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Getting past terminal intermediacy | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| CatoTheElder Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 5816 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English Studies: Icelandic, French | Message 1 of 4 04 April 2011 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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I have studied a fairly sizable number of modern and historical languages (German, Ancient Greek, Latin, Old/Middle English, Middle High German) to a level I would consider between intermediate and basic fluency. I have also achieved in a fairly short span of time a basic to intermediate knowledge of Old Saxon, French, and Biblical Hebrew. I have dabbled in Dutch, Sanskrit, and Turkish and am confident with more time and commitment I could elevate these to an intermediate level in a fairly brief span.
I have not, however, been able to break through to anything that I would consider fluency in any of the languages which I have studied. For historical languages this means keeping a lexicon and a grammar on hand for ready reference and the need to analytically approach more complicated structures (with rare need to resort to notation/diagramming) rather than the ability to merely read a text as a text. For modern languages (German primarily) I am able to read through a text and follow the narrative and argumentation to a fairly high degree and can read literature as literature not as a linguistic puzzle but my weakness comes primarily in detailed conversation and in retaining details learned from reading texts in German. I am uncertain if I merely need to apply new methods, keep doing what I am doing and just give it more time, or perhaps trim down the number of languages I am studying and attack a few more in great depth. My usual method for dead languages has merely been the very traditional initial intensive grammar study followed by texts of increasing length and complexity. I usually follow a sequence like narrative prose, rhetorical prose, poetry (EG. Caesar-Cicero-Virgil or Xenophon-Demosthenes-Sophocles). I also do a large amount of copying sentences by hand and memorization of passages. For living languages I usually follow a similar initial approach of intensive grammar study followed by reading/listen to texts. I usually attempt to use foreign language newspapers, talk radio, and Wikipedia articles followed by novels and poetry in the target language. Unfortunately I am on a tight budget so travel or immersion classes are out of the question. Any advice is more than welcome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 4 04 April 2011 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
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Since no one else has answered...
I've exposed here what I do to foster fluency. I hope you find something in there that helps you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 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 4 of 4 05 April 2011 at 1:40am | IP Logged |
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The thing that is conspicuously absent from your study methods are active thinking, speaking and writing. And in the case of the dead languages maybe also some listening - there are actually a few Latin podcasts and Youtube clips out there, and getting a language to resonate in your mind after listening is an essential part of making it active.
I don't see why you should could down on your number of languages, but you could try a few tricks. For the written sources this would be using texts with literal translation- i.e. not the usual misleading 'free' translations. Even a junk translation from Google is better than a free translation because it at least doesn't try delibereately to delude you. A translation is not soemthing you use instead of dictionaries or grammars, but just something that gives you an immediate feedback on your own hypotheses about the meaning of a text. For spoken sources ... well, the problem will probably be to find something you can understand AND find interesting, but if you can't find sufficiently easy and captivating sources, then try just to listen for syllables and words and phrases, but without trying frantically to understand the meaning. This is of course a preliminary step, but I know tfrom experience that all your accumulated passive knowledge then suddenly will make things snap into place. Finally, try to think - in fragmented, faulty and restricted terms if that's what you can do right now, but even the most botched attempt is valid as training in being active. If 'inventing' things to think about is a problem then try to make a mock simultaneous interpretation of something you watch on TV. As long at nobody can hear your thoughts it doesn't matter how bad the attempt is. And if you can find somebody to speak to then by all means try it out, but some of us are not comfortable with conversations before we know that we can pull off the trick without seeming too incompetent. Writing is safer because you can return to correct your errors, but you shouldn't try to write like Horats or Aristophanes from the beginning. Try something simpler first. But do try to be active (even in your dead languages): think, speak and write your languages. The time you already have spent on passsive activities will then turn out to have had a purpose. Edited by Iversen on 05 April 2011 at 1:42am 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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