|
 |
Learn speaking only, and forget reading? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Dania Newbie United States Joined 4757 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 8 29 November 2011 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
|
Had a question for the more experienced language learners on this board. I've been doing okay in my Italian, but I find that speaking and understanding is MUCH easier for me then the grammar/reading/writing part. At this point, when I’m watching an Italian film, I can get the gist. I know this because when I test it by going back and watch the movie with English subtitles, it pretty much matches up to what I thought. I’m DEFINITLY not getting every word, but I’m getting enough to follow. I think I’m just a person that learns better by ear. Since I am learning this for practical reasons - mostly to chat easily with a new Italian friend/love interest - would it be smarter to drop the reading and writing for now and just learn to communicate? Is it easier to come back and learn to read it later, if I wish to do so? I wouldn’t be fluent but . . . . . . . . I would love to hear some different perspectives on this – are there people who can speak, say, Chinese, but can’t read or write a word? Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5269 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 8 29 November 2011 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
|
It all depends on your way of learning. When I learned Italian, I read 3000 pages first, and then I started talking once I got to Italy. I need to have some written material, in order to get som grip on what I am learning. If you are fine with just speaking and listening, I see no reason why you should not continue like that. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 29 November 2011 at 2:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5946 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 8 29 November 2011 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
|
To me, speaking is the core skill -- I believe that anything you can say, you can learn to understand or write without much effort. I believe it's easier to do this than start by understanding and then learning to speak.
(With the obvious exception of languages that are closely related to ones you already know -- these are very easy to understand to start off with anyway.) I wrote a blog post or two on this very topic a few months ago. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 4 of 8 29 November 2011 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
|
Understanding the spoken language is usually much easier than speaking, and similarly reading is easier than writing because they are passive skills. In fact, as least initially, when you think you are understanding spoken Italian, you are often just getting the gist. But you are not really decoding everything. So, when you watch that Italian movie a year later, you start hearing things, especially idioms, that you didn't catch the previous year.
Of course, one can learn a language orally. A lot of people do that, especially for languages with really complicated scripts. But most people rely on some written form. And this is the problem. Do you really want to try to learn Italian without learning to read it? Do you not want to write down words? You could do that in some phonetic script but written Italian is very phonetic. Want I think you want to do is to concentrate on spoken Italian. You probably don't want to read novels in Italian, but you should learn enough of the writing system so that you can read and write the words you intend to learn. You'll have to study grammar, but you would want to focus on grammar of the spoken language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5316 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 8 29 November 2011 at 4:46pm | IP Logged |
|
I second what Cainntear and s_allard said.
I always concentrate on oral, and everything else follows. But this is likely a decision based on personality. Many other successful polyglots here concentrate on written only. You probably won't completely do away with reading anyway because you'll be looking up words or exchanging emails, etc., but I don't think you'd be missing anything. It's possible that later, much later, when you are very advanced, that the only way to progress further would be through reading, but even that I'm not convinced of. There are many movies, tv or radio shows that use very eloquent language. Edited by Arekkusu on 29 November 2011 at 5:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 8 29 November 2011 at 6:12pm | IP Logged |
|
I suppose it's because I'm more introverted, but my reading/writing will always outstrip my listening/speaking in any language I study. You are clearly more of an extrovert, and enjoy the listening/speaking side of the language.
To answer your specific question, I would recommend against dropping reading and writing alltogether. But if you don't enjoy it, and the pressure to do it gets in the way of your progress, reduce it. In the grand scheme of things, your enjoyment of the language is the most important thing (unless you need it for work), but perhaps it is the way you work on reading and writing which is the problem. You could find ways to read and write which you enjoy more: write emails to this love interest, read comics rather than books, find amusing stories and write them on toilet walls, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Dania Newbie United States Joined 4757 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 8 29 November 2011 at 7:05pm | IP Logged |
|
This is very helpful everyone, thank you for your responses. It's funny - even though learning is such a personal thing, it's almost like I need 'permission' to know that I'm going about it the right way. Jeffers, you made me realize something - with reading and writing, I'm using grammer textbooks and Italian language exercise books. For speaking and understanding, I watch a bunch of movies and flirt with this yummy guy, and also practice with a nice Italian waitress at my favorite local resturant. No wonder I enjoy that more! That actually might something to think about . . . . 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6532 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 8 of 8 30 November 2011 at 10:27pm | IP Logged |
|
You need to get something which will interest you more:) Like especially if you like Italian music&movies, follow the news in Italian! For me, going from just watching football (soccer) to reading the news in my Romance target languages has been a huge step. Try twitter, each tweet is just 140 characters or less and news sites and celebrities use twitter a lot. you can add the most interesting/memorable pieces of articles to an SRS and/or look up what your textbook says about the grammar forms you come across.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
