|
 |
Can one speak better than understand? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4436 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 186 20 September 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry if I have not been making myself understood. My point is the differential between the active vocabulary level of the person he is speaking to, and his own passive vocabulary level. As in imagine someone at C2 talking to someone at A2 who thinks he speaks well, which he does in the narrow confines of what A2 allows. But he just can't understand much of what the C2 says because the gap is too big going in that direction unless C2 is able to significantly tailor his speech as he would to children. I realize that I am questioning his self-assessment of his speaking ability, but in absence of his stating a ballpark figure for his vocabulary level (sorry if he has and I missed it), then I just think that people are poor at self-assessment. Knowledgeable independent third party evaluations are always more reliable, and would be helpful here. If he took a B2 exam and passed speaking at that level but scored A2 in aural comprehension, then that would be objective evidence for his self-assessed disparity. It would be similar to someone who learned a language only for reading and couldn't really speak. That the opposite situation of someone understanding well but not speaking well seems much more common (witness the current mayor of San Antonio), argues that the asserted situation here is not only more rare, but maybe even non-existent, again absent a third party evaluation to the contrary like CEFR. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6069 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 18 of 186 20 September 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
With poor listening comprehension it's difficult to really test your speaking ability. When I have trouble understanding then, well, I can spout out grammatically correct but random sentences, but it seems hardly the point -- and this basically kills the conversation.
It seems to me even if you had no speaking ability, if you had perfect listening ability you could communicate by grunting at the appropriate time. 3 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 19 of 186 20 September 2012 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
Basically, those that diligently work through the same amount of material that would take several years at school will not have an equal amount of exposure (not necessarily to good L2!), but they will be better at actually speaking and especially writing. And from writing it's entirely possible to go to speaking by shadowing those same coursebooks that are not enough for developing a good level of listening comprehension. I've been there with Finnish, as I said in the original thread. 1 person has 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 20 of 186 21 September 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I do not doubt that there are situations where a learner has little access to actual contact with native speakers. But in today's world it is certainly becoming easier to have some contact with the target language, if only vicariously, especially for a wide-spread language like English.
So, conceivably, someone could diligently develop speaking skills to a higher level than corresponding oral comprehension skills in the early stages. But at any sort of intermediate or advanced level it seems only logical that one can decipher passively all sorts of vocabulary and grammatical elements that one is totally incapable of using. If I take the example of French and Spanish verb systems that are very complex and challenging, there is absolutely no way that a non-native speaker can say that they can use the system better than they can understand it orally. It's impossible! It's always the other way around unless there are some unusual circumstances like hearing problems or poor enunciation from the speaker. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5710 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 21 of 186 21 September 2012 at 12:34am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I personally find it hard to imagine how that might work, but I'm on the other end of the distribution curve, my active skills tend to consistently be two levels lower on the CEFR than my passive skills.
The reasons for this are: I'm not afraid of jumping to conclusions, meaning I'm used to working with vague information until it's proven right or wrong and I'm used to finding the redundancy people usually code into their speech and writing to rectify my first assumption. And on the other hand, I constantly monitor things native speakers say and ask myself 'could I have said this exact sentence myself?' to which the answer often is 'no'. And I feel I can't acquire active skills from work lists or grammar books, not even from exercises. I need to hear/read those words and grammar points used in a dozen comprehensible examples in context before I have an idea of what they really mean, and try using or copying them. So to imagine the exact opposite, wouldn't that be somebody who only feels they understood something when they are completely sure about every bit of a sentence, who discards vague information right after hearing it, and who is comfortable with learning how to use words from their dictionary definition and grammar points from a book with rules and exercises? Let's say this person learns mostly in self-study, just as I do. That means their natural tendency can express itself without hindrance, doesn't it? If you then add the natural self-report bias that makes people underestimate their skills when they don't feel comfortable using them, and overestimate their skills when they feel comfortable using them the self-assessment might look even more lopsided, to the point of 'I couldn't understand, but I can say the very same thing' or in my case 'oh I understand alright, but I could never say that myself', both of which probably aren't accurate. Edited by Bao on 21 September 2012 at 3:26am 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 22 of 186 21 September 2012 at 3:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Also, I see no reason to discard factors like accent, dialect, mumbling. We're talking about the real world, and in the real world one can certainly speak *reasonably well* but understand next to nothing due to this sort of things. One might even fail a language exam because of this if some knowledge about the dialects is required (like with Norwegian afaiu). 2 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 23 of 186 21 September 2012 at 4:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Really, so we have a determined self-learner who has mastered all the subtleties of the French or Spanish verb systems with the various regular and irregular forms, the many tenses and moods including the various subjunctive forms, the complex rules of tense sequences, the formation conditional and hypothetical statements, the various types of pronominal verb forms, the many forms of expressing the past with things like the historical present, the historical future and the simple past, the many ways of expressing the imperative mood, and finally the complex rules governing the prepositions that follow certain verbs. Never mind that most learners never master all this, our determined learner has figured this all out and still truthfully says that he/she still can't understand the same verbs spoken by an normal native speaker or a television announcer. Well, if that speaker has a strange accent, a speech impediment or speaks like someone with a potato in his mouth, it may be difficult. Even native speakers have a problem with that. But we're not talking about that. What we talking about is that determined self-learner who says, "French/Spanish verbs, no problem; I even have the two forms of the Spanish imperfect subjunctive on the tip of my tongue. I can say anything I want, but I still can't understand more than the present tense of the verbs of the news announcer on the TV. Everything else is a blur" I don't believe this is possible. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6069 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 24 of 186 21 September 2012 at 4:58am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Maybe depends on the language -- Japanese verbs aren't that hard. Anyone is going to master Japanese verb tenses long before they can watch TV.
I think what this is really about is more the situation where you go to the country, say in perfect textbook-ese "Which way to the bathroom" -- then the response comes back, wa wa wa wa wa wa. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
