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When will you be satisfied? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 37 27 April 2014 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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We discuss until our ears fall off what fluency is, what proficiency is, how good our accent should be etc, and
suddenly I realised how futile it is to get some sort of common understanding of this. It is like asking what our favourite food is, and hope for a common answer. We are all different. So the only thing we can ask is what is good enough for you? For various reasons I have given the matter a lot of thought the last days, and I have reached a two level conclusion. Level one I will be satisfied when I can converse reasonably well in Russian, can read a modern book and get most of the content, and can understood most of what us said directly to me. I will be very happy when I reach that level, and it may indeed be as far as I'll go. Level two I will however not be completely happy until I can: -Read Anna Karenina in Russian - Sing Russian karaoke - Right a poem in Russian - understand a film or a theatre play -Stand under the rose arch in my garden and sing 'Million alix roz' diva style, with a long dress and my hair blowing in the wind. And I am counting on some of you guys to make at least a virtual visit to wherever my neighbours and family decide to send me after I pull that last stunt :-) 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| diffuse Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3865 days ago 12 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 2 of 37 27 April 2014 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
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:D I know what you mean about karaoke as a measure of success! I've done karaoke in a TL (Japanese) before, but it was songs I'd practiced a ton in advance (& I was reading the lyrics in romaji off my phone, not in kanji on the TV screen of the karaoke place). More spontaneous karaoke is definitely a real motivator for me!
A big measure of satisfaction for me would be the ability to do a job interview in either French or German (& then, of course, being able to get a job/work in an office in either of those languages -- even if a lot of the daily office work would be in English). I am studying both those languages partly out of personal interest, & there will be a lot of smaller goalposts along the way (& already have been!), but being employable in another language is never something I've achieved. When I was studying Finnish, I think I was on the cusp of getting there, but eventually had to drop the language (temporarily?) -- other than that, I've never even gotten close. Some of my smaller goalposts would be things like: - Reading blog posts about subjects of interest to me without having to rely on a dictionary to understand them in depth (if not completely) - Being able to pick up a general interest magazine off a newsstand & do the same - Speaking to people when traveling (to ask questions, etc.) & be able to not cave & immediately switch to English when things get more complicated - Cooking from recipes in my TLs with the same speed as in my native language (in other words, not having to stop & laboriously translate things every step of the way) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 3 of 37 27 April 2014 at 12:55pm | IP Logged |
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Great post as always, Cristina!
This is a question I have been asking myself for some time now and having two "levels" of satisfaction seems to be a good system for defining my goals. Level one would be the realistic short-time goals I'm heading after, while level two would be the ideal life-time goal. Level one: I can understand easy texts and easy conversations and talk about everyday matters (equals B1). I have reached this level in Russian, but I'm still striving for it in Japanese and Irish. Level two: I can read classical works of literature, watch sophisticated art movies, understand political discussions, and talk about every aspect of my life in my TL. Now, I'd be happy if I some day reached level two, but I also know that it takes a lot of time and effort to get there and I'm not quite sure if I'm willing to invest said time and effort for all my languages. I'd be more than happy if I ever reached this level in Russian, but I hardly dare to dream of reaching it in Irish or even Japanese! Why? Well, I have been talking about this in my log. I am interested in so many languages and other things that I need to rotate between my interests. Studying a language towards perfection, however, is such a long-time commitment that I don't know if I'll ever achieve this goal. Nevertheless, I still dream of reading Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Turgenyev, and Tolstoi in the original and I know I will get there one day, whenever that may be. Probably not tomorrow and not even next year, but I do believe the day will come. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4306 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 4 of 37 27 April 2014 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
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Great thread! For me, learning a second foreign language, I'm always searching for similar milesstones to see if I have
reached them easier or with more effort than last time. I have counted the hours of study for both my languages, so I can give some rough though objective numbers to indicate what I'm talking about with my levels (unless there is a problem with this reasoning). Level one: I think that the first real satisfaction for me was when I got to an understanding of German capital-G Grammar to the effect that no feature of the verb system, or other conjugations e.g. between adjective and noun, could surprise me upon glancing at it's form. Even if I can't understand that the sentence says "the cupboard was flecked with accidentally splashed paint," I could immediately identify - at a glance - that "the something passivized-verb with adverbial- adjective participle-adjective something," at the very lowest limit of my comprehension. With German, at the beginning I tried to read a complex story by dictionary brute force and that slow, almost time-wasting experience made me realize how global grammatical structure was not something that I would be able to just soak up by observing. Listening-wise: at this point I could understand a didactic voice but most real German culture was still barred from me. I'm almost there with Spanish at 320 hours of study, but irregularities make it a taller task. I think I reached this at about 300 hours with German, given the smaller variety of verb forms (at least, those in common use). Level two: The next level of real satisfaction was more than twice as truly satisfying: I could begin a sentence and let my mind run in the grooves of the language until the end of a complete utterance (probably not sounding very elegant). Umming occasionally, but essentially saying thoughts. This is in contrast to being simply able to "forumlate" sentences correctly with adequate planning. Equivalently, when I listened I could anticipate what the end of a sentence might be before it ended, and I could interrupt without waiting for "processing time" on what has been said. With German I'd say I was at about 700 hours when I felt I had definitely reached this stage, though it's very blurry and when I'm discouraged I feel functionally lower than this level (though of course my passive knowledge is still intact). (Projected) Level Three: reading any non-technical text I wanted with a dictionary for a word every two pages or so. I haven't reached this yet with 950 hours of German, since there are just too many words that I currently need to look up in any literary text (and also I had gone for depth over breadth in my studying techniques). For me my listening skills would be satisfactory if I could listen to any audiobook, with a literate vocabulary, without too many niggling gaps. It would not be necessary for me to be able to understand every quirk of conversational German for me to reach this higher level of what would be satisfying to me, although this could be presumptive to say. If anyone's read Daniel Kahnman's "Thinking Slow and Fast," level one corresponds to a working "system 2/ thinking slow" knowledge, and level two corresponds to a working "system 1/ thinking fast" ability in the language. Or you could contrast "analytic/ automatic" or "intellectual/ physical." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5764 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 37 27 April 2014 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
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Level One:
- learn new factual information and skills solely using the language as instruction language - navigate everyday life and maintain relationships using only the language, without feeling I am a burden to the people around me Level Two: Never. But that's alright, my goal is not to be satisfied, my goal is to find new things to learn whenever I am bored. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 6 of 37 27 April 2014 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
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Level one:
Read easy books, listen to news broadcasts, some radio. Level two: Watch movies comfortably w/o subs, read classic literature, advanced contemporary novels, use slang/informal speech when appropriate. I'll be satisfied when I perfect my level two, or rather, my passive skills are closer to English in both French & Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 7 of 37 27 April 2014 at 8:51pm | IP Logged |
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Level 1 is usually good enough for me in most
languages, because I don't have enough consistent opportunities to practice 9 or 10 languages to level 2. I have it in seven and want it in more. I can do this in Romanian for example. Level 2 minus the literature goal, is something I only need in French and Russian. Getting there in Hebrew would be awesome but it won't happen. Edited by tarvos on 27 April 2014 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Penelope Diglot Senior Member Greece Joined 3867 days ago 110 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, French Studies: Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 37 27 April 2014 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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A conversation without problems, tv/films and newspapers comprehension and a book here and there would be fine as a minimum level.
Writing composition is my advanced level, because you can get by in a live conversation even with problems, but writing is another story. It takes good grammar, precise vocabulary and a sense of good taste for each language. For me that's the most difficult of all. Oddly enough, Hebrew is one of my more ambitious language studies, because I like a couple of their writers. Even though I complain about their alphabet. I have different goals in languages, and I see I am not the only one. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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