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Passive knowledge Only | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5577 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 9 of 30 20 May 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've decided to go through a Teach Yourself course for 10 languages or so, just to understand the basics, and if I like it, I'll pursue the language further.
It would be great to know basic grammar, greetings, etc in a few other languages besides the ones that I am studying, just to broaden my understanding of linguistics. Do I intend to master them? Absolutely not. Would it be fun to learn a little about a bunch of languages? Absolutely :) I think I have close to 12 on my flash drive. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5344 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 10 of 30 20 May 2010 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Unlike Iversen, I would recommend learning a language, such as Latin, in a more passive manner. Another language which I think would be okay to only have a passive knowledge of would be Old English. People who generally learn these two languages learn them so that they can access and read literature and classic texts in the original language. Since people generally do not speak these languasges anymore, it seems unnecessary to learn them beyond the ability of being able to read.
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| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6061 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 11 of 30 20 May 2010 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I somewhat understand why one would only care to have passive abilities in a language, but I feel like if one is to invest a great amount of time in learning a language in the first place, (s)he might as well invest a bit more time to develop proficiency in all aspects of the language, so (s)he can fully reap the benefits of knowing the language.
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| cmj Octoglot Groupie Switzerland Joined 5330 days ago 58 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Arabic (classical), Latin, Italian | Message 12 of 30 20 May 2010 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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With all due respect Tracker, I agree with Iversen that if you want to have a good grasp (including retention) of ancient languages like Greek or Latin, it's best to fit in active practice as well, preferably quite a bit. In addition to improving your capacity to retain what you've learned, it forces you to confront some of the subtleties of grammar and vocabulary that you will probably only half understand, if not miss entirely, with only a passive knowledge of the language. In fact, there is a series of Ancient Greek composition books dating back to the beginning of the century which is based on the (to my mind very plausible) hypothesis that the large discrepancy between the Greek and Latin skills of students of the time, even taking into account the greater amount of time spent studying the latter, is that in Greek they only learned to read and never did composition exercises.
The point of acquiring at least some modicum of active knowledge of these languages is not in order to be able to use them to communicate (well, a few people do this, but it's rare), but simply because it significantly strengthens your passive knowledge by forcing you to pay attention to nuances that you generally only come to fully understand when attempting to communicate in a language. I've noticed myself that even doing simple translation exercises from English into Greek and Latin has substantially improved my understanding of difficult points of grammar, like the exceedingly complicated distinction between the subjunctive and the optative in Greek, which has in turn improved my understanding of the fine points of particular texts. I imagine if I could find someone who could correct original compositions, I would be able learn a great deal more. If you only want to attain an intermediate level in the language, passive learning is enough, but I think if you want to reach the highest level of literary fluency you need to pass through an active phase as well. Edited by cmj on 22 May 2010 at 10:18pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6034 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 13 of 30 21 May 2010 at 2:06am | IP Logged | |||||
The part about only reading books in a given language was just an example. I'm aware what passive knowledge of a language involves. For example, having a conversation with someone using two languages. The person uses one language and I use another. We both understand each others languages but do not use them actively. A lot of children who have immigrant parents do this. The parents use their native language while the kids reply using English. The kids end up being able to understand the language used by their parents really well without really being able to speak it. Edited by John Smith on 21 May 2010 at 2:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5643 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 14 of 30 21 May 2010 at 2:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a complicated subject, but, yes, I am perfectly content with passive knowledge of various languages. I don't need to speak or write them, for one thing. The texts I read are literary and usually ancient, meaning that even if I did learn to actively produce that sort of language, it wouldn't necessarily help me go buy a bottle of wine at the corner market today, although if that situation came up, I think I could move pretty fast from passive to active. (Though it might come out at first as the equivalent in various languages of, "Toothsome wench, couldst thou, in the name of our benevolent maker, procure me a flagon of sack?")
Having said that, I do try my best to learn pronounciation and I learn at least to write--not compose, but certainly to write down the language in the proper script. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6935 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 15 of 30 21 May 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged | |||||
There are people who feel it is always a waste of time to try to pronounce a language perfectly. Their goal is to be understood and "tolerated" by the natives. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5757 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 16 of 30 21 May 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Can you do Nastaliq? Just curious. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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