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Can one speak better than understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 33 of 186 21 September 2012 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 186 21 September 2012 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Another phenomenon that's typical around B1 & B2: A student can process words fine at a slow conversational speed (in either direction), but not at a really fast native speed when the words all come pouring out. Let's imagine that 4 syllables per second is OK, but 8 syllables just too fast. In this situation, the student can often manage one-on-one conversation without any great difficulties, but they'll get lost watching TV shows or participating in conversations with multiple native speakers. Or they'll understand slower conversations on TV but have trouble when characters go off on high-speed rants. If the student can understand speech at the low end of native conversational speed, but not the high end, this can easily result in a situation where speaking is relatively straightforward (at least in non-academic registers) but listening is still hit or miss. Since the difference between 4 and 8 syllables per second isn't always obvious, and native speakers could certainly speak at either speed without sounding odd, this may make people feel like the speak better than they understand. Edited by emk on 21 September 2012 at 2:33pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 35 of 186 21 September 2012 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I think @emk has raised some interesting points that revolve around the same issue of decoding the spoken language. The first problem is of course making out exactly what has been said. Just the other day I couldn't figure out what Spanish word an actor was saying even after listening to the passage over 25 times. I repeated the passage phonetically to a native speaker and he told me what it was instantly. The second problem is putting the word in context and grasping the whole meaning. This is a problem with idioms especially. And all of this has to be done in real time while the story is going on or you are having a conversation. If you are dealing with an unfamiliar dialect, there is an added element of difficulty. We experience this in our own languages. I have to pay particular attention when I listen to certain varieties of English or French because I'm not used to them. But this is a side issue. My observation is that you don't have to know exactly every word to be able to follow a movie or television program. The more you know of course the more enjoyable the experience. What is great is to be able to see certain passages a number of times to be able to really get all the details. But what I'm trying to grasp here is how someone can say, "I speak a language well but I can hardly understand the same language when I hear it." As has been pointed out earlier, how can you have a conversation in this situation? The problem seems to be decoding the sounds. If you have not learned the sounds of the language, I can see the problem. Maybe that's what this is all about. Now, I'm not trying to be stubborn here. What I'm trying to do is reconcile this debate with my daily observation of people struggling to speak. I've never met anyone who has said to me, "It's easier to speak French than to understand it." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 36 of 186 21 September 2012 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just last night I was discussing this very issue with a French-speaking friend of mine who was claiming that she spoke English better than she could understand it. She learned English in an academic environment and is very comfortable talking about academic or serious topics. But she admitted that she could not have a conversation with young people sitting around a table because she never learned that kind of English. She then claimed that she spoke "better" English because it was good English not the ordinary low-level conversational English.
Interestingly, conversational language is actually the most challenging form of language to learn because it is so different from textbook language. I can see how some people feel that they speak better than they can understand although they couldn't have a conversation to save their life. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 37 of 186 21 September 2012 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
In addition to speaking quicker, a native speaker will subconciously drop phonemes and be completely unaware he's doing it. A native listener will fail to spot the missing sounds but a learner won't. When the native speaker slows his speech the phonemes will return. He may believe he's saying the same thing, but he's not. This issue posed a lot of problems in the early days of text to speech systems. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 38 of 186 21 September 2012 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 39 of 186 21 September 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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It was easier for me to speak French than to understand it in movies for a long long
time. I lived with French people and spoke to them, but I simply wasn't accustomed to the way people speak French in movies. It's just a different register of language and vocab. What's so hard to understand about that? I also echo Serpent's sentiment that you can manage a lot if you can use what you know accurately. Almost two months ago I spoke Swedish for the first time and I had maybe studied 200-300 words at the time. I was crap. But I still managed to keep going for 10 minutes or so before I had to switch to something else (French in this case). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 40 of 186 21 September 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Movies are the hardest thing to understand in any language -- there is no way you can speak better than people in movies, and not understand movies. What's so hard to understand about that? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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