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Moving from B2 to C2 | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 145 of 177 24 February 2015 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Good way to sum it up. I'd say the tired clichés are boring but necessary for comprehension. They are almost never used as is anymore, but are common as basis for puns.
I agree that idiomatic collocations are mostly needed way before C1. But just like with grammar, vocab, register, it's more important to get them 100% right at C1-C2. At A1 even a messed up idiom is impressive. At C2 even a correct one often isn't. Edited by Serpent on 24 February 2015 at 7:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 146 of 177 24 February 2015 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is part of the problem, I know that " to take a piss" as a meaning to "urinate" is actually used in all parts of the Anglopshere. However, "to take the piss" meaning "to joke" or "to make fun of someone" is exclusive to the UK and most Commonwealth countries. He confused the two and instead of meaning "I was just joking, guys...", he ended up meaning, "I was just urinating, guys..." due to a poor grasp of how to use the idiom correctly, or mixing them up. Unfortunately we never corrected him, so he may still be talking like this... In terms of idioms, I still believe in care and precision on when and in which context to use them. I, a native Anglophone, often do not understand most idioms in English or figurative expressions. For example, when I was watching the 2008 final of the Champions League live, between Manchester United and Chelsea, when John Terry made a, let us say, mistake on the 5th penalty, he said in a press conference about the incident that he wears his heart on his sleeve. I had no idea what this means, and still up to now not exactly sure what it means, but the first idea that I had was that it had something to do with angina pectoris, but I doubt that this would be the case during a press conference. I never bothered to look up this idiom, although I hear it a few times, because looking up idioms in my own native language feels weird. If a non-native used it, I would prefer that she or he have just said whatever they meant in more literal, straightforward terms. There are also certain things that sound very odd if a non-native uses or overuses them, for exampel in English, I hear many, even with C+ level English, say "gonna" in formal speeches or formal presentations. To me, this sounds totally unprofessional and strange, even juvenile, it sounds like they are just copying something from Friends or Coronation Street without knowing how weird it sounds. I would also advise caution on overusing nice sounding grammatical constructions to the point of irritation. I had a classmate that eventually had a nickname of "Asper" because as a non-native, he kept using the formal construction "as per" in speech, almost every second sentence that it was beyond ridiculous. "As per my schedule, I think I am going to go get lunch. Then I have to go buy some groceries as per usual. Are you all going to be ready after, as per always?" It was more than strange, but just completely irritating. I would advise to use a variety of constructions, and know when to use them. For example, "I gonna explain the effects of isentropic systems for a condenser in a system that is in thermodynamical equilibrium" to me sounds not only odd, but silly and unprofessional if someone said this. It sounds bad for a native, but sounds just even weirder for a non-native. It would be like if I worked in a Hispanophone country and if the boss summoned me, I responded, «Joder, ¡m'as pillao meio liao eh!» Edited by 1e4e6 on 25 February 2015 at 12:16am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 147 of 177 25 February 2015 at 3:16am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, my mistake. I had never heard of the joking meaning. Which just illustrates that this level of idiom is not part of the knowledge of an English speaker in general. It may be used in particular groups, but it's essentially outside the domain covered by the proficiency levels. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 148 of 177 25 February 2015 at 10:00am | IP Logged | |||||
But isn't that true for idioms in general unless the language is very small and homogeneous? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 149 of 177 25 February 2015 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's pretty much most deliberate creativity in my experience :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 150 of 177 25 February 2015 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure if this post is referring only to the specific idiom in question or to all idioms in general, which seems to be the case. It is true that many expressions, especially in the informal spoken language, may be regional but idiomatic speech in general is extremely common. I don't see what use of idioms has to do a language being small and homogenous. Perhaps the issue is what do we mean by idiomatic speech. The fundamental idea of an idiom is that there exists two kinds of meaning: the literal and the figurative. Although we usually think of idioms as units of two or more words, it could be argued that metaphorical use of single words could also constitute an idiom. I suggest that native-level language is heavily idiomatic, spoken more than written. As I write this, I notice in today's Guardian the following headline: In Britain's labour market 'flexibility' means letting employers off the hook I think that all educated adult speakers of English know what "to be let off the hook" means. If you watch any television or movie fiction, you will continuously hear language used metaphorically. This is not to say that everything is metaphoric; speakers move seamlessly between the literal and the figurative. The real problem is when and how to use the figurative. You probably shouldn't use old clichés such as "burning the midnight oil" but there is a lot more to idiomatic speech than that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 151 of 177 26 February 2015 at 6:25am | IP Logged | |||||
What I meant is that idioms with the level of group-specificity of "to take the piss" are outside the scope of a proficiency test. Whether someone knows it has little to no bearing on their status as an English speaker. On the other hand, a more widely used idiom like "to be let off the hook" would appear in written texts intended for a general international audience, and essentially all native speakers will understand it. These should be fair game for testing. The language doesn't have to be small and homogeneous, but the whole idea of having a single test for the language assumes that there is some common knowledge shared by speakers of that language. I believe this is the case across UK to USA English, although it really would be better to test them separately. On the other hand, there would probably be no point in using a separate test for California vs. New York English, since almost everything is common knowledge across both of those places, even though the speech itself is hardly "homogeneous."
True, but it's also the case that one cannot help but speak metaphorically. It doesn't require any specific ability in the target language to do perfectly natural things like using language about physical distance to talk about abstract similarity, or using language about up/down to talk about things that are good/bad. Sure, there will be some metaphorical associations that are used differently by speakers of the target language, so errors can arise here. But it's not clear that this is a particularly large contributor to holding advanced learners back. Edited by robarb on 26 February 2015 at 6:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 152 of 177 07 March 2015 at 3:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Even if you don't know idioms like this there's always context to help you out. There are
many things I don't understand in isolation but if I see idioms in context, then I can figure it out. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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