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Can one speak better than understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5374 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 145 of 186 27 September 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Let's say that in the context of this thread communication refers to oral communication. That was the original idea behind the original use of the word "speak" in the title.
Now, rather than rehash some old arguments that can be found in previous posts, I prefer to move on to the connection between oral comprehension (understanding) and oral communication skills (speaking). For those people who are not interested in communicating fluently, correctly and automatically, I suggest they skip the rest of this post. As many people around here know, there is a whole school of thought that believes that the key to foreign language proficiency is large quantities of diversified comprehensible input. This can take many forms, one of which is to look at films in the original language but with subtitles or to listen to popular music in the target language. Many observers believe that this is a major reason for the high level of English in certain European countries like Holland, Germany and the Nordic countries. There are, obviously, many other ways of getting comprehensible input, including forms of immersion and actual contact with native speakers. My take on all this is that as learners we are seeking to reproduce what we hear. Although this is very difficult, through actual study and constant repetition we can develop the ability to more or less spontaneously produce meaningful speech. The challenge of communicating "fluently, correctly and automatically" is not be underestimated. Just something like mastering the phonetics and sounding native-like is nearly impossible after a certain age. Certain areas of grammar are best avoided. And things like idioms, as I have mentioned before, are wickedly difficult to master. (Speaking of idioms, I saw a few days ago that a journalist, writing about the gaffe-prone American presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, said that he "shot himself in the foot, reloaded and then shot himself in the other foot.") My position is that you can't communicate orally well if you can't understand the linguistic code. And to add to all of this, there are issues of dialect, ambient noise, voice quality and speech defects of native speakers. All of this leads me to believe that it is an illusion this idea that one can speak better than understand. It is the other way around. I don't see how one can "speak" well and not understand an everyday television program in the standard language. The fact that you have difficulty understanding native speakers should not lead you to conclude that you can communicate orally better than understand. Edited by s_allard on 27 September 2012 at 3:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4633 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 146 of 186 27 September 2012 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let's look at the way I learned German. I was so excited to speak it that I concentrated on vocab, grammar and pronunciation. I drilled on phrases and memorized hundreds (thousands?) of sentences. I wrote emails to native speakers, I text chatted, etc. I neglected audio input (except Pimsleur) for the first few Months. I have a pretty advanced vocabulary and a good grasp on grammar. I can formulate sentences and "speak" about whatever I want. My issue now is the decoding. I haven't had nearly enough exposure to the sounds of the language in natural speech. I can "hear" phrases and vocab that I know (and could use in my speech) that I can't decode quickly enough to understand in a conversation. My ear isn't used to it. Now, I'm not saying I understand nothing. I understand the majority of what I hear. However, there are certainly times when I don't understand something because I missed a word or take a couple extra seconds to process the vocabulary and it puts me behind. Once I'm behind, I start missing more and more. Now, this could probably be defined as: I speak better than I process audio. Whether this is the same as speaking better than I understand may be a different argument. Audio processing is a skill, just like speaking, reading, and writing. If it isn't worked on, it lags behind. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 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 147 of 186 27 September 2012 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly! Highly motivated learners can learn like that and actually enjoy it. And this may well be more enjoyable than watching movies you barely understand (and finding aural comprehensible input is harder).
Anyway, I still think most "difficult" things in language learning are just time-consuming actually, nothing more. And depending on your strategy and circumstances, you might not see the results when you expect (or just NEED) them and give up. (...wow. I kinda used to think the Chinese characters are an example of something objectively difficult, but I guess they're also "only" time-consuming.) The difficulty is mostly in our minds. As Henry Ford said, Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. Edited by Serpent on 27 September 2012 at 7:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5339 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 148 of 186 27 September 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
LOL. He's actually done that many times. I'm kind of surprised he can still stand up. :D
The last 15 pages of argument leads me to wonder how you can be so adamant that your opinion is fact, when no one else is arguing your point, everyone is arguing against it. There are enough people arguing against your point you should at least concede that it's possible to speak better than understand. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5374 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 149 of 186 27 September 2012 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
A very good post with real facts and observations that we can analyze. It's a typical situation. Says the poster "I formulate sentences and "speak" about whatever I want." I have no doubt that this is an honest statement but we have to admit that it doesn't tell us exactly what the poster can do in terms of fluency, grammatical accuracy and phonetic performance. Is this a B1, a B2, a C1 or a C2? We are also told that the poster understands the majority of what he or she hears but sometimes misses a word or starts to lag behind because of a delay in processing some words. This not unusual. As I have repeatedly pointed out, we tend to run into things we may not know well. Perhaps a new word or an idiom. What exactly is the problem? Is it that there is vocabulary, grammar or constructions that the poster has never heard before? If this is the case, then we can conclude that the language being heard is too advanced for the poster Or is it that the words and grammar are known but the rate of speaking is too fast or the accent a bit unusual. If the native speaker were talking more slowly, perhaps the poster would not have a problem understanding. The problem is one of decoding the spoken language. It's a question of concentrating more and getting used to the manner of speaking. Now, here is the big question. Given these reasons for not understanding, can we conclude that the poster "speaks" better than he or she can understand? In the first case the answer seems clearly no to me. If the language you're hearing is too sophisticated then you can hardly say that you speak better. The second situation is more difficult to decide. The problem is speed or accent not content per se. Can we conclude that the poster speaks better than he/she understands in this kind of situation? I'm not so sure. Edited by s_allard on 27 September 2012 at 11:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6541 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 150 of 186 27 September 2012 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh yay, you're considering the possibility that processing might be as hard as production. And he did say it's processing.
In my opinion though, even if the language is too sophisticated, you still don't understand as much as you can say. In terms of ideas, concepts etc. In terms of your ability to function. (e.g. you CAN converse, but you're not understanding 100% of what others say. yet you're able to say anything you want to say and natives understand you. hence in the real world you speak better than you understand and i don't care what CEFR says) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4388 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 151 of 186 28 September 2012 at 4:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally, I think speaking a language is simply getting the right pronunciation. From my high school experience I
was in class learning French. 1 day picked up an Italian book at the corner and started reading aloud... without understanding half of what I was reading of course. Someone of Italian descent who is fluent in English & Italian came by and said he could understand everything I said but obviously I couldn't. Italian or Spanish is easy to read aloud as opposed to a language like Chinese or Japanese because you have the same alphabet so all you're doing is imitating the accent. Takes a while to understand what you're saying. If you are serious you may even take a summer exchange program in a foreign country and be in situations where you need to communicate in the local language instead of getting around easily in English. If you follow the African-American "Jero" who became a singer in Japan. Learned to sing Enka in Japanese from his childhood while spending his weekends with his Japanese grandmother. After spending time as an exchange student in Japan decided to go back after graduating from college. Learned to be fluent in that language. If you ask Jero whether he knew half of what he was singing about when he was 10 living in the US probably not. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5374 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 152 of 186 28 September 2012 at 6:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Really, all of this has been discussed before. As for "speaking is simply getting the right pronunciation," please read some of the previous posts. But it's interesting this idea that that confronted with native speakers using language that is somewhat more incomprehensible because of linguistic forms that are unknown to you, you can conclude that your oral communication is better than your understanding because you are "able to say anything you want and natives understand you."
Let's see how this works in practice. Nothing complicated. Here is something we see all the time. You are sitting around a table chatting with some native speakers. How well do your linguistic skills allow you to participate in the conversation? You can say anything you want to say. Does that mean you speak like the natives? Do you have the same vocabulary as the natives? Do you have the same level of grammar sophistication? Do you get all the puns and jokes? Can you easily distinguish between informal and formal speech? Can you say the same thing in different ways? Do you have all the cultural references of the native speakers? Do you master all the devices that people use to facilitate conversational flow? If you answer yes to all these questions, congratulations. You can fit right in. But this is extremely rare. When people say they can say that they can say anything they want, this is not what they mean. In fact, I'm really not sure what they mean. What I do see is that most people never come close to speaking like a native. Depending on the circumstances, some people can approximate native speech. Most of us are on some sort of scale short of native-like speech. First of all we have an accent. And second, there are limitations in our speech. Sure, we can say what we want, but most of the time this means that we use the same vocabulary, the same constructions and we avoid certain things that we have never mastered. I see this particularly in French. With the exception of bilinguals who have grown up speaking French in addition to their native language, it is nearly impossible to meet a person who has learned French as an adult and who really masters the subjunctive mood. Most people simply massacre it or ignore it. Indeed, most people will tell you that French grammar is very tricky and full of endless exceptions. Now the interesting thing in the debate here is that @serpent believes that someone who lacks the linguistic skills to participate in a conversation can turn around and say, "I can't understand what people are saying around me, but I can speak better than I understand because I can say anything I want and people understand me." Edited by s_allard on 28 September 2012 at 6:36am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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