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At what level do you say you speak (2) ? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 97 of 118 02 April 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
And that's without mentioning the synergy involved. My languages are related and they keep one another alive. Basically, the time/progress ratio is not linear, even with talent out of the equation. 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 98 of 118 02 April 2013 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It seems that the main themes of this thread have become 1) the balancing of quantity versus quality and 2) talent versus hard labour. Both of which of course have a tenous connection with the original question.
If your criterion for 'speaking' a language is set at a high level then it would of course be logical to focus on the few languages where you have a realistic chance of reaching that level, whereas it would be sensible for people with an interest in many languages to set the targets somewhat lower - but not at a level where the languages in question would be useless in practice. So if I claim to speak a language I would always be ready to speak the language at the turn of a hat, but at a level that would depend on the time that had passed since my last serious effort in that language. The question of talent versus hard work is relevant in another way: for those who have set (or adopted) a high treshold which they can't attain it must be irritating to see others get there with ease - and then they ascribe this to innate talent or favorable circumstances. But the ability to do drills or other kinds of serious study without getting tired is also some kind of talent, and I'm not sure that you simply can decide to work hard if you are in the 'lazy' camp. In that case you really have to trust your innate talent or circumstances. What you can do is to search the balance point where you learn the most with the amount of effort you can muster. And this also apply to things like finding opportunities to speak your target languages. If your circumstances dictate that you have to look hard for opportunities to speak then you may find that activity to be more tiring and frustrating than looking for written texts, and then it would be silly to put your targets for listening and speaking so high that you can't attain them. On the other hand you may excel in dealing with written languages, and that's the strategy I have chosen. I get so to say a higher satisfaction from being able to read almost anything in twenty languages than I would get from potentially being able to avoid errors for five minutes in one of my 'middle level' languages - which I speak for a week or so every two years when I'm on holiday. So the most reasonable solution is to put my speech targets individually according to the range of opportunities I can find to use each language - with higher demands in those periods where I find myself immersed in a favorable setting. And then I have a second and third set of targets for the level of passive skills I can expect to reach in those languages - and these targets are stable and always higher than those targets I have for my active skills. Does it sound complicated to have different and variable goals for each languages and each skill? Well, that's the way the world works, and our ambitions should reflect that. Edited by Iversen on 02 April 2013 at 12:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 99 of 118 02 April 2013 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
We all come from different places, with different experiences, and so trust different sorts of data. I was a research psychologist, and then worked as a scientific journal editor. So my bias is towards trusting peer-reviewed studies, especially when they appear in prestigious journals, and have survived years of scrutiny from other researchers, and have also been collaborated and extended in logical ways by other research groups. If I have to choose between multiple papers from multiple research groups in peer reviewed papers vs. one stranger's anecdote about his own experiences playing piano with his sister, then I am sorry there is not much to discuss. WRT to language learning I am sure that there are personality factors that play a role (e.g., simply being motivated to study each day for an extended period of time; being willing to speak and make mistakes etc). If you want to label these personality factors "talent" fine, I would agree that some people are more talented. But what people mostly mean by talent is that for the same amount of work some people get better faster. In the case of musicians what the data surprisingly shows is that talent is massively over-rated, and what matters by far the most is hours of practice. This is quite counterintuitive, but the data is very compelling. My suspicion is that language learning is quite similar, though I don't know of any studies either way. That doesn't mean that some people might not learn languages much faster than others, but that might simply be due to their learning techniques being much more efficient, rather than because they show greater talent per se. Edited by patrickwilken on 02 April 2013 at 3:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 100 of 118 02 April 2013 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
So if I say that I learnt perfect Amharic in 3 days (that is actually what one of the posts in the polyglot forum said from the article), you would believe me? You would follow my advice and potentially buy my products? Reaching a level in a language IS an achievement for each person; we all have our own goals. However, if we then try to sell our product, then I think it is reasonable to question those results. If we say that we have accomplished something amongst the...let's say 95 percentile, that is statistically relatively improbable but unbelievable. But if we say that we have done something in 6 months in the time that it takes all the accomplished, successful language learners 2 years, doesn't that sound fishy? 4 times more efficient? You really believe such things? And then if I sell it in a book you would buy it? I don't care if somebody is good at a lot of languages or only a few--I care that they don't lie! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 101 of 118 02 April 2013 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Dude, I respect that you have a strong background in research, but I'm also smarter than the average bear and that one example about piano was obviously just a tiny example to illustrate the point. I'm sure I could put out some peer-reviewed articles that opposed your viewpoint with good methodology, etc. But without any study in X subject nor any training in Y activity, didn't you realize that you progressed much faster than your peers? And that you probably weren't that good than others after the same amount of time? That's all I am saying--that there is variation in our talent. At the very least, the physiological aspect is pretty clear. Not all can become Michael Phelps. (why do almost all swimmers have a certain body type..hmm...) The anaology applies to languages--we're not equal in everything. Some people are more naturally disposed towards grammar and others have trouble with accents, for instance. Motivation can overcome a lot, but it will require a lot more work than somebody with a gift. In case you don't believe this... :( Yes, you are absolutely correct that everybody is the same. We are all naturally endowed with the brains to become a Nobel Prize winner, become world-famous artists, chemists, lawyers, surgeons, linguists, professional athletes in every sport regardless of our natural body composition. We are all equal. Kumbaya. Edited by casamata on 02 April 2013 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 102 of 118 02 April 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 103 of 118 02 April 2013 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I can decide for myself what is rational and what is not. What is said in the article might be put on it to make the story sexy - media does that and you should know it - but whatever a person achieves, how does it impact your life? Really, do you think we all just crawled out of an egg here? Don't you think we can see through a few marketing tricks? Why is it relevant whether I follow their advice or not? What do you stand to gain from knowing this?
No, it doesn't sound that fishy. People can have: a) terribly inefficient learning schedules. Working full-time means you can master a language quite fast. I know because I've done it myself and have seen others do it. b) years don't matter, hours do. What matters is discipline. Talent is maybe 5 or 10% of the factors you need. c) you need to learn to read through some marketing flash and find out what the product is actually being sold to achieve (in casu the ones you mention to provide people with motivation to become more efficient at learning a language and setting deadlines for themselves) I think it matters what methods you use and how intensively you practice. And then results will come and the exact timeframe (and 6 months is a lot of time) doesn't matter. Improvement is improvement and whatever exact label is put on it by any authority is a label. Labels are for soup cans.
You are not obliged to buy anyone's product and the products that are being sold are not being thrown in your face. If you don't like the premise of a purchase do not shell out, nobody's holding a gun against your temple. If they lie, they are only lying to themselves and you will do them a favour by not paying them any attention. If their premise is genuine but you don't like the concept, don't buy their stuff. If you're intrigued, do. Edited by tarvos on 02 April 2013 at 6:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4368 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 104 of 118 02 April 2013 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Provided there is a talent for languages, would a person without the tiniest grain of such talent develop the desire to become a polyglot, or to become really good at a foreign language?
Of course, not everyone has the same predisposition to succeed in foreign language learning. Some have a very, very hard time to free themselves from the structure of their mother tongue and to accept that other languages function in a completely different way grammar-wise. Others have a rather small vocabulary in their native language, how will they excel in a foreign tongue? Some people don't know what "adjective" or "noun" actually means. They are not likely to find a text book that will suit them, and they will have difficulties in an average language course. Music: Some cannot distinguish minor from major and have to train there ears several months or longer in order to get there, while others don't have the slightest problem from the start to tell them apart. I think that students at a musical school are already very good, because they have to pass an entry exam which is rather hard. Maybe those students are all talented when it comes to musicality. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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