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Can one speak better than understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 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 161 of 186 28 September 2012 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Also, it's perfectly fine to rate yourself in relation to what you need. The first OP believes that if they work more on their listening comprehension, they'll be able to have conversations, as they already speak well enough for that and natives understand. And I don't think there's a reason to doubt this: only a very ignorant learner can end up speaking the language so poorly that nobody understands them (might depend on the language though), and most learners who can produce monologue but not converse just need to learn to listen. Of course it's always good to work on your pronunciation but let's face it, even many Europeans who are pretty fluent in English still speak with a fairly strong accent. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4820 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 162 of 186 28 September 2012 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting point. I was just about to say there are probably no statistics about this, but then noticed your phrase "all the statistics"? Where are such statistics? And how meaningful are they? I imagine that the results achieved by a bunch of self-learners like us would be unlikely to be included in any statistics that one might find, but also, although I've attended many formal language lessons over the years, I can think of no way that anyone was realistically measuring and collating the results in terms of fluency or mastery. Some of them led to exams, and some had recorded teacher assessment, but many didn't, and of those that did, I find it hard to believe that my results and those of my classmates ever found their way into any meaningful statistics. I think we are back to subjective judgements and small samples again. Subjectively though, I happen to think you are right in the statement I have quoted above, but I don't think anyone will ever be able to prove or disprove it. We might be able to have an informal poll of examples vs counter-examples, which would be interesting, but not particularly significant. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 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 163 of 186 28 September 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 164 of 186 28 September 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that this is quite an interesting situation but I'm not sure that this is what most of this thread is about. But rather than talking about not understanding, we should be talking about not deciphering the audio. This is akin to hearing in a different dialect or hearing someone in a noisy environment. As I said, these would be similar problems to what native speakers face. I would therefore say that the problem is not lack of understanding. It's lack of deciphering. This may be quibbling, and I'm willing to agree that in this sense one can speak better than understand or decipher. But, in my mind this is not the central issue here. The central issue, at least in my mind, is that as listeners we are exposed to a wide range of linguistic phenomena, words, grammar, sounds that we can decode or understand but that we ourselves will never use. Our active speaking range is only a subset of what we can hear and understand. I use a subset of the words that I recognize; I use a subset of the grammar forms that I hear; I use a subset of the idioms I hear; I hear people who are more (and some who are less) articulate than I am. Just as I say that you can't have a larger active vocabulary than a passive one or use grammar forms that you don't understand, how can you claim to speak better than you understand? Just a few minutes ago, I learned the adjective "copacetic" in English, and meaning "in excellent order." After all these years of speaking English, I'm confronted with a word I didn't know in an ordinary newspaper. My reaction is not that my speaking of English is better than my understanding. It's the very opposite; my reaction is that my spoken English is lacking and can still be improved. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5387 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 165 of 186 28 September 2012 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
That deciphering is a necessary process in understanding. You cannot untangle them. Perhaps you can in cases of dialect or slang, but not in the situation BaronBill is talking about. Edited by Kerrie on 28 September 2012 at 7:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 166 of 186 28 September 2012 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
This rarity of native-like proficiency in second-language learners is very well known and has been studied extensively. Here is one reference: jilaniwarsi.tripod.com/first_comp.pdf Here is a quote from this article: As Selinker (1972) points out, the most important fact concerning L2 phonology is the phenomenon of fossilization. He claims that “fossilizable linguistic phenomena are linguistic items, rules, and subsystems which speakers of a particular native language will tend to keep in their interlanguage relative to a particular target language, no matter what the age of the learner or amount of explanation or instruction he receives in the target language.” Similar views are put forth by Tarone (1976), Nemser (1971), and Sridhar (1980), who have tried to explore the causes of fossilization in language learner’s interlanguage phonologies. There are two related questions here which have baffled scholars: 1. Is phonological fossilization inevitable for L2 learners? 2. What are the causes of such fossilization? According to Scovel (1969), the answer to the first question is a resounding yes. He contends that adult language learners maintain a typical accent which is indicative of their first language (L1). Scovel has named this the ‘Joseph Conrad Phenomenon’ after the prominent British author who achieved native-like fluency in English syntax (his L2) but retained a Polish accent (his L1). Scovel is so confident of his theory that he promises to offer a free dinner to anyone who can show him someone who learned a L2 after puberty and who speaks that L2 with perfect native like pronunciation. No one has, hitherto, been able to produce such an individual to Scovel. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 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 167 of 186 28 September 2012 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
2. he agrees (with me:)) that a perfect grammar is easier than a perfect pronunciation Edited by Serpent on 28 September 2012 at 7:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 168 of 186 28 September 2012 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I wonder what our Internet polyglots think about this. Do people like Steve Kaufman, Profressor Arguelles, Richard Simcott, Luca Lampariello, Benny the Irish Polyglot or Moses McCormick claim to speak better than they understand? I don't know and I can't even begin to guess.
What I have noticed is that in a number of recent videos, we do actually see some of these polyglots having real conversation either with natives or with other polyglots. Steve Kaufman does a good job at this. Richard Simcott has an outstanding video of himself with our HTLAL Kristina (all at speakingfluently.com). This is a refreshing change from the usual videos of talking heads cycling through their repertoire of languages. It's great to hear these polyglots actually speaking their languages with other people. The results for the languages I understand are actually quite good, especially Steve Kaufman, Luca Lampariello, Cristina and Richard Simcott. But to come back to our question in this thread. Can we say that these highly talented individuals speak better than they understand? Cristina and Richard seem to do a credible job speaking Russian to each other. If either one meets a native Russian speaker that they have difficulty understanding, should they conclude that they speak Russian better than they understand it? I wonder what they think. I find it fascinating that so many people claim to speak better than they understand. Is speaking easier than listening? They can't have conversations with native speakers and have difficulty understanding the spoken language in the media. But this only reinforces their assessment that they speak better than they understand. Speaking isn't the problem, it's understanding the spoken language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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