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"Finishing" a language | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4119 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 44 28 January 2014 at 7:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you have a necessity of something, then your language will improve until you reach a
level in which you are capable of responding to that necessity. If your necessity somehow increases, then your language level should increase. If it decreases, then your language level will probably decreasee, because our brain works like that. For example, I'm brazilian, so i'm portuguese native. My portuguese level is not incredible high as one may think. Three years ago, there was a time I was required to study a lot of portuguese grammar, because I was going to take some tests. So, my portuguese level at that time was on top. I pretty much ruled almost all portuguese language constructions, verbal regency and other aspects of that language. Today, my portuguese just got back to "normal native" level. Obviously, it is better than what it was before I study, but not even close to those days. So, what am I trying to say with all this? Simple: To me, a language is finished once you reach your goal. It applies to all languages, including native lang. A basic goal should be Basic Fluency. B2 or C1 to finish basic needs. I don't believe in the "always improving" theory. In my opinion, once you reach the level that matches your needs, you will lose language at the same rate you acquire it, keeping the level dynamically steady 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 10 of 44 28 January 2014 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wouldn't give up on the idea of getting to C2 French, or even a well-educated native speaker, in less than a lifetime. :) My wife was C1 English when we met. She had done the standard 10-years English study at school and read some English books, but certainly wasn't that comfortable in the language. I remember initially I had to speak a little slower, and certainly not use the full range of my vocabulary - of course when I met her I thought she was a linguistic genius for speaking at C1 level :). After a couple of years we married and lived in Boston for 18 months. I was surprised recently when she told me that she got very tried in Boston living in English all the time - so it wasn't so strong at that point. She's always read a lot and enjoyed reading the NY Times on the weekends and was going to MIT philosophy colloquiums and the like. We moved back to Berlin for three years, she finished and wrote her doctorate in English (which is relatively rare in the humanities here). She then got a job at a university in London. For what it's worth the interviewees in London said she spoke like a native at that point. So perhaps she was already C2. Certainly when she had regular lunches with Swiss and Austrian colleagues none of them even thought about speaking in German, English was so natural - even now her Austrian colleague who now works in Salzburg only writes emails to her in English. After three years in London we moved back to Berlin. I can't prove it, but I would be very surprised if she couldn't pass a C2 exam in English, and in fact would have passed such an exam years ago. So for her it took less than nine years (perhaps five or six) speaking everyday with her partner in English, and then living for 4.5 years in English speaking countries (though again she might have already been C2 when she arrived in London - so only after 1.5 years immersion). In addition she wrote her doctorate in English and a longish book manuscript, which has been revised a few times. I actually think the very large amount of writing she has and continues to do is a big factor in improving her English in the latter stages. For what it's worth she hasn't looked at a grammar book since she left school - and personally finds grammar study boring. To my ear she is completely natural in English. So C2 seems very achievable - especially if you get a year or two of immersion when you are already at C1 - and of course speak it everyday with your partner. At the same time, in relation to your question, she certainly doesn't think she's finished learning English and keeps actively trying to improve it. She has a fear (I think ungrounded) that even now she'll regress because she's now mostly speaking German again. Edited by patrickwilken on 28 January 2014 at 9:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5217 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 11 of 44 28 January 2014 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For me my Spanish will be 'done' when I can carry on all normal living in TL without searching for a word or structure: I can stand in the bar and talk to natives, understand their jokes and make them laugh.
I put a good 800 hours of self study into Spanish and a dozen trips to Spain and employed a native tutor - she took a while to appreciate where I wanted to go with my Spanish at first. However I now feel confident that my Spanish will continue to improve through immersion in native materials so I feel I am able to move on to another language. Naturally this would be French as it was my best language at one time but I'm being a language 'tart' and playing the field for a while. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 12 of 44 28 January 2014 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Like patrickwilken, I think that French C2 is certainly attainable in less than a lifetime. A lot less. The question is
how. I've already sketched out an ideal schedule that is focused on passing the exam. But let's look at the what one has to study. When you look at the can-do statements at the C2 level, they are deceivingly simple. You can pretty much do anything. But it's not as bad as it seems. After all, it's not as if you were studying for the French baccalauréat. It's an exam for foreigners who can demonstrate a high level of proficiency. As French becomes more sophisticated, the spoken language tends to resemble the written language. Therefore there must be emphasis on reading and writing in French. That means reading a newspaper article at least everyday and possibly a book a week. And writing a page or two a week. All this with feedback from a tutor or teacher. It goes without saying that the grammar has to be rock-solid. Verb conjugations, grammatical gender, all the pronoun forms have to be accurate. A wide vocabulary is good, of course, but I don't think one has to go overboard. You have to understand how the vocabulary system works. And I would put special emphasis on idioms and collocations. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3995 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 13 of 44 28 January 2014 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately, you kind of have to "start over" when going into new situations. If I became a carpenter, for example, I would have to learn a bunch of new vocab in English and Spanish. I don't even know those terms in English! Or if I got into gardening, or anything I'm not familiar with. This bears repeating: whenever a non-native talks to a native, the native speaker will "lower" their level so the other may understand.If the person is A2, the native speaker will have to speak very clearly, slowly, and use very common, basic vocab. Yesterday I was at a Spanish club meetup and usually only talk with native or near-native speakers but I couldn't be rude and ignore the person next to me. The person was an A2 speaker and I had to avoid using a lot of vocab that a beginner wouldn't know, speak very slowly, and not use complex grammatical structures. But if a native is speaking to a non-native that has lived 10 years working exclusively in Spanish...well they can obviously speak normally. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 14 of 44 29 January 2014 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the aim for 'near-native level' is sometimes exaggerated. We have wide examples
of foreigners who mastered our native languages, not matter how we make theories on them. It just happens. Either they come with a good background and get accostumed here, or they just learn it here. We should not underestimate mankind's ability to adapt. That myth that you won't ever learn enough in class and the real world is frightening, unpredictable, a different beast is also overrated. Nowadays language-learning happens in a much broader context. I learned French paying attention to register, to prescriptive grammar x colloquial use, to correspondence between spelling and sound and to accents x standard, right from an A2 level. I had studied English in a traditional classroom framework and I wasn't the least aware of accents and registers. It was totally different with French and I brought this feeling with me. A good language- learning method (class, textbook or self-study) has and will pay attention to all this. We're among the most innovative, we're self-learners, but this eventually gets to the classroom, too, and people become more aware of how to avoid the bookish talk. And they get lots more of exposure through the internet than when I learned English. I agree with people who said passive C1/active B1. When I can use a language at that level, I'm no longer 'worried' about which textbook I'll take next or if I'll ever dare reading a classic. So, when you're done 'studying', you're done studying. I wouldn't call what I'm doing with French nowadays as studying. If I ever get back to 'studying', that will be because I'll try to pass some exam. If I had to go to France the next day, I'd go just the way I am now. I would demand no extra weeks or months for prior 'studying'. You should keep the motto of eternal learning, asymptote learning for yourself. Don't apply it to others. Just be humble enough to admit others' progress. And your own too, otherwise you'll pursue languages as other people pursue money. Realize that at one point you'll have learned a language enough to make it part of your life, and now it's just what it is, just like any other activities, hobbies you do. You'll keep learning but you'll already accept to yourself that it is already a reality for you, no longer an abstraction, no longer a goal you'll never reach. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5217 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 15 of 44 29 January 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes: you are right there are words I don't know in English; I get by! There are even words that have a special and different meaning in a particular domain...... we just need to get on with it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 16 of 44 29 January 2014 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
The one thing I didn't see in your ideal schedule was what level the student was at when they began the 2 month immersion. I do think that with your other premises, passing the C2 for a good exam taker starting with a strong B2 would be possible with a dedicated, focused and guided 2 month immersion stay. You just didn't say where the student was starting from, which is an important factor in the equation. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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