 ai4 which is 102 words. I have already finished A,B,C and I think I can finish 21000 words in 3 years and this way everything will be in my active vocabulary. This is the most straight-forward plan that I could think of cuz nothing else has worked for me.

[skylee]

if I'm talking in Chinese, and suddenly I need to say "fills use their gills to take in oxygen," I now know how to,

How to?