oa Woordenschatgraven

Many vocabulary lists in Dutch coursebooks are indirectly based on frequency research, and on the assumption that any particular selection of Latin literature might benefit from a representative list. However, the selection of merely 50 pages of Latin for Dutch senior high school education exams does not hold up to both linguistic and statistical logic. As a practical work-around a dichotomy is suggested between ‘content words’ and ‘structure words’. Whereas the latter (conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and adverbs with a general meaning) can acceptably be selected on a frequency basis, the selection of the former (nouns, adjectives and verbs) can be tailored to the specific content of a text corpus with the help of the ‘Collatinus’ open source application. Statistical samples are taken from eight recent final examination programs and the criteria for a tailormade selection are illustrated with Cicero’s Pro Roscio (national exams 2021). Various classroom activities and consequences for editing educational resources are presented.