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One Week Challenge

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
70 messages over 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 3 ... 8 9 Next >>
Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6012 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 17 of 70
17 December 2011 at 8:54pm | IP Logged 
zhanglong wrote:
Other examples would be: your boss has asked you to lead a delegation to a foreign country to negotiate a deal, but there is no foreign translator available. As a language professional, how would you deal with the situation?

As a language professional, I'd have to tell him it's impossible.
1 person has voted this message useful



canada38
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5496 days ago
304 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: Portuguese, Japanese

 
 Message 18 of 70
17 December 2011 at 9:59pm | IP Logged 
I like the idea of learning as much as possible in a week, but really B2 is impossible.
I'm not sure which language I'll choose, but this sounds fun!

For any of us who are students and are off for Christmas break, this is an excellent
language learning time!
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kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4890 days ago
1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 19 of 70
17 December 2011 at 10:09pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
A2: ...
That smells like prelearned sentences from a language guide, but would not be totally
impossible

To me this level goes just a bit beyond that; you know stock phrases and sentences, but
understand just enough of the grammar (present tense verbs, pronouns, direct and indirect
objects) to understand and manipulate the pre-learned sentences.
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 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 20 of 70
17 December 2011 at 10:18pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
This thread reminds me of a czech joke. I'll try to translate it well (it is always difficult for me when it comes to jokes).

Three students are asked "How long it would would take you to learn Chinese for an exam?"

A student of maths says: "A year."

A law student thinks for a moment and answers: "Half a year."

A medicine student asks whether there is a textbook and after getting an affirmative answer sighs: "Oh no, another of those weekends."
i've heard the same about an american, English and russian guy. the russian said he's ready to take the exam now XD


so are we now planning this challenge? XD i'm in with Danish :)

Edited by Serpent on 17 December 2011 at 10:19pm
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6012 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 21 of 70
18 December 2011 at 12:42am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
That smells like prelearned sentences from a language guide, but would not be totally impossible

Yup. That's my main problem with the CEFR -- if you teach people to parrot phrasebook-fashion, they can progress through the levels one by one. If you teach people to actually speak, they get better and better and better, but don't even qualify for A2, then suddenly qualify for all levels in one go....
3 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 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 22 of 70
18 December 2011 at 1:03am | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Iversen wrote:
That smells like prelearned sentences from a language guide, but would not be totally impossible

Yup. That's my main problem with the CEFR -- if you teach people to parrot phrasebook-fashion, they can progress through the levels one by one. If you teach people to actually speak, they get better and better and better, but don't even qualify for A2, then suddenly qualify for all levels in one go....
hm this might be quite true XD i read texts and do exercises from "italiano per medici" for fun, which is labelled as B1/C2 on the cover, but then dialang takes me down to earth and tells me I'm still A2 because i don't write well (without google) or can't choose the right title for a text :D
4 persons have voted this message useful



Guido
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6529 days ago
286 posts - 582 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish
Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic

 
 Message 23 of 70
18 December 2011 at 2:12am | IP Logged 
zhanglong wrote:
Other examples would be: your boss has asked you to lead a delegation
to a foreign country to negotiate a deal, but there is no foreign translator available.
As a language professional, how would you deal with the situation?


If there's no foreign translator available, then we could hire a local one.
Touché


1 person has voted this message useful



zhanglong
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4930 days ago
322 posts - 427 votes 
Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 24 of 70
18 December 2011 at 5:28am | IP Logged 
Let me just tell you what prompted this mind-exercise.

I guess I was subliminally influenced by the savant who learned enough Icelandic in a week to be able to converse on television with two native hosts; but that wasn't the motivation.

Primarily, I wanted to see the differences between what the CEFR speaking requirements are versus real-life proficiency; I wanted to explore discussions of what "A2" and "B1" mean.

Second, I was in such a situation recently and wanted to see how others would tackle it.

Third, I want to apply some of the ideas genearated here to the languages I'm studying now, since I find myself spending too much time workshopping and not enough time communicating.

If this is my last post for the year, I want to wish all of you at this wonderful forum, very Happy Holidays.


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