“Meaning Cloud”
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Hi everyone,
And welcome to day 8 of the German Advent Calendar – the second Advent.
And behind today’s door is a concept I came up with that can be very helpful for vocabulary:
The Meaning Cloud
I have mentioned it in the comments here and there over the years, but I don’t think I have ever actually really talked about it on the blog, so here we go.
A lot of learners, particularly when they learn their first foreign language, think of vocabulary as a sort of mapping. Word A in one language maps to word B in the other. Or to word B, C and D.
It’s normal to think that way, not least because that’s effectively how things look in a dictionary.
And for many words, this approach also works.
Especially for nouns that stand for 100% real, tangible everyday things:
- Tisch – table
- Stuhl – chair
- Kaffee – coffee
- Einhorn – unicorn
- Löffel – spoon
- …
But also for a lot of other words
- ja – yes
- vergessen – to forget
- spät – late
- …
However, this perspective of simple mapping can also get in the way, especially when it comes to verbs that have a lot of translations. And I’m not talking specifically about German. The verb to get for instance has a giant list of translations in a comprehensive dictionary.
And I believe it’s good to think of words in terms of a somewhat random cloud.
Technically, it would be a cloud in a multidimensional meaning space, of course, but it’s fine to think of it in 3D.
The cloud covers a certain area of meanings and contexts and anything inside it can be expressed with the word, while anything outside would sound a bit weird.
And depending on the shape of the cloud, it can cover two contexts that are somewhat far away from each other – like for example geben in the sense of actual giving (B) and geben in the sense of “there is” (A).
And of two uses that seem to be very similar, only one is covered by the cloud.
- There was lots to drink at the party. (A)
- There were many people at the party. (A’)
The first sentence sounds fine with geben, the second not so much.
Some clouds are really small and well defined (like the one for “unicorn” for instance), others are pretty big and way more chaotic and fragmented than the one above.
Where do they get their shape? Well, from usage. They’re a result of how people use a certain word.
And like real clouds they’re ever changing as the winds of language are slowly blowing. So the cloud of a word today has a different shape than the cloud of the same word a couple of hundred years ago.
Now you might be like:
“Oh my god, so do I have to learn all these complicated shapes?!?!”
But don’t worry.
Yes, in a way, you do have to, if you want to become fluent. But of course you don’t have to “study” them. That’d be near impossible. Some people enjoy trying to “trace” the cloud actively, but you don’t have to do that.
The shape of a cloud will slowly reveal itself to you over time as you see the word in contexts.
Like… in the beginning, you usually only see a very rough shape:
And then it’ll get more clear over time.
The real benefit of this way of looking at things is for translating words. Because it allows you to leave the somewhat basic notion of mapping behind.
Because what does it mean if two words are translations for each other? It means that their clouds overlap in a certain area.
Sometimes, the area is huge, sometimes the clouds of two words almost completely overlap.
And sometimes, it’s just a little bubble on the sides that overlap.
And again, you do NOT need to learn consciously. You can’t. No one can even properly visualize an actual cloud.
What you CAN do though, is trying to understand the rough shape and maybe, maybe trying to see where the CENTER is of a cloud. Like… what’s the core idea, the core focus.
And then compare that to the core focus of a word that is a translation.
Do the clouds overlap each other’s core? Then it’s good to think of them as actual translations.
Or do they just overlap at an edge that happens to have ended up in the dictionary. Then you should NOT think of them as a pair, because they just don’t line up very well generally.
Hmm… that still sounds quite complicated and “cerebral”.
Bottom line is that I think this way of thinking of words is more “realistic” than thinking of it as this one thing. And it can help trying to get a feel for whether two words are really translations in spirit or just by occasion.
Anyway, so there you have it. That’s my meaning cloud concept. And I really hope it didn’t scare you. It’s meant to take pressure away. Make things more relaxed. So if that didn’t happen, I did not explain myself well :).
Let’s talk more in the comments if you want.
For now, have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.
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It’s interesting because even the examples you gave as being perfect translations are not really perfect. Like Tisch in German is broader than what we think of as a table in English. I don’t think of a desk as a type of table but as its own separate thing. If you said “writing table” for desk people might think you’re weird, or even wonder if you mean some special kind of writing table that’s more than a desk.
And ja has other meanings that yes doesn’t have. When I was a beginner I used to throw “ja” into sentences thinking it was just an emphasis, or that you could put your “yes” in the middle of the sentence instead of the beginning just for fun. When I learned that it added a specific extra meaning like “as you already know” or something, I was shocked.
And you can’t directly translate “I’m late” or “I stayed up late” with spät (I think). My point is sometimes you can see lots and lots of examples of 1:1 translation and then all of a sudden there are still cases where it doesn’t apply. So I think the cloud metaphor is good.
Also, I would totally say “Es gab viele Leute” and had no idea that wasn’t normal, oops.
I think your concept here really illustrates the idea that you become good with a language when you stop trying to translate it in your head as you use it. Eventually you are just directly understanding it without making the switch to your native language. I’ve had conversations with people and I say “what does that mean” and they actually have to take a moment to think before answering. In other words, they have stopped trying to get one set of clouds fit directly over the other set.
By the way, I’m not there yet. :(
I think they key point is awareness.
It’s really important to be aware that words often don’t have a 1:1 match in another language and that there is no point in asking “Why not like in my language”.
Beginners do that a lot, especially the younger generations when they learn their first language. Once you understand that language is a completely imrpovised tool to accomplish a goal and that there are many ways to achieve that goal, you can look at another language more through a lens of “Let’s see how they go about this. Oh wow, it’s completely different.”. And I think that makes language learning more enjoyable, because it’s a bit of an exploration of human (or life’s) enginuitiy. All these different ways of doing the same thing.
So yeah… this cloud concept is really more about an abstract way of looking at things and no so much about application in daily language learning life.
Yeah, but I learned *after* I reached a point of fluency in German that that (no longer translating in your head) happens naturally and you don’t force it. Ever since I was a kid in my first language class there was always that “advice”- you need to THINK in your new language, not translate everything in your head. I tried so hard to do that but it was impossible because most of the time I just didn’t have enough words. You can say “oh if you don’t have the exact word just think of it in a roundabout way” but even for that you still need a pretty strong grasp of the language.
Anyway one day after I had spent a lot of time having conversations in German over the course of months and it was becoming more and more natural, it just occurred to me that I never translated anything in my head anymore. My brain would just totally go into German mode. And that’s when I realized that thinking in the language should be seen as more of a marker of fluency than a strategy to attain it. It’s not something that can be forced.
Also I have to say, in my opinion, automated translation has helped a LOT with that. It’s an instant way to know the right way to say something and over time it can really boost your vocabulary. Per this cloud concept, the key is to translate longer phrases or sentences, not words. Otherwise you will just get a long list of translations you can’t make heads or tails of.
People are always saying that machines are terrible at translating and always try to force 1:1 translations, but in the recent past they have gotten way better. I use Google Translate all the time to figure out the natural way to say something in German. So far I have literally zero funny stories of me learning something incorrect from Google, it’s all been correct. And then that sentence I got from Google becomes the new way I think about that phrase, rather than whatever instinctively felt right to me because it sounds like English.
I agree, the machines are doing pretty well. It’s just important to not assume EVERYTHING they put out is correct or idiomatic. They have a certain error rate, but they’re definitely an overall positive tool.
Not sure if I agree.
English speakers for example absolutely need to stop thinking with all the “-ing”-forms and phrasings because none of them will ever work. Same for English questions or conditional or using the tenses.
– Did you do your homework?
Translating is the road to doom here.
You have to understand the way it’s done in German and then just do that from scratch. The more English you have in your mind in that moment, the more likely you are to fail.
So yeah.. I think you DO need to stop translating, as a conscious and painful effort, and force yourself to actually build it up in German, even if it takes two minutes.
Maybe it depends on the person. Consciously trying to block out English before I was ready just didn’t work. It’s like when you try not to think of a pink elephant and then that’s all you can think of. Or maybe it’s like taking off the training wheels before you’re ready. But it did happen unconsciously as I got more advanced.
But to be fair I was never the type to try to translate one word at a time and make the word order match and everything. Even as a beginner I understood that doesn’t work. But I would still translate phrases or sentences in my head before I could say, write, or understand them. So basically I translated in chunks rather than words. This doesn’t necessarily cause errors, it just slows you down a lot. Besides, if you haven’t learned the correct sentence construction to begin with, then you won’t be able to build it from scratch anyway.
Not sure what you mean by English speakers making -ing errors though. I don’t even know how to translate that to German, so I don’t think I could make a mistake with it. I think the opposite is more common, most Germans I know don’t seem to know when to use -ing, they seem to use it pretty randomly. And then I feel bad because I can’t explain to them why it sounds right at certain times and not others. The closest I can get is -ing for continuous actions but I’m sure that’s not a great explanation.
“English speakers making -ing errors though”
I mean stuff like
– I was going home.
I have heard plenty beginners say “Ich war gehen nach Hause”
Or stuff like this:
– Considering the rain, I have decided to stay home.
The mistake is basically trying to translate it instead of just rephrasing the whole thing which is way more idiomatic :)
And yes, our German brains cannot understand the progressive aspect of “-ing”. We often think, we got it, because we’re a bunch of smart alecs, but we don’t got it.
I saw someone already asked about “Es gab viele Leute auf der Party”. Every session in my A2 course we’re asked to describe a picture, and I feel like every sentence I say is “a Learner’s Sentence”. I know that I am actually a learner who is still learning, but struggling with the where everything goes and the correct idiomatic usage of each word is sometimes just frustrating.
I think I needed to vent. I hope it’s just a phase though. :)
I feel your pain. I felt about 8 months ago that every sentence I checked in DeepL was changed to something else. I was NEVER “right” and it was hell. Then…I crawled out of that hole. Mostly, I came to realize that there are soooooo many ways to say something and there often isn’t a single correct answer. Of course, the same is true for English. Using YDG’s dictionary and articles really helps me find the right verb or usage for a given word. Good luck. I hope you get through this phase.
Thank you!
I didn’t know about DeepL, will check it out.
I hope so too, and I will have to keep practicing till I get there, but it’s nice to know others feel/felt the same way too :)
This is an intelligent explanation. I like the visualization and the description of the concepts using mathematical set and mapping ideas. I liked how you used “cerebral” because the Meaning Cloud can be an approximate conceptualization of how the specific information for each word is mapped in the brain.
I want to thank Emanual and the Dailygerman community for the informative post and for helping me out.
Hahaha I feel so seen that I asked yesterday about using es gibt to refer to people at a location and then this comes out today!!
I like the word cloud analogy, its the reason why I had to end up making my own anki deck rather than using a premade one. A lot of the times the premade decks will use a 1:1 translation approach that ends up confusing you more than it helps!
I really like this metaphor. It makes vocabulary a bit less overwhelming. And I definitely see how it illustrates your style of teaching. Thank you!!
I enjoyed this distillation of your approach, which I have imbibed over time from your articles, especially the prefix core meaning articles. I think your artistic visualization of the meaning of those prefixes is a parallel approach and I have kept that and refer to it frequently. It is a delight.
Danke, freut mich sehr zu hören!
While we are visualizing stuff:
Verb conjugations= the clickable items at the top of a doc (edit, file, view, etc) that you can click, scroll down and choose from. Slide slightly right, and they open further subwindows you can scroll down, until you scroll down to the verb form you need.
I appreciate the concept and I have been trying to apply it for some time now. Your discussions of the root origins of German and English words fits into this well. For example your discussion of “werden” illustrates how the languages diverged. Grasping the core concept of some words is certainly trickier than others but it’s fun to try. Thanks Emanuel
What would you use instead of ‘Es gab viele Leute an der Party’? Why does it sound wrong?
“Auf der Party waren viele Leute.”
“There were many people at the party.” You can’t use “geben?” “Es gab viele Leute auf der Party?”
It works, but to me, it sounds a bit off. I sounds like what a learner would say. Not a big deal, but not really idiomatic.
So…I sense a difference, but I cannot think of why I am leaning towards it. I know you totally didn’t want to go into this, but… could you help clarify? Is it that one is a countable amount, and the other is a generalization of amount?
So the way I “analyzed” it in another comment is that (as a rule of thumb) you don’t use “es gibt” for people if you talk about people being in an actual location, but you do use it, if your focus is on general existence.
– Es gibt viele Menschen, die nur eine Sprache sprechen…. NICE
– Es gibt viele Menschen in dem Café… mehh
An edge case would be this:
– Es gibt viele Menschen in Berlin, die nicht hier geboren sind.
A learner could look at my definition above and say “this is about people being in a location”, but to me, it feels more general.
It’s not a strict rule after all, but it’s a good guiding principle.
Actually, thinking about it a bit more, I feel like “es gibt” does work well with people, whenever there is a side sentence describing them.
– Es gab viele Leute auf der Party, die keinen Alkohol trinken. Sounds good.
– Es gab viele Leute auf der Party… sounds bad to me
This helps a lot – and it supports your ‘general existence’ theory. We aren’t counting the people, we are only counting the non-drinkers (clarified in the side sentence). Thank you!
This is an interesting idea. Whether it helps that much, I am not sure.
Take the word ‘verweisen’ that to my mind has two unrelated meanings: to expel or to refer. I can see refer with the root of weisen meaning to show or point, but where does expel come from? A really huge cloud!
Nice example.
“ver” is in its essence about “crossing a boundary” (I have an article about it).
When a link refers to something, you cross a boundary from one “source” to another. And when you expell someone, you make them cross a boundary.
If you think of the act of “verweisen” as “go over there”, the two words are pretty much the same, only that in one case, “over there” is where the information is, and in the other it’s “outside of our common space”.
Does that help?
oddly, I never saw these as separate. Expel = the authorities have noticed you, pointed you out, selected you, put you on the list for expulsion.
The one that kills me is auf/ab: auf dem Tisch = on, bergauf = down, bergab= up, ab Morgen = from tomorrow.
“bergab” is DOWN, not up. “bergauf” is “up”.
Did you mix them up in the comment?
Oups! I mixed up the mixup. Bergauf (UP) legen auf den Tisch (DOWN/ON). Bergab (DOWN) but Ab Montag (from Monday ON). I could go on, cuz abstellen basically = legen auf. Aughhh…
“ab” is about separation.
“ab Montag” – you start Monday and go “away” from it. Same logic as “abfahren” (to depart).
“abstellen” is like “to put down”. Yes, it can be done by laying something onto something, but you wouldn’t typically use “abstellen” if you put a vase onto a very high shelf, just like you wouldn’t use “put down” for that.
Are you sure you’re confused about the concepts? Because I feel like what leaners usually struggle with is the fact that “ab” sounds like “up” but just means the opposite.
Hallo,
Let’s deal with a few typos:
“It means that their cloud overlap in a certain area” (It means that their clouds overlap in a certain area); “sometimes the cloud of two words almost completely overlap” (sometimes the clouds of two words almost completely overlap); “Do the cloud overlap each other’s core?” (Do the clouds overlap each other’s core?)
“more “realistic” than thinking of it this one thing” (more “realistic” than thinking of it as this one thing)
“Let talk more in the comments” (Let‘s talk more in the comments)
Great concept, it really makes things more relaxed, German is indeed notorious for having very complex clouds but they do occur in all languages. I think this concept is a lot better than to think of words like “go”, “get”, etc. as an endless list of possible translations :)
Bis morgen!
Yeah, it also helps me to compare two similar words in one language. When I try to get a sense of what area they each cover, I might be able to infer which is a better fit in a new context where they could technically both work if I just go by a dictionary.
It’s not something to think too much about though. Like… the cloud metaphor is more of an analogy than an actual applicable approach. I don’t really have shapes in my head for different words.
Great concept and explanation.
I think this illustrates the risk of just looking at one word definitions when looking up a word. Especially if the word has multiple senses in english AND multiple senses in german. When I started learning I was using Leo which often just gives a single word without any context and I definitely ended up misunderstanding here. I’ve actually kinda come back around to Leo to some extent recently after not using it at all for years but only as part of looking up a word in mutiple places: YDG, DWDS, Linguee, Duden. Usually in that order. There isn’t really anything better than looking up a word in a german dictionary where the definition is in german but you obviously need a decent level of german first…
I totally get this – it happens in my brain naturally … also I think some words lose their “literal” meaning and just become concepts, like “gibt es” just means “is this available”, “does something exist” or “is it here” etc