I was thinking what words should be learned/memorized first when trying to learn a new language. With computers in virtually every home now, how can they be used for creating a list of the most commonly used words. How can we build a database populated with the most commonly used words in various media. For example, If you have a sample of 10 magazine articles, 10 manuscripts from radio programs, 10 lyrics from songs, 10 movie manuscripts, 10 manuscripts from street conversations, 10 manuscripts from restuarant conversations etc, compile the data in a word list with number of occurrences, wouldn't that be a list of words to learn in priority order by number of occurrences. Does such a list exist? Any language students out there need a thesis project idea? A tool like TwitterVenn comes to mind.
Any thoughts, comments welcome.