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REAL multi-languages fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5307 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 33 of 102 13 September 2014 at 10:24am | IP Logged | |||||
What a frustrating question. I feel like I'm on a forum of very good amateur footballers, everyone's won multiple trophies for their schools and states, and now get asked, "how many of you actually play football REALLY well, you know, as well as Maradona and Zidane? I was watching the University Cup and I noticed that really few play real football..." My answer is 2. But only like Beckham and not like Pelé; would that count? 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Donaldshimoda Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4089 days ago 47 posts - 72 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Russian | Message 34 of 102 13 September 2014 at 10:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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woww..great response from everybody!
Let's put this way.Do you have to think how to say -WHAT TIME IS IT?- in English or whatever the language you're studying is?I guess not. You simply know how to say it in no time..no thinking, no struggling. If you can put this low effort for saying almost everything you want, well,then this is the "real deal". When we speak our native language, we basically don't think about words,grammar,structures ecC ecc. Sentences just pop out from our mouths with, hopefully :D,no efforts. So I'm talking about languages one can manage flawlessly in speech;sure maybe there will be some mistakes here and there but nothing that really slow down the pace or the ability to express anything anytime one wants. Is this what a c2 certificate assests? I doubt it. Could be a professional interpreter a person with that skills? I don't know. Am I talking about a very talented bilingual? More likely. My question was focused just on the oral skill, no reading mastery or the complete in deep knowledge of the language. For example, I was astonished by Iversen's painting video,where he displayed amazing skills and an high level of education; when he switches to Italian, he speaks over a really demanding subject that probably even native speaker would struggle with. He surely has studied the language,I've no doubt his passive skills are amazing, but his pace and pronunciation are far frome being good.Nonetheless he CAN speak Italian, maybe he would even pass advanced exames but that is not the level I was asking about on this topic. Edited by Donaldshimoda on 13 September 2014 at 10:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 35 of 102 13 September 2014 at 11:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you mean automatically, then next to Dutch another five or six? Automaticity is a
virtue, but even if you speak automatically and quickly, that doesn't mean it's correct. For example I can switch over to Russian on autopilot but I'll still blunder here and there or you will hear me miss stresses. Automaticity is a matter of training, and doesn't necessarily imply a perfect level. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3855 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 36 of 102 13 September 2014 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
Then my answer is none. Even in English, I am prone to making simple mistakes in spelling and grammar, especially when I'm talking quickly. I forget words, misuse words, make up words and usually end most of my sentences with 'and, yeah', particularly when in formal debate. I also mispronounce a few words - such as gesture and colonel. I know the correct pronunciations, thanks to being teased by friends, but the mistake is hard to get rid of. My French is at a lower level than my English. In an academic setting, I can sometimes get the same results as I would in English - for example, an exceptionally high grade for a close reading of a text - but even then I make mistakes and have difficulty expressing myself verbally. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 37 of 102 13 September 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think it's worth setting the bar higher than what you can reasonably expect
someone to do in their own language given their basic interests and personality. The difference at the higher levels is more one of elegance and precision than one of pure knowledge. The real reason my levels in some languages are high is because I can express my thoughts precisely the way I want them to, not half-baked. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3755 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 38 of 102 13 September 2014 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
I actually don't find bilingual people "amazing" since they already got the languages as children. They just had to "exist" to get extra languages. Learning as an adult is a lot harder with your other obligations in life. A lot of my relatives are bilingual and are terrible at foreign languages. They just have the two native ones that they were given by their parents. Sure you can become almost native in a language you've learned as an adult. But it will take a lot of time...measured more in decades than months or years. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JClangue Newbie Canada Joined 3755 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Catalan | Message 39 of 102 13 September 2014 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is all relative. What is "very good" to you may not be to some people. On the other hand, it may be amazing to others. What "schools" are these? Are they small high schools with 200 people or large ones with 2,500 students where the best get Division 1 athletic scholarships and become olympians? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 102 13 September 2014 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
In that case, it depends on the day and the subject of conversation: - When everything's going right, almost two. - When I'm sleep deprived and luck is against me, not even one. The topic of conversation matters a lot. If my goal is to pack the family's luggage, get the kids ready to travel, and load the car, I can normally do this in French without thinking much. Or if I do think, it's just to quickly double-check pre-formed sentences before I open my mouth. It's not hard to look fluent when I only need to speak one or two sentences at a time, on routine and familiar topics. As the topic gets harder, or as I get more sleep deprived, a few things happen: - I increasingly need to be "on," in a state of flow. - I need to substitute a certain amount of carefully-chosen, high-speed bullshit for precisely the right word. Instead of coming up with a pithy, clever expression like I might in English, I say something in two different dramatic-but-simpler ways. - I need to consciously think about gender agreement. Sometimes people can notice this; sometimes they can't. - It takes me longer and longer to find the right vocabulary, or at least a workaround. - Eventually, things start to fall apart entirely. For a first rate disaster, take me when I've missing 5 hours of sleep over the last few days, and when I've finished a long day of difficult work in English. Then ask me, "So what happens in Scalzi's latest science fiction novel?" Then the first time I stumble, just to make things as difficult as possible, sigh and look frustrated and bored. I'll be sitting there, trying to say:
If I'm tired, and I haven't even thought about the subject in French before, this is going to result in a total train wreck. People will be sitting around thinking, "Wow, emk's French is kinda awful, and he's been studying this for how many years?" But explaining a science fiction story is a rather hard task, because I need to discuss literature, to relate a complicated plot, and to explain a world full of unfamiliar technology and social customs. In fact, on a sufficiently bad day, I could hopelessly wreck this explanation in English. In comparison, if I just need to occasionally contribute a few sentences to an easy, familiar conversation, I can usually do a pretty decent job, and I don't need to think much. Fluid, automatic speech comes from long experience. And I have years of day-to-day experience with certain parts of French. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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