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Is C2 possible without a tutor ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5169 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 105 of 144 21 December 2014 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you for sharing this story with us, BAnna, it was really inspiring, I was looking
forward to that. It captures the essence of this thread more than many of lengthy discussions going on... ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 106 of 144 21 December 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Another way is to read a lot and make fewer mistakes to begin with. Without enough reading, you'll only be learning to say things by guessing and making mistakes. This means that you'll be accurate only if you guess correctly or if you've tried to say the same thing before. Some 7 years ago (omg) I used to write in Finnish and get corrections from a friend. Eventually she stopped due to lacking time, and I continued writing a little. I also read LOTR in Finnish. After these many pages, I could go back to the uncorrected posts and see what sounded off. By the way, before she began correcting me, I had already learned all the morphology, basically by asking what this or that form is when I was stuck, not by receiving corrections. But Finnish is awesomely regular, of course. Edited by Serpent on 21 December 2014 at 7:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 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 107 of 144 21 December 2014 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This only works if you understand the grammatical structure. I've recently been doing an experiment with Greek (not one of my stronger languages), and I've noticed that usually, the grammar is not what is off (except for when I'm not paying attention to the articles), but usually it's the idiomatic way people say things (or when I don't know the correct word, picking one translation and finding out that another one suits the context better). I'm not writing simple "hi how r u" type messages either, but I composed a three-paragraph summary of air pollution. I think there are multiple factors at play when you're doing good writing, and they are the following ones: - You need regular practice. This is not because you do not intrinsically understand the structure, but because you need to automatize production. What practice does is to make sure that you do not have that delay when you have output. There is a risk of fossilization here, but if you learn how to do things properly you can usually get around that problem quite fast or fix it. And I find that fossilization more often happens with accent/speaking than in writing, since you have more time to look things up. This is the fundamental reason I disagree with Serpent - even in writing, the basic structure of the language should come forth directly from your pen/keyboard without thinking. You need to do it right at once, else you're going to spend a lot of time overhauling text or fixing run-on sentences or proofreading. And even though I technically understand that -ει is a third person singular ending in Greek, especially in the present and subjunctive tense, I need to write this out in my texts so that I will be able to produce it without thinking. That's the problem - good writing requires automization because automization is what improves your productivity as a writer. I don't have to THINK about whether it's quiero or quieres because I intuitively already know that it's wrong, and that's partly from input but also from doing it so often that you have these distinctions down latently in your fingers even when you're not thinking that consciously. It's like muscle memory for language learners. - In writing you usually have time to look things up, but I often find myself in situations where this time pressure does exist and where I am forced to respond. Now this doesn't matter if I was, say, writing a letter to my friend in Greek once a week, but it does when I'm textchatting instantly and need to have my information at the ready without peeking. You can avoid this kind of stress, of course, but to me that seems counterproductive and unambitious. However in writing you do have somewhat more leeway because you're under less pressure and you don't run the risk of saying UHHHHHHHH. However if you're on a deadline then you really need to know whether you have to do time to do all that proofreading before you send stuff off. - Making a mistake (and using educated guesses) isn't a bad thing. That's why you have the training room. I aim to make a hundred mistakes simply because in the training room that allows me to figure out whether what I'm saying makes sense to a Greek speaker. Not in the sense of morphology - I know the basics of Greek morphology fairly well, although I could do better with some of the more delicate parts and I need to remember irregular verb endings and the verb endings of mediopassive verbs in tenses outside the present. This means I can go wild, be creative, and check if what I'm saying works. You simply don't always hit certain collocations in text, and when I'm writing a text about air pollution and smog, which is the more natural way to say "pollute?" There are choices you can make in this context. The thing about C2 level is that all of these things should be active in your brain and flow effortlessly. You shouldn't have to be searching, and to avoid that you need repetition and automization. That doesn't mean you have to write the same thing 15 times, but it does mean you need to repeat text structures. Reading it helps to see which things might naturally be used, but they're only one example and you tend to have to deal with too many contexts. Which is why having automated responses ingrained is such a good idea. But I have to state here that this is coming from someone who actively does a lot of writing and speaking to improve. My usual goal is to be able to survive in vivo, and to be able to use my skills effectively in a natural situation and context with native speakers, whether in-country or in virtual immersion. When it comes to reading/listening comprehension then there are other factors at play. Here the size of vocabulary matters a lot more (because you can use a slightly more limited set of expressions to express things even if you don't know a particular literary synonym or expression). Eventually, at the higher levels, what is going to bog you down (otherwise you're not a C1/C2) is the lack of specific, idiomatic expressions that you've just never seen but are important only in certain contexts. You can't really have trouble with your grammar at this point, or not to any meaningful extent. All your details need to be automatic. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 108 of 144 21 December 2014 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't think we disagree all that much :)
I just tend to believe that if you need too much looking up, then either you're a perfectionist or you're overloading yourself. What do you think of the language is peeing post? Unless you have an actual need to write, just let this happen naturally. (and your need/motivation for writing can be external or internal) When it comes to C1/C2, I don't disagree about the amount of practice needed (that's for the lower levels), but mostly about corrections. With a good input/output ratio you don't need as many corrections as s_allard claims. At a high level you already have your own style, so a smaller sample is enough for noticing recurrent mistakes, and the rest of them will be too isolated and maybe more like gambling. I think an underrated skill in language learning is simply being honest with yourself. On whether you're just hoping that it's correct or you *know* it (whether explicitly or naturally). On stopping when you're making things too complicated or when you're translating from L1 or L3. On whether your confidence stems from having accuracy or from knowing that a mistake is not the end of the world. Edited by Serpent on 21 December 2014 at 7:16pm 2 persons have 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 109 of 144 21 December 2014 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I really can't add anything to tarvos's post on the importance of lots of writing. However, I do believe that
working with a good professional tutor speeds the whole process up. Some people may be able to write without mistakes from the beginning after plenty of reading. Not me. By seeing my mistakes, I can identify my weakness that I have to watch for and work on. The other thing that is useful with a good tutor is general improvement of style. There is nothing like being able to discuss points of usage, alternative forms and suggestions for improvement. I don't what there is not to like about having someone work with you to improve your performance skills. This should be a no-brainer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 110 of 144 21 December 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just like taking diuretics makes you pee sooner (from the comments to the ajatt post).
I prefer to discuss this as equals and not in a learner-teacher situation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 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 111 of 144 21 December 2014 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm going to leave the motivation aside for a moment because that is another ball game and determines more whether you think you should be writing or not. I'm assuming that that's important and a given here, and in the context of exams it most certainly is. I generally don't agree much with AJATT. There is a certain measure of internal motivation involved of course, and I tend to go through prolific bouts where I'm extremely productive and then I'm not for months on end but c'est la vie. What I do agree with is that too much looking up isn't good, because it's boring and distracts from the automaticity of your work. You need the task to be oriented such that it's just a little harder than you're normally expected to do comfortably. If you have to do too much, then it's too hard - find an easier task to do, or identify the problem area and work that one out first.
You don't have the oversight to correct everything. That's why I use external tutors. This only works to a certain extent. And at C1/C2, it's the details that count. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 112 of 144 21 December 2014 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, that's the best case scenario.
s_allard literally said that the only way to write better is to write a lot and get as many corrections as possible. I questioned that, not only in terms of preparing for a C1/C2 exam. I guess the issue is whether we assume that one is already B2/C1, or if we include those that are still at B1 (or low B2). Writing may well be a high priority for them in the long run, but should they immediately start writing as much as possible the day they decide to take a C2 exam in a couple of years? I'd say they should start reading. And writing, if they currently have the motivation for it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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