List: Most common words in Chinese dramas

[mlescano]

Hi! I just want to share with you guys a list I'm using for my personal study.

I downloaded subtitles from 61 dramas available on Netflix that seemed watchable (I omitted those in the horror, crime and fantasy genres) and used SegmentAnt + AntConc to find the most common words across different dramas. In this document you'll find all words that appear in at least 6 different dramas. That is, those that appear in at least 10% of the dramas in my database.

 

Here's how I'm using this to study:

-I deleted all of my existing Pleco's flashcards, including the default HSK cards

-I then imported this list to Pleco as flashcards

-While I'm watching a show, I follow along the script in Pleco document reader. You can download the subtitles as text using LLN or GlotDojo and then save as TXT so you can open them in Pleco reader.

-When I stumble upon a word that is on my list, it will show a dotted square around the "add card" button. This way I know I've found a word I want to learn.

-I write down the word, by hand, in my vocabulary notebook.

-I then add the word to LLN's word list so I can later download Anki flashcards. 

-After watching, I review the words in my Notebook.

-Later that day or the same day, I review the Anki flashcards.

 

Note: Some of the words in this list are not in Pleco's free dictionaries. If Pleco does not find a word in a dictionary, it will obviously not be identified as a word in your flashcard database when you use Pleco reader. So the more dictionaries you have, the better this works.

 

Another note: The list is ordered by Contextual Diversity, not by Frequency. Here you can find a scientific paper that will explain why Contextual Diversity is a better predictor than Frequency of whether a native speaker knows a word or not:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16984300/

 

I'm actually creating my own Spanish course for complete beginners, and the word list I'm using is also based on Contextual Diversity across different Spanish language TV shows. You can find the course I'm creating on my YouTube channel, Spanish Input.

 

 

 

Chinese Netflix 10 percent words.ods

[tsitsi]

Oooh totally geeking out here! Will be looking into contextual diversity and using your great list kind sir!!

[Xiaowang]

Thanks you very much! There is a lot to look into here. Learning from watching tv series is something I am planning to do, so very helpful. 

 

When you download words into Anki, is that with audio or do you add audio at a later stage, if at all?

 

 

[mlescano]

On 7/4/2021 at 1:07 AM, Xiaowang said:

When you download words into Anki, is that with audio or do you add audio at a later stage, if at all?

Hi! The LLN Chrome add-on adds computer generated audio to your cards.

[thenuka]

Hey there,

 

The link for the post appears to be dead. Would you be able to re-upload it?

[abcdefg]

On 6/24/2021 at 9:49 AM, mlescano said:

Another note: The list is ordered by Contextual Diversity, not by Frequency. Here you can find a scientific paper that will explain why Contextual Diversity is a better predictor than Frequency of whether a native speaker knows a word or not: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16984300/

 

Many thanks for drawing my attention to this. It was not a concept with which I was previously familiar, but intuitively it makes a lot of sense. 

 

Quote

Word frequency is an important predictor of word-naming and lexical decision times. It is, however, confounded with contextual diversity, the number of contexts in which a word has been seen. In a study using a normative, corpus-based measure of contextual diversity, word-frequency effects were eliminated when effects of contextual diversity were taken into account (but not vice versa) across three naming and three lexical decision data sets; the same pattern of results was obtained regardless of which of three corpora was used to derive the frequency and contextual-diversity values. The results are incompatible with existing models of visual word recognition, which attribute frequency effects directly to frequency, and are particularly problematic for accounts in which frequency effects reflect learning.

 

The above quote is from the article to which you linked. This one, below, is from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23374607/ 

 

Quote

Recent research with college-aged skilled readers by Adelman and colleagues revealed that contextual diversity (i.e., the number of contexts in which a word appears) is a more critical determinant of visual word recognition than mere repeated exposure (i.e., word frequency) (Psychological Science, 2006, Vol. 17, pp. 814-823).

 

[mlescano]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:06 PM, thenuka said:

The link for the post appears to be dead. Would you be able to re-upload it?

Hi, Thenuka. I've just checked and it seems to be available. Maybe it's only available for certain users?

 

Thanks for your comment, abcdefg.

 

BTW, instead of trying to learn the list, I just loaded it to Pleco and converted it to a flashcard category called "Netflix", which is inactive during flashcard reviews. When I'm watching/reading something and I stumble upon a word that is in this category (or in the new HSK 3.0 category), I add it to my "Active" category.

[外留者]

Thanks for this. Its exactly what I was looking for. 

[asane]

Wondering how learning with this method has been going for everyone? Do you see any major differences between this list and the SUBTLEX-CH list?

At ~1500-2000K words, and I'm trying to prioritize which words to learn next. I'm not taking any tests and am mostly learning to watch TV dramas and occasional trips to Taiwan. Wondering if anyone has compared improved comprehension using this list vs SUBTLEX-CH vs HSK vs the Wikipedia frequency list. Some words can be lower frequency but more of a linchpin for meaning. I've noticed a dramatic difference between the Wiki frequency list and the others, so I've mostly ignored it so far.

Forgot to add that I've basically gone through and done all HSK3.0 L2 and first 1K words, so now things are less overlapped and trying to pick a direction.

[matchaking]

is there a traditional version of this list?

[Laz]

Unfortunately, the vocab list doesn't seem to be available for download any more  

[williamwu123]

Great list