Should infinitive forms be marked as separate words?

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1

Hey, as a non-native English/German speaker, I don’t really have this issue in Spanish. I wanted to know how you all deal with words like “to go” or “zu gehen”.

As far as I understand, it’s not the same to say RUN! (corre!, imperative) as to run (correr, infinitive). In Spanish, those would clearly be considered different words, so I assume Spanish learners usually mark them as separate entries.

Given that, should we do the same in English or German and mark forms with “to…” / “zu…” as new words? Or do you think that counts as “cheating” just to inflate our word count?

And if that’s the case, should we also avoid marking conjugated forms altogether (run, runs, ran, etc.)?

I’m really interested in hearing your opinions, because honestly… I’m not sure what the best approach is.

2

I would recommend only marking “run” as the verb. It means the same as “I run every day.” and “I want to run every day.” The “to” just makes a verb the infinitive and you just remember that.

3

I agree. But given that approach, then shouldn´t we also skip the conjugation form? runs is the same as run, just conjugated in a different way. Ella corre, nosotros corremos.. both mean to run.

4

Frankly, it’s up to you. You can mark “to run”, “to eat”, “I run”, and “he runs” all as separate marks. But I think it would be better if you only mark the ones that you’re having trouble remembering.

For example, if you have trouble remembering that “he/she goes” is the spelling and not “he/she gos”.

5

I don’t have a problem with that; in fact, I recently took a C1 English exam. However, I wanted to know whether to mark them as known words or not. The same thing happens to me in German (though I’m a beginner there). To be honest, sometimes I see people with 60,000 words and I’m like… damn, do they count one word and all its forms, or what?

6

Yes, if it’s a valid word, then mark it as known. I usually ignore names of people and do not mark them as known.

But, for example, “to”, “run”, “runs”, “running”, “ran”, would all be known words.

That’s why it’s easier to accumulate lots of known words in Spanish than in English. But English makes up for it in spelling and pronunciation. LOL

8

Thank you for your time and opinion :slight_smile:

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9

Likewise, contractions like “I’ll”, “he’ll”, “he’d”, “she’d”, would also all be known words. Otherwise, it’s just too difficult to “x-off” all that stuff. It’s just easier to mark all valid forms as known and only ignore invalid words or names. In fact, some people include names as “known words”.

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10

I like the simplicity of a word being a specific spelling. I generally mark them as known or unknown. Then it’s mainly about reading a huge amount.

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