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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5098 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 9 of 37 27 April 2014 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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In French, I won't be satisfied until I can do everything in French that I can do in English.
With German, I'll be pleased with the level 1 in the original post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4947 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 37 28 April 2014 at 5:05am | IP Logged |
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My problem my level 1 and level 2s are always goalposts that can move. And I always move them...
Three years ago, I would have been ecstatic if I could hold fluent casual conversations with German and French speakers and understand 75% of what I hear. Today I discuss everything pretty much in these languages, not always completely fluently, but no topic is off-limits, and I understand over 90% of everything said, in daily conversations many times 100%. I can pick up conversations of German and French speakers in loud restaurants and understand most of what they are saying (literally, I can predict the words that I don't hear to fill in the blanks). I can read without problem all adult modern books. All that waaaaay beyond what I would have dreamt on 36 months back. But now I want to be more versatile with nuanced vocabulary, eliminate all grammatical mistakes that remain, and discuss fluently extremely heavy topics like economics, astronomy, and medicine. I want to improve my accent. Etc. Yes, I am perfectionist and it is both a flaw and the reason I have gotten to where I have thus far. Today I would be in heaven if I could read simple instructions and a children's book (8-9 years of age) in Mandarin. And then I won't be satisfied... Edited by outcast on 28 April 2014 at 5:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 37 28 April 2014 at 6:29am | IP Logged |
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I've received many years of education in English. My Chinese is a bit rusty but coming along. I can hear
most of what was said on TV and the radio except for a few phrases & proverbs in between that I have to look up. A number of years ago I was in a summer exchange program in Taiwan and met an American. We became friends and started writing letters to each other until recently when we decided to switch to sending Emails in Chinese. Right now he is more focused on German while I am getting back to my French that I put aside since high school. I considered both our Chinese writing & character recognition to be at the C1 level. However, when it comes to conversation, he tends to be a bit hesitant talking in Chinese and tend to fall between B1 & B2. Some people can speak Chinese very well especially second and third generation Chinese living abroad who would speak to their parents in the language but have not learn to write at all. The last thing is to accept that you are not going to know every word in the dictionary even if you won a national Spelling Bee competition. As long as you have a dictionary around to look up words when needed you should be ok. Edited by shk00design on 28 April 2014 at 6:32am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4080 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 12 of 37 28 April 2014 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
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English: when I can write and speak better than 80% of native English speakers.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jalds Newbie United States Joined 4956 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 13 of 37 28 April 2014 at 7:54am | IP Logged |
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Great topic. I´ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately and touched on it briefly
in a recent log post. I´ll be truly satisfied when my language knowledge doesn´t restrict me from fully participating in the activities I love (writing, debating, parties with friends and an involvement in community improvement or a local business in my target countries). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 37 28 April 2014 at 11:13am | IP Logged |
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Satisfaction is not something you only get once with a given language. I'm satisfied if I can read a Wikipedia article in a language, but at this stage I may not yet be able to understand a weather report in that language. So I have to get a second satisfaction when I can do that to be really satisfied. And after that I have to visit a relevant place to get even more satisfied. Satisfaction isn't a single epiphany experience, it is longterm process where you hopefully get more and more satisfied with your level. Edited by Iversen on 28 April 2014 at 2:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 15 of 37 28 April 2014 at 12:19pm | IP Logged |
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For once I will have to disagree just a tinsy bit with my esteemed Nordic colleague:-)
I have two languages that I am "satisfied with" in the sense that I do not study them actively. I am far from perfect, and there are of course always new things to learn, (we are talking about Spanish and English)and I keep up, but if I was offered a year to study Spanish or English, I would not bother. If I could get to that point in Russian - I would see a glimpse of heaven .-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5958 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 16 of 37 28 April 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged |
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Near-native level for all of them. The only way I could see that changing is if I start learning a small language with very limited use or a dead language.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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