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Can one speak better than understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| showtime17 Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Slovakia gainweightjournal.co Joined 6082 days ago 154 posts - 210 votes  Speaks: Russian, English*, Czech*, Slovak*, French, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian, Polish, Dutch | Message 153 of 186 28 September 2012 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You are failing to understand what people are trying to tell you. If you look at "understanding", then there are several parts for that. In the first place you have to actually be able to make out the sounds of what the other person is saying. It has happened to me quite a few times, that I was speaking to a native speaker and they said something and I wasn't able to understand what they said, I asked to repeat, they said it again and I wasn't able to understand and then I gave up and asked them to say it in English and it turned out to be something really simple, which I myself could say. So if you can't make out the sounds of what someone is saying, you don't understand. PERIOD
After hearing the sounds you have to be able to make out the meanings of the individual words and then the meanings of the words together. What many language learners have problems with is the first part, actually understanding the sounds of native speech and then the third part, putting the meanings of words together (that is because native speech is full of idioms or other things like for example in English the expression "what's up") I have looked at the original OP that this is a spin-off of and I believe you completely miscomprehended what the original poster was saying. His problem was not something you term "comprehension" or whatever, his original problem was that he could not make out the sounds of the words. That is often the problem for people who learned their languages in a classroom setting or as self-learners in countries where the language they are learning is not spoken. You are making the mistake of generalizing the situation in Quebec concerning English and French, to other types of language learning environments. As I said, Quebec is a special case where the passive exposure to the two languages is very big. I for example understand about 90% of spoken Ukrainian, but can only say very little (and usually my "Ukrainian" is actually mixed with Russian), but that is because as a kid I was exposed to the language, always hearing it when visiting my Ukrainian relatives. In this case I can say I understand better than I speak. However the situation for many language learners (which is the case of the original OP), is different. They don't have passive exposure to the language, but only what they get in the classroom or as self-learners. What I often hear from for example Czech or Slovaks who learned English in school, is that they thought they spoke the language pretty well, however once they actually got to an English speaking country, they had no idea what the people were telling them. They could write pretty well, they had a good understanding of the grammar, they could say things and get by (but of course with a horrible accent) and be generally understood, however they had no idea what the people were telling them. Example situation (please keep in mind that this is a very simplified example): Language learner goes to the store.. LL says: Can you please give me a bottle of cola and bread. Storekeeper in a native accent with fast speech: What type of bread you want? LL looks confused: I don't understand, please repeat. Storekeeper repeats. LL looks confused. Storekeeper takes out a pen and paper and writes it down. LL now understands what the storekeeper is asking. LL says: White bread, please. ...etc. This is what the original OP meant when they said they think they speak better than they understand. You just twisted it in another direction, based on your own experiences (living in Quebec), and not understanding the fact that your own circumstances are different from those of other language learners. Saying "I speak better than I understand" is just based on a subjective feeling based on experiences. It is based on the perceived effort that each of these takes. For example a person might not take as much effort to say something, however they really have to keep their ears open and their brain on alert when trying to decipher what the other person is saying. Now you're starting to mix in "native-like". When people say they think they speak better than they understand (and you have to take into mind that these things are very subjective), they mean they can say things and get by, and not they that they are native-like. You also seem to imply that these people lack "the linguistic skills to participate in a conversation". That is not always true. What we are talking here are people at various levels from A1 to B2 who are learning the language outside the countries where it is spoken and who don't have much passive exposure to it. If you reach level C1 (and I don't mean through certificates or whatever, but a realistic C1), that usually means you have already have had enough exposure to the language and at this level people usually understand a lot more than they can say. At C2, the speaking and understanding should be the same, as this level implies that you can do almost everything that the natives can do. 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 154 of 186 28 September 2012 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
This person can't say just "I speak Spanish", full stop. But they can say "I can speak Spanish better than I understand it." The additional details change the overall meaning to "I speak some Spanish", which is appropriate enough. This appears to bother you as at first glance it does seem like someone who's unable to communicate says he speaks the language, but really he doesn't state so. (Am I right? That's how I feel about it as a non-native, but that's just Sprachgefühl mostly) showtime17, excellent post! Speaking but not understanding normal speech is a danger for anyone who loves formal studying too much and doesn't listen to native materials enough.
Edited by Serpent on 28 September 2012 at 1:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4687 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 155 of 186 28 September 2012 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Truthfully, this thread is very frustrating because s_allard appears to be arguing something that no one else is arguing. At least I appear to almost be in a different thread than he is.
I (as well as Showtime) are arguing that verbal skills (speaking) and auditory processing skills (understanding) can vary based on language exposure and input. s_allard seems to be arguing something (not entirely sure what) about never being able to achieve native level speech and thus one can never really engage natives in conversation because their speech would be too advanced for you (or something like that). He points out that because I take extra time to process vocab in German that the speech must be over my level when I clearly explained that the words were ones I knew and the level of the response I was trying to interpret was at or below my own. The issue wasn't lack of vocab or grammar knowledge. I simply had not had enough exposure to the language to be comfortable with hearing (and thus processing) vocab that I could readily speak but needed extra time to fully comprehend when hearing it. Truthfully, this thread is no longer very useful because I don't think that anyone is arguing the same point anymore. Do I think that this will end this conversation or that he will respond to my actual point rather than restating his opinion on something that I am not even debating? Probably not. But, I'm hoping that we can at least conclude that we are talking apples and oranges here. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6149 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 156 of 186 28 September 2012 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry, but this simply isn't true. My wife learnt French as an adult, and speaks the language with a native like ability. Her job means she works entirely through French, and all her work colleagues are from France. Most of her clients don't realise she's not French. I think full mastery of the subjunctive happened fairly early in her learning. I fear you're extrapolating from your own personal exposure of certain language learners to the entire language learning community. Edited by DaraghM on 28 September 2012 at 4:25pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 157 of 186 28 September 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are rules for the subjunctive and they can be learned just like everything else.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 158 of 186 28 September 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think @showtime17's post is excellent. I didn't want to quote the entire thing here, but I'll respond to the main points.
There is no doubt that for all users the number one difficulty when confronted with raw native speech is deciphering the sounds. For the beginner, it is all a continuous stream of sounds. As we progress in our listening skills, the stream starts to become broken up into words and then we can start decoding the words themselves. But even at relatively advanced levels of mastery we can be stumped by some sounds where we are left wondering, "What did they say?" We can't look up the word in the dictionary because we don't know what the word was. This is quite normal. A few minutes ago I was watching a film in Spanish and a character spoke in a regional dialect. I didn't understand a single word because I cannot decipher the sounds of that dialect. So if I go into a store and a native answers me in very fast speech with some accent, I certainly will have difficulty deciphering what was said. Exactly the same problem that I had when I went to Manchester, England, and had great difficulty understanding the locals. Or when I heard cockney in London. So far I think we can agree. @showtime17 has read the OP of the original thread and will recall that the poster said "he spoke Spanish well" and was understood by natives but couldn't make out more than a few words of an ordinary television program. This was not something in a special dialect. But the situation that the OP was referring to is not that unusual. As others have pointed out, people who are exposed only to classroom instruction or only to formal study have problems deciphering real speech. Where we disagree in this debate is the next step. Many people conclude that they speak better than they can understand. I think I know the feeling. I've studied a language seriously, I've figured out the grammar. I've practiced speaking diligently, I can make complete meaningful sentences. For example, after doing all this in French, I go into a store in Montreal, Quebec, and, pow, I don't understand a word the young lady says to me. So, I conclude that I speak French better than I understand it. Or I studied Spanish in Spain and I go to Argentina. When I come out of the airport in Buenos Aires, I can't understand a word the taxi driver says. So, I conclude that I speak Spanish better than I understand it. All this I understand. And I can see how people come to this conclusion. But this also means that we will always speak a foreign language better than we will understand because as language learners we will never get close to anything like native level of deciphering and understanding. So, an A1 beginner speaks better than understands and so does a very advanced C2 speaker. This is what I find very intriguing. People can say, "I speak the language well but I have problems interacting with native speakers." In other words, "When I speak to myself, everything is fine, but when I speak with native speakers, I have problems." Therefore, I speak better than I understand. Let's say that people speak too fast. I know the words, it's just that I can't process them quickly enough. Words are deformed and run into each other. I can't follow such rapid speech. When they speak slowly, I can understand perfectly. Therefore I can speak better than understand. Now the interesting thing is that all these people, such of the first OP, claim to speak the language well. We know of course that the word "well" is very elastic. When I hear that somebody speaks a language well, I look at five things: 1) phonetic accuracy or some sort of decent pronunciation; 2) fluency or the ability to speak without too much hesitation; 3) grammatical precision and right choice of words including collocations and idioms; 4) the ability to respond spontaneously or automatically without having to calculate what to say and 5) the ability to interact in a conversation. I should point out that probably the most important distinguishing feature in levels of proficiency is the use of collocations and idioms. All native spoken language, and especially the colloquial variety,is rich in idioms. So, when people say to me that they speak a language well or that they can say anything they want in the target language, I'm always curious to hear what that means. Without wanting to get technical and start talking about CFER levels, I usually ask: "Do you feel comfortable speaking the other language?" or "Do you feel you could do your daily activities in the target language as you do in your own language?" or "Do you think you could do a job interview in the language?" I may be very naive, stubborn or plain stupid but I ask a simple question, "If you don't understand the people around you (and I'm willing to take into account the difficulty of dialects and speech defects), how can you claim to speak the language better than you understand it when all you can do is basically speak to yourself?" Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. but how can a person speak a language well and not be able to understand most of a news program on television? Basically, what I'm hearing is that people can speak book language or what they learned in school or with a self-learning method and when confronted with the real world get a shock. They know all the grammar rules and a ton of vocabulary but can't do something as simple as answer the telephone properly in the language. Or when placed in a simple conversational situation they get all flustered and tongue-tied. But then they state that they speak better than they understand. What good does that do? Edited by s_allard on 28 September 2012 at 5:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 159 of 186 28 September 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have no doubt that @DaraghM's wife has achieved native-like ability in French at an adult age with full mastery of the subjunctive mood. She is to be congratulated for such a rare achievement. But I stand by my statement that includes the words "nearly impossible" and "most." How many adult learners achieve native-like proficiency? We've had this debate many times here at HTLAL, and all the statistics point to the fact that very, very few adult learners lose their original accent and achieve anything like full native proficiency. I have never met any, but I am willing to say that it does exist. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4687 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 160 of 186 28 September 2012 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
THIS is where the gap is. I have previously stated this in other posts but will re-iterate here. I do not get "tongue-tied" or flustered when in conversation in German. I can speak with relative ease and other German speakers (native and non-native) have expressed that my accent and pronunciation is good, my tempo is consistent, my vocabulary is fairly extensive and I have no problems being understood. There is no "shock from the real world". My issue is that it takes me a second or two longer to hear, translate, and process the audio input into something comprehensible. I know the words, I know the structures. I am not yet comfortable with the audio to point where it is automatic like speaking is for me. By the time I finish processing a sentence, the next has already started and I have missed the first few words and I struggle to catch up. I am working on my listening comprehension and it is coming along well but it has not caught up to my ability to produce speech yet. I don't think I am alone. This may be a fairly rare occurrence but I assure you it can happen. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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