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"Finishing" a language | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 17 of 44 29 January 2014 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I find myself restricting my word selection even with native speakers depending on the audience and context. With an intelligent group of compatriots, I won't hesitate to say, "assuage ", if that's the word that best expresses what I want to say. In another group where I've heard a plaint talker (yet great speaker) make a comment like, "real people don't talk like that", I'll use a synonym. I do this frequently with native speakers, So, my point is, some sensitive people will dumb down their conversation for you so as not to stick out or perhaps just to make sure everyone gets the point that one is trying to make. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 18 of 44 29 January 2014 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm fairly confident that what the CEFR descriptors say for C2 and what allows one to pass a C2-level exam (at least the Goethe-Institut tests for German) are very different. Still a very, very high level and a useful certification, but not the same thing. The descriptors say, e.g., "Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read." Since we've opened one can of worms, one good turn deserves another: vocabulary size. If we can hand-wave away the problems with counting vocabulary words, I think it's fair to say that one should have a good 10,000+ vocabulary units to really meet this highly ambitious definition. Let's do the math: that's more than about 10 vocab words learned and retained for every single hour of instruction, inclusive of time to learn grammar, pronunciation, etc., etc. Not gonna happen. But people pass C2 exams all the time. I think the emphasis on the exams is more to determine whether someone is sufficiently comfortable with a language that the gaps to "near-total mastery" are sufficiently small, and sufficiently backstopped with coping techniques, that from the POV of a university or employer there no longer is any reason to worry about the person's language skills for anything but specialist work. Edited by geoffw on 29 January 2014 at 7:42pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 19 of 44 29 January 2014 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
And if you don't want to buy my vocabulary argument, I can offer empirical evidence. I would self-assess at below C2 in both reading and listening for German, based on the standard CEFR descriptors. The main reason is that there are too many words that I don't know (yet). However, it is my experience that for any practice materials I have found for the C2-level exam, I "can understand with ease virtually everything read," at least, and I can understand enough of what I hear to pass the test. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 20 of 44 29 January 2014 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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According to the FSI Testing Kit, the Speaking rating of 1-5 is composed of 5 elements. Those elements are
rated on a weighted scale. The elements and weighting are: Accent (0-4) Comprehension (4-23) Vocabulary (4-24) Grammar (6-36) Fluency (2-12) So, for the FSI Speaking rating, Grammatical accuracy is the most important, followed by vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and finally accent. S1 ratings 26-42 S2 ratings 43-62 S3 ratings 63-82 S4 ratings 83-99 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5257 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 21 of 44 30 January 2014 at 12:11am | IP Logged | |||||
I guess this is a philosophical thing, but I find it odd that grammar is given more weight than comprehension and fluency. I would be ecstatic if I could comprehend Spoken Chinese very well and respond fluently, even if my grammar wasn't great. On the other hand, if I constantly had to repeat myself and then listen to someone's stilted responses that were slow and awkward (but perfectly grammatical) I would find it annoying. Not that grammar isn't important, I'm just surprised that it is listed as the most important. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 22 of 44 30 January 2014 at 1:52am | IP Logged | |||||
I think it's a good point, but taken together fluency and comprehension do have more weight, and so are in a sense seen as more important. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 23 of 44 30 January 2014 at 2:53am | IP Logged | |||||
You are totally right. My assumption was that the person was starting at a C1 level or maybe a strong B2 as mentioned here. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 24 of 44 30 January 2014 at 3:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would think though that to speak fluently, fluency already means that everything is
basically completely correct grammatically and syntactically, so grammar should be most important. For example, if one speaks fluidly and at good pace, but says quite frequently the language's equivalent of, "Yesterdays he droved we hadded, and we haved eateds on after a good really restaurants", the grammar and syntax are almost failing. So it makes sense that the grammar must be correct to have fluency. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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