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Viewpoint: You can damage Language by writing and speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 25 of 46 04 July 2014 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Would that correction involve a spanking? 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 26 of 46 04 July 2014 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually I believe some people could use a spanking because this is how they learn. To wit. Was is Mark Twain or
Abraham Lincoln that said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."? All silliness aside, I think that rdearman's last post has clarified the issue. We seem to be pretty much on the same page. Edited by s_allard on 04 July 2014 at 2:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4909 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 27 of 46 04 July 2014 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know who said it, but I know when Lisa quoted it, Homer Simpson replied, "Takes one to know one." 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5236 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 28 of 46 04 July 2014 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
This type of "puzzling out" a problem is probably less frequent in language learning than learning other skills. It is true what you say about confirmation. After I have puzzled out a word in context, I generally look it up in a dictionary for confirmation that my guess is correct (or not). But I do feel I remember these words better than words which I've just looked up without attempting to figure them out. I remember a story in the book "How I learn languages" by Katò Lomb about some fellow named Dezső Kosztolányi who learned to read Portuguese by reading a book in Portuguese and just "puzzling it out" while on holiday. Don't know if it is true, but a nice little story anyway. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 29 of 46 05 July 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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The thought of trying to learn a language without using a dictionary or a grammar book boggles my mind. But I do
see a role for puzzling or figuring out in the language learning process. As we progress in acquiring grammar and vocabulary particularly, a major problem, in my opinion, is how to put the pieces together. For example, many words have multiple meanings. All languages have idioms, set phrases and metaphorical uses. As we see things in different contexts, the problem is exactly puzzling out or in how things fit together. It's this process that leads to come up with the right form of the right word in the right context. Some people call this language intuition or Sprachgefühl. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4032 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 30 of 46 05 July 2014 at 1:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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nvm Edited by Stolan on 05 July 2014 at 1:24am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4444 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 31 of 46 22 July 2014 at 2:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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The other day someone asked for directions to a local licensing office to renovate an expired
personal identity card. She looked European. You normally go to the licensing office to renew your license. The intention was obvious but her use of English was a bit out of ordinary. And while watching a cooking show on TV "Scandinavian Cooking" from Norway in English, a university professor on the show made a grammatical error by saying "giving sausages for children" instead of to. Edited by shk00design on 22 July 2014 at 2:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4369 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 32 of 46 22 July 2014 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had a teacher for one class who, after living in the US for about 20 years is still saying things like "I am now going to explain you what are we doing today." Understandable, sure, but I'm going to assume that this is a fossilized error. I should add--she was a great teacher and probably doesn't even realize she says things that way (and I'm not going to correct it because I was raised to believe it's rude to correct someone's speech if they have a foreign accent and you can understand them--I can't break that conditioning!!!).
I don't know that it's completely necessary or even realistic to avoid making mistakes, but there's no reason why learners can't focus on using simple structures or vocabulary that they know how to use correctly; instead of saying "yesterday I would've liked to have gone to the store" you can say "yesterday I wanted to go to the store" and will be understood by listeners. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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