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Getting the gist is good enough | ||
Tags: Epiphany | Comprehension/understanding | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4463 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes  Speaks: English, Spanish | Message 17 of 32 12 October 2012 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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What is getting the "gist" mean for you? In the following sentence:
"George met his friend at the bookstore and they perused the comics section before getting a bite to eat at the local restaurant." Is the gist: 1. "George met friend and they did something." 2. "George met friend at bookstore, they bought something, ate somewhere." 3. Hearing every single word but not knowing a few words like "comics" or "bite to eat"? 4. Understanding the literal definition (but not subtle connotations) of all the words as well as the main message? I'm not critiquing you, just curious what people think "gist" means. I think it is knowing the main idea but missing some important facts. If you are a translator, though many of us aren't, you should know the details!
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| 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 18 of 32 12 October 2012 at 1:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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It depends on the context. If someone says "I went to the bakery to buy X, then went to the pharmacy to buy Y", you don't have to care what exactly they bought, unless you're nosy. That's the sort of detail that you'd not make them repeat if you simply couldn't hear it while speaking your native language.
On the other hand, if your friend suggests "Let's go to the store, I need to buy X", it's a bit trickier. Though you're probably going to know the word for X from now on if you go with him. Now if your friend says "Let's go to X", THEN you are lost :D 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 19 of 32 12 October 2012 at 1:40am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with your definition of gist. But, using your sentence as an example, as humans we're also capable of extrapolating information that isn't present, but may be inferred later on. So - "George met his friend at the xxx and they perused the comics section before getting yyy at the local restaurant." It's relatively easy to figure out that xxx is a bookstore or possibly a newsstand without any further information. At the very least we know that this place has comics. The yyy bit may be a bit more difficult to intuit, but we have "getting" to help us out a little. Add to that, that we don't generally speak in single sentences, then end the conversation and walk away. Most likely, a followup sentence stating "George liked his club sandwich" or something along that line will confirm that the idiomatic yyy "bite to eat" meant "ate something". In other words, single sentence examples can help illustrate, but they're rarely useful on their own in the real world. R. == 3 persons have 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 20 of 32 12 October 2012 at 11:38am | IP Logged | |||||
The opposite group consists of those who refuse to memorize word lists or grammar rules but who still expect that one day they will somehow start to understand. OK, with related languages where you can guess enough to make a head start people can acquire passive skills in this manner. It will take time, but it can be done. However you need comprehensible input, and learning words and grammar through intensive study is an efficient way of making more texts comprehensible. And both groups need to use their target languages actively to become active speakers/writers. Few things happen suddenly in language learning. However I would mention the epiphany experience I had with Dutch. I could read Dutch and knew a fair number of Dutch words and grammar rules from my wordlists and grammar studies, but I couldn't understand the spoken language. That quite literally changed overnight after a few hours of web TV viewing - but only because I already had a good (mostly passive) background in written Dutch. I would also mention an example given by Splog in one of his videos. He met a lady who knew a lot about Czech vocabulary and grammar, but couldn't even have the simplest simple conversation with a native speaker. Teaching her useful 'connectors' for an hour or two was enough to change that situation. But only because she already had some background knowledge about words and rules. Quite generally I'm sceptical about the whole idea about 'getting the gist'. Oh, yes it is a good thing to be able to guess the main theme of some text of speech example from a limited number of clues, and if you only want to learn to understand the language it may be enough. Or if you are in a hurry and can't be bothered to find out about the details. I do that much of the time when I surf on the internet or watch TV or read written stuff. But those times where I reeeeeally have felt that I learned something were not those where I let myself be content with the gist. Edited by Iversen on 12 October 2012 at 11:56am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 21 of 32 12 October 2012 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've got the gist of quite a few TL novels I've read that were too advanced for me.
And then got a shock when I finally got hold of a translation and realised how many misconceptions I'd picked up. All part of the language learning process maybe but I try to do it differently now. The feedback is a bit more instantaneous when you are ordering a cup of coffee and a bun I suppose. 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 22 of 32 12 October 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Getting the gist is getting the gist. It's not 100% comprehension. It is good to not be
satisfied with getting the gist, but it's important you do not develop this feeling early in your language learning process because perfectionism is a paralyser. In the beginning, the feeling that you know what is going on even if you can't tell all the details apart is strong and powerful enough to get you through the first barrier (the fact that everything you are doing is alien). Then once you have overcome the feeling that everything is alien, you can work on going up to practically 99>% comprehension (forget about 100%) and this is where perfectionism is important because it allows you to iron out the details in your study regimen. This is where you need to pick up the nuances. The intermediate and advanced stages of learning blur together in this respect (I consider the first barrier the transition from A/B in CEFR terms). The transition from B/C is that accuracy. It's that you don't just "get it", it's that you're almost always positive that is exactly what and how they said/wrote. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4690 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 23 of 32 12 October 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally, I think "the Gist" can and should vary depending on your level and your expectations. As examples:
"George met his friend at the bookstore and they perused the comics section before getting a bite to eat at the local restaurant." Beginner level: "George xxx his friend at xxx and they xxx the xxx xxx before xxx x xxx xx eat at the xxx xxxx." Gist: George and his friend did something together and at some point ate something. Intermediate: "George met his friend at the xxx and they xxx the xxx section before getting x xxx to eat at the local restaurant." Gist: George and his friend met at one place, did something there and afterwards, they ate at a Restaurant. Advanced: "George met his friend at the bookstore and they xxx the comics section before getting a xxx to eat at the local restaurant." Gist: George and his friend went to the bookstore, did something (probably looked around) in the comics section, then went to the Restaurant to eat. Depending on your level and the amount of detail that you are expecting to take away determines the Gist. Obviously, this is my opinion but I would hope that this makes sense to others as well. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4637 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 24 of 32 12 March 2013 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd like to sort of revive this topic. Does anyone actually aim for 100% comprehension when they study their TLs? I mean, would you get discouraged if you lived in country for a year, went back home, watched a TL movie, and couldn't understand everything?
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