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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ester Groupie Joined 5669 days ago 64 posts - 114 votes  Speaks: Modern Hebrew | Message 25 of 34 17 January 2010 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I have been studying English since I was 6 or 7, and I learned it almost exclusively in a non-native context: I was taught by non-native professors, heard English often in the media, but never really bothered to take off subtitles and force myself to REALLY listen to it, only a small percentage of the times I spoke English was with native speakers, but I acquired a good command of the written language since I read a lot. The result is that I can read and comprehend written English on a very high level (I read authors such as Dickens, Milton, Shakespeare and others in original without much difficulty), and write rather well, BUT, recently I was surprised when I had to speak the language more, with native speakers, with how often I have to ask them to repeat something they said, with how bad I sound compared to them, and generally with how easily one can tell I am not a native and have never lived in an anglophone country, despite the fact I have been studying English throughout my entire formal education and supplemented that with extensive reading. But, I didn't speak it to the native speakers or listened to it enough, and it's obvious.
Italian is a bit of a different story, since even though I was taught by non-native professors, I actually had regular exposure to the natives (and even been to Italy a few times), albeit limited, ever since I started to study it (which was years after I started English). My spoken Italian is considerably better than my spoken English, both pronunciation-wise and fluency-wise, i.e. the ability to speak effortlessly, without being self-conscious, and the ability for the words to just "come". I was mistaken for a native a few times solely on the grounds of how I *speak* (not that it absolutely never happened with English, but when it was, it was based on how I *write*). So, obviously, exposure to the natives helped A LOT in this case. And then there's Hebrew, which I learned outside of Israel and without the opportunity to spend time there, but I learned it EXCLUSIVELY by native speakers. I don't think I ever had a long conversation with a non-native in Hebrew, all of my professors were native Israelis, just as all the other people I learned Hebrew from, and I had tons of exposure to Israeli TV and other situations in which I could hear native Hebrew. I started Hebrew almost as an adult (late teen), and out of the three, my Hebrew pronunciation is the BEST, and I would really say I speak it fluently. I get mistaken for an Israeli all the time by Israelis when I *speak*, though my written skills are still not very good, and though I'll still make weird mistakes when I speak on more advanced topics, but I would definitely say Hebrew is my strongest language regarding the spoken component, and I definitely think avoiding non-natives at all costs helped tremendously for that. My English mistakes have already fossilized, and the Hebrew ones simply could not fossilize because I was forced to improve all the time. That's why I agree about avoiding non-natives in the pre-advanced stages of learning. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5471 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 26 of 34 17 January 2010 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Not necessarily, I've met non-natives with better idiomatic fluency than I. And in Dutch, I make a point of learning new idioms and expressions. Not all Dutch-speakers will know these. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5471 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 27 of 34 17 January 2010 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Ester: I spoke constantly to non-natives whilst learning Dutch, yet I've often been mistaken for a native speaker.
I had an accent first (a French one) but was able to completely rid myself of it once I became fluent enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5471 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 29 of 34 17 January 2010 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Well this might not be the case for English, but here people in the next village will speak quite differently, so it's normal to hear words and idioms you might not recognize. People will ignore it and subconsciously think that it's something from your dialect. Before I use a new idiom or expression, I'll usually ask a native speaker or two whether they use it or understand it, and how widespread they believe it to be. Also, depending on your target language, speaking like a native might not be your target, because the standard language can often be quite different from how someone might speak. Edited by elvisrules on 17 January 2010 at 3:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5523 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 30 of 34 17 January 2010 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think two very important points get lost in this discussion:
1. We are talking about beginner's classes. How many 10 year olds in Egnlish 101 in Germany would say "kettle of fish" during conversation training, even if they were each assigned a native conversation partner? At that point in the learning process it makes little sense to know or even hear such expressions. During the first semester of a new language your perception is pretty basic. 2. The purpose of conversing with your classmates is surely to practise SPEAKING, not listening. It doesn't matter very much what your friends actully say, as long as you get a context where you are forced to produce sentences in the target language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 34 17 January 2010 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I find the observations of Ester very convincing: listening to native speakers is the way to go when it comes to learning to speak, and listening to listening to non-native speakers who are as bad as yourself is to be avoided. In between we have the advanced speakers, who can be be fair substitutes if you can't get the real thing, provided that they have reached a level where they talk and think fluently in the target language. But your fellow students in a language course generally won't fulfill this criterion. And it is not only a question of picking up errors and bad pronunciation.
I recognize that some pupils in school won't say anything if it isn't part of a communicative situation, but for those of us that can live without communicating all the time such forced conversations with other newbees can be not only a chore, but a real disaster. I remember my school classes in different languages with some dismay because we had to 'discuss' with each others. I would much have preferred just to lecture, write my own essays and discuss with the teachers, and that's essentially what I have done since leaving school (though for a long period I didn't do it to learn new languages). But speaking to a sympathetic native (or a near-native speaker who doesn't sound like an excuse for himself) is a totally different cup of tea: in such a situation I find it easy to let the foreign language buzz in my head and to start formulating thoughts myself - which is the precursor for actually speaking the language. Listening to the stuttering, error-filled and fragmentary utterances of other L2 learners simply doesn't have that effect. Edited by Iversen on 17 January 2010 at 10:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 34 17 January 2010 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I see English and any other language as something I can take down from the shelf and modify as I see fit. Of course speaking something and writing in a way that is incomprehensible to native speakers isn't a good idea, but my personal idiolect is coloured by the things I have read and heard, and this means that I use expressions that might not be common among native speakers. After all they also use expressions I don't know. We have discussed the notion of native fluency in other threads, and my position is still that this would mean that I should choose ONE kind of native speaker as my ideal, and I'm simply not going to do that. And without actually living in a foreign setting it might also be impossible. Edited by Iversen on 17 January 2010 at 11:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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