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Is C2 possible without a tutor ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 33 of 144 12 December 2014 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Since there seems to be a consensus that a tutor is not necessary but certainly very useful for advanced
language performance, the question then becomes: Is there any reason not to use a professional tutor? The only thing I can think of for not using a tutor is the cost. Part of the problem is that HTLALers probably don't like to pay for language tuition because of this mentality of independent learning for next to nothing. People in North America see the costs of language schools like Middlebury, Vermont, USA, where six weeks of intensive French in the summer of 2015 will cost $10,000, or the price of Rosetta Stone and think that they can learn a language from a book that only costs $20. With that sort of mentality, the idea of paying $20 - $50 an hour for private tutoring seems outlandish. But if these people were taking private music lessons or private training at a gym, this sort of hourly rate would be considered very reasonable. If you seriously want to write and speak the language well, you have to invest time, effort and some money. This will often entail a visit to the country. Besides that, I believe that a personal tutor is one of the best investments one can make. Edited by s_allard on 12 December 2014 at 2:30am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5769 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 34 of 144 12 December 2014 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
Precedents. If you have experience working with a tutor, you know what to reasonably expect from a tutor (or you believe so), and you have confidence in yourself that you will be able to tell your tutors what you want them to do for you and that you can tell when they don't live up to your expectations or you can't work together. Without prior experience that adds a degree of incertainty to the whole deal that'll put many people off spending money on a tutor. Moreover, where I grew up tutoring was for kids who were too stupid to pass their classes on their own effort. That is, kids who were too stupid to pass their classes but whose parents had money and ambition for their offspring. Oh, and I personally am put off finding a tutor by the way some tutors talk about their students. Edited by Bao on 12 December 2014 at 2:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 35 of 144 12 December 2014 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I can say that I have benefited immensely from having found a great tutor in Portuguese. For me, it was the missing piece in the puzzle that pulled it all together for me.
Obviously, I realize that many cannot afford a private tutor or justify such an expense on what is essentially a hobby. If you can, I highly recommend it. Of course, you may have to try out a few before settling on the "right" one, but to me it is well worth the effort. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 36 of 144 12 December 2014 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
Cost would be a major reason. I do have a tutor and I do think I get value from the tuition (otherwise I'd stop). However, that doesn't mean that I'll necessarily use a tutor for other languages in the future. I certainly haven't used my tutor for the things I can reasonably do on my own (like learning to recognise the kana or kanji or memorising vocabulary). I do use tuition for things I could do on my own but where it's probably more efficient to have someone explain what X means or why I can use X in this sentence but not in some other sentence. 20 years ago I think I would have struggled to justify the cost of a tutor, now it's not really an issue. Middlebury level prices would be an issue (as would finding 6 weeks!). That's a massive step up from a few pounds a week. A trip to the TL country obviously costs more than a fair stretch of tutoring, but it can easily be justified as a holiday. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 37 of 144 12 December 2014 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
that they use tutors for things they cannot do on their own. On the top of my list is catching mistakes that I cannot correct by myself. A major activity I do every week with my tutor is the review of a letter in Spanish that I intend to send for real. After months of doing this, I have seen major improvements. I like to think that I no longer make really big mistakes and I seem to have found a sort of writing or speaking voice. But I still make many mistakes; it's just that they have become more subtle. Now it's the choice of the right preposition, how to use a certain idiom, and choosing the appropriate grammatical form. There is no way that I could do this on my own. And to add to all this there is the challenge and the joy of having to talk the language with the specific purpose of using complex and sophisticated language that I would not use in everyday conversation. Edited by s_allard on 13 December 2014 at 12:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5020 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 38 of 144 12 December 2014 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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No tutor, very low budget and no interest for C2 - at least not as a goal or a step for my foreign languages route.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 144 12 December 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like good tutors. As s_allard says, they're very good for catching mistakes and for pushing you a bit out of your comfort zone when speaking.
But I've absolutely seen people reach near-native English without any formal instruction after B2 or so. The recipe is simple enough: 1. Move to a country that speaks the language. 2. Work professionally using that language. 3. Live with native speakers of that language. 4. Read voraciously and widely using that language. 5. Give it about 5 years. 6. Be reasonably lucky about things like fossilization. If you skip step (4), you'll end with near-native conversational abilities but weak writing and lots of holes in your academic register. If things go wrong in step (6), you'll wind up highly fluent but with a few lingering errors. But some untutored adults can absolutely pull it off. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 40 of 144 12 December 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I have seen exactly the same thing. The only thing I might quibble with is the five year mark. I have seen people achieve this in five years after moving to a new country, but they were already at least a strong B2 when they arrived. I'd be super impressed if someone really went from A1 to C2 in five years. Edited by patrickwilken on 12 December 2014 at 11:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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