patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 25 of 144 11 December 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
beano wrote:
I find it hard to believe that one in every three or four people are functionally illiterate. Sure, there will always be a minority who struggle with basic reading and writing but I would have put it at less than 10% |
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Yes. It is hard to believe, but that's what I believe are fairly careful studies suggest.
Being functionally illiterate doesn't necessarily mean you can't write at all, I think within the US it's defined as having a reading ability of an 8th grader.
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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 26 of 144 11 December 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
an infamous thread about the average Joe
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 27 of 144 11 December 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
Thanks. Quite enlightening!
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 28 of 144 11 December 2014 at 7:42pm | IP Logged |
patrickwilken wrote:
beano wrote:
I find it hard to believe that one in every three or four people are functionally illiterate. Sure, there will always
be a minority who struggle with basic reading and writing but I would have put it at less than 10% |
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Yes. It is hard to believe, but that's what I believe are fairly careful studies suggest.
Being functionally illiterate doesn't necessarily mean you can't write at all, I think within the US it's defined as
having a reading ability of an 8th grader. |
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Wow, that's scary to think how many people have no appetite for reading. My grandad left school at 13 to
work in the coal industry, yet he devoured newspapers and books all his days. When you think of the
opportunities kids get nowadays. Are we sliding backwards?
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 29 of 144 11 December 2014 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
beano wrote:
Wow, that's scary to think how many people have no appetite for reading. My grandad left school at 13 to
work in the coal industry, yet he devoured newspapers and books all his days. When you think of the
opportunities kids get nowadays. Are we sliding backwards? |
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My great-great-great-grandmother signed her marriage certificate in the goldfields of Australia with an X. :)
As illiteracy is strongly correlated with poverty, if we are sliding backwards in the West it is because the poorest segments of society are expanding.
Edited by patrickwilken on 11 December 2014 at 8:12pm
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 30 of 144 11 December 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
Mind you, in the days when there was mass illiteracy among the poor there must still have been people who
were very creative and insightful in oral delivery of language.
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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 31 of 144 11 December 2014 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
Yes. We call them bards :)
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Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5769 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 32 of 144 11 December 2014 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
Ah, the times, they have not changed.
As for the original question:
Possible? Yes. Likely? No, unless you already have the experience of having reached C1 or above in a foreign language and know what you're doing.
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