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What do you mean by "Intermediate"...? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes  Speaks: English*, French | Message 9 of 18 21 June 2009 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
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I describe my French as intermediate, simply because it's a more appropriate description than 'beginner' or 'advanced'! I have a reasonable passive vocabulary, I'm familiar with all of the grammar rules but I still make mistakes, I can understand about 80% of a French TV programme if it has French subtitles, I can have a conversation with a native French speaker, but only if they are patient because I have to think before I speak, and often need them to repeat things.
I agree it's a very vague term, and there are many shades of proficiency within this category. I expect I'll remain in this no man's land for a while before I get to call myself advanced, or 'fluent'. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 11 of 18 21 June 2009 at 2:42pm | IP Logged |
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Dark Sunshine, your description of intermediate sounds right to me.
It's a long road. Sometimes I do mock tests or "placement tests" that I find either in books or the Internet -- better if there's a listening comprehension part with it. It helps to deepen my understanding of the grammar/vocab and more importantly, gives me an idea of where I am in "intermediate" -- kind of like those rock climbing holds for indoor rock climbing. I think the metaphor of climbing a giant rock face works well for me at this level! Edited by Sunja on 21 June 2009 at 2:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5670 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 18 21 June 2009 at 2:59pm | IP Logged |
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To me, intermediate is when you start to feel comfortable working mostly with authentic materials (e.g. newspapers, novels, radio, face to face conversations with "the natives") rather than the artificially constructed scenarios typical of text books and classrooms.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 18 21 June 2009 at 4:35pm | IP Logged |
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For me the transition from beginner to intermediate is when I can read an easy novel in that language without constantly thinking I'm about to go crazy. (Depending on the language, news/newspapers are easier ot more difficult to understand, TV shows/movies are easier to get the gist of without understanding a lot of the dialogue and my conversational skills generally lag behind, so my current measure pole is the novel.) Edited by Bao on 21 June 2009 at 4:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 14 of 18 21 June 2009 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
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I have a couple of personal guidelines:
I call a language intermediate when I can keep on thinking in the language. If I'm travelling with a language on this level I can ask for things in shop or make short comments, but I couldn't manage a extended discussion I speak it about basic fluency when I can go to a country where the language is spoken and stay there for several days without using other languages, not even when I'm having longer discussions with the local people I speak about advanced fluency when I am confident (or I'm told by a competent source) that I speak almost correctly, - but not necessarily without an accent But these definitions only concern one skill, namely speaking the languages (because that's my poorest discipline in each and every language). In fact you should indicate a level for both the active skills: thinking, writing, speaking, and the passive ones: reading, understanding speech. You can in principle be able to read read even the weirdest poems in a language and still be unable to ask for an ice cream. In fact there was a system of this kind in the early days of this forum, but it was quietly ditched. The official definitions that some members refer to generally make a total mess of the different skills, and they also succumb to the theory that 'ordinary' themes by definition are easier than more technical discussions. The opposite is the case: if I'm discussing one of my hobbies with somebody in a foreign language, then chances are that we will be using a fairly narrow set of sentence constructions and a lot of 'international' loanwords, and for me that's much easier than babbling informally about daily life and the latest soaps with some youngster. Edited by Iversen on 21 June 2009 at 10:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 15 of 18 21 June 2009 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
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(Psh, Iversen, I think you changed the way you wanted to express the last paragraph while writing - don't you mean that generally, people believe ordinary is easier than technical while you yourself made the experience than in many cases, technical vocabulary has so many internationalisms that it is easier?)
Adding to my previous statement, I am aware that for Mandarin Chinese I will one day decide I'm an intermediate learner (most likely when I see/hear questions or utterings by beginners and catch myself thinking "how stupid, isn't that obvious?" - yes, I have a bad personality) because reading novels in Mandarin is said to be difficult even for native speakers. Similarly, by my definition I will consider myself intermediate in Spanish when I actually am at a different level from when I decided I am not a beginner in Japanese any more. =D But my range of action should be similar. Edited by Bao on 21 June 2009 at 11:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 16 of 18 21 June 2009 at 10:46pm | IP Logged |
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Bao - you are right, I changed my plan while writing and forgot to correct the preceding text. I have changed "more difficult" into "easier"
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