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Forgetting languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 12 20 May 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged |
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I disagree with the theory that once you are past certain level, you don't lose a
language for several years. That is pure nonsense in my opinion. I've seen natives losing pieces of their languages in as little as four or five years. I have experience with letting rot languages at levels A1, around B1 and B2/C1 (which I take as basic fluency). At first, it seemed like I lost the most of my A1 language but when thinking of it, I didn't. Mostly, I was just missing things I have never trully learnt but only superficially scratched. That happened to my Spanish and most of my "recovery" lied in continuing where I had started (and I plan to do my second come back the same way). Around B1 was my French about six or seven years ago and I had a forced pause and didn't have opportunities to practice of continue by myself. The things weren't trully forgotten, I was gaining them back really fast. The B2/C1 hurt the most because I regret most deeply every small piece I have lost. And there was the most to lose at the beginning. I think it is more important what skills are your strongest by nature (are you most gifted in, are the easiest for you to gain or regain) and which are the worst. This can even vary in between your languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6977 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 10 of 12 21 May 2013 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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I also let a language (German) “rot” at about a high B1 level for about ten years.
When I picked it back in preparation for a trip to Germany earlier this year, I found that I still retained most of my vocabulary but had almost completely lost my listening comprehension and speaking ability. I think a lot of the skills were merely dormant, and only required enough exposure and "need" to reactivate. Before I went on my trip, I couldn't even string together a sentence in German without difficulty. But on my first day there, after spending half an hour dragging my luggage through a hot and crowded train looking for my compartment, I found the conductor and suddenly burst out with a five minute tirade in German about the inconsistent numbering system of the train cars. After that harrowing experience, I suddenly found that I could speak and understand German again. By the end of that week, my skills were pretty much back to where I had left off, and I could even understand television and movies again. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4449 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 12 22 May 2013 at 6:52am | IP Logged |
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In my opinion the most important determining factor is whether you have reach a conversation level in a language
before it becomes less frequently use. If you are comfortable using the language in day-to-day conversations, it is likely you would have a network of friends & associates who also use the same language. At the same time you are likely going to watch more videos or listen to songs in the language even when it is not in use in conversations. I have a friend who is Chinese born in the US. He was taught a limited amount of Chinese by his parents and started to take language courses in university as elective. He is still more comfortable talking in English unless the person he is talking to is more fluent in Chinese. He tries very hard to keep up with the Chinese characters he picked up by writing letters. I know someone who learned a limited amount of Mandarin in school. Went to Beijing China for vacation. When talking to store salespeople and taxi drivers he could be understood although his Chinese was limited. Many years later he has already forgotten half of his Mandarin. I don't think he is comfortable at casual conversations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6708 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 12 of 12 23 May 2013 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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I followed courses in Romanian for three years at the university level, the last two years with just me and a native teacher, and we agreed that we only would speak Romanian to each other. So at the end of 1981 I was actually quite fluent in Romanian. Then I dropped language learning for 25 years, and because Romanian wasn't really a language that imposed itself in my daily life here in Denmark (and because I didn't visit the country) I forget everything except the word "scrumiere" (ashtray - strange choice for a non-smoker). However it came reasonably fast back: in 2006 I studied my old books for a month, and I could for instance have a conversation of almost an hour with a museum attendant in Moldova - certainly not fluently or errorfree, but nevertheless the first long conversation in 25 years. And since I have visited Romania twice, and each time it takes less time to get up and rolling again.
I have just returned from the polyglot conference in Budapest, and here I must admit that I could speak Romanian, but with clear signs of decay because I never ever speak it at home. For instance I wanted in one conversation to use the Romanian word for 'travel', and the influence from "viaggio", "viaje", "viagem", "voyage" etc. blocked me for at least 20 seconds before the person I spoke to reminded me that "viață" means 'life' and not 'travel' - arrrghh!!!! only then I remembered that the correct word in Romanian is "călătorie". However this example also show that the language wasn't forgotten (actually I remembered the word by myself as soon as a false friend had been moved out of the way), it had just gotten slightly rusty after several silent years. The funny, but also slightly worrying thing is that reading a complete guidebook to Schönbrunn in Romanian a few days before hadn't been enough to do the trick - to reactivate a language you clearly need to be active. Edited by Iversen on 23 May 2013 at 2:02am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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