|
 |
Hurdles to speaking languages fluently | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| BiaHuda Triglot Groupie Vietnam Joined 5355 days ago 97 posts - 127 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese Studies: Cantonese | Message 9 of 42 03 October 2010 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I hope that I didn't imply that it is not possible to achieve fluency without constant immersion. Many people out there that would contradict this statement by example. Alot of resource available are online etc now that make it possible to maximize exposure without even leaving your home. In my case though total immersion was extremely helpful. Especially with regards to the unforgiving nature of tonal languages and the requirement for accurate pronunciation. I don't think I would have been capable of learning to "speak" Vietnamese by using the typical resources. Reading, writing and listening perhaps, but not speaking. Spanish is an entirely different matter. There are the pitfalls that Old Chemist talked about, being fed the choice swear words etc. however; you can normally figure out when someone is pulling your leg. For the record, I never set out to learn Vietnamese or Spanish. I have an intrest in languages and enjoy learning them. However; my whole point in learning languages is to effectively communicate.
I would think your target language would make a difference also. Many languages just have more resources, internet, television, news etc. My cable provider here in Vietnam for example has programing in English, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian and French. There are also many resources for these languages. In the event you wanted to learn Burmese or Laotian, it would be pretty hard to get to an advanced level without some considerable interaction with native speakers. Not impossible, but it would take awhile. At the end of the day though, I would think that motivation would be the ultimate factor in determining ones success. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hardheim Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5191 days ago 34 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 10 of 42 03 October 2010 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Then you are what I would classify as naturally gifted to picking up languages. I believe you can pick up a C2 level of your target language in the passive skills and perhaps writing. But the spoken part is so much more difficult than reading, writing and listening that the 'average' person is going to require extended immersion to learn and maintain the spoken part at a 'solid' fluent level. I don't know about other languages, but in my experience with German, people at college go to a very fluent level of listening, reading and writing, but yet were mush mouth when it came to speaking. Their passive vocabulary and grammar was enormous, but they couldn't actively pulll these words out when speaking. This is a general observation. A very select few could manage this, but most couldn't. I'm really not trying to kill anyone's spirits; just trying to pass on my oberservations. And that is that for the average person, solid fluent spoken french or whatever requires relatively lengthy daily interaction with natives in a wide variety of circumstances. But really, this is a good thing. It shows that you need to get out in the Spanish, french etc.. community and start actively interacting with natives, not just work Pimsleur, Assimil and read a lot of your target language and then call yourself fluent. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5577 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 11 of 42 04 October 2010 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Yes English was easy for me to become fluent in, seeing as I can see it on TV every day.
Had I lived in the U.S I would probably watch Mexican channels. The only other language one could become fluent in in my part of Norway would be Saami, because we have a Saami radio channel and locals. Maybe Russian would be possible in Norway too, though with visits and time spent in Russia. I will try this, but I guess fluency is only achieved after a decade. Have also tried to maintain my Spanish, but it's not a typical language in Norway, just studied at school and spoken by a few tourist in summer. I wonder which of these it would be cool to be fluent in? I also want to start Arabic. Too many languages and countries out there! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5440 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 12 of 42 04 October 2010 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have to disagree, too. My English was fluent before I moved to NZ. It had to be, I wouldn't be able to enrol in a PhD otherwise. Besides the required TOEFL result, I also had to show that I could communicate with people in a lab without problems (when I was here for an interview).
I was calculating the other day and realised that I have put around 800h in Spanish so far. However, my hours have been concentrated in 10 months, which makes my learning very intensive. I feel confident enough with my speaking that I'm going for a monolingual journey to Buenos Aires early November. We'll see how that goes :)
This also doesn't have to be the case. You can find native online tutors for as low as 10$ per hour. You can do all sorts of activities in your skype classes, like role playing, imagining yourself in different situations (which is what I've been doing for a while). So, it is by no means limited to a 'phone call topics'. I am more and more starting to think that, in the age of internet, the speed of reaching fluency depends on how you approach your studies. I do not have any definite proof, but I agree with people who say that in order to get to fluency faster you need to start speaking earlier. I was signing up for Spanish conversations when my Spanish was still quite painful to listen (but paid tutor is paid to talk to you, no matter how 'painful' it is :) ). I would say 'a lot of input + make yourself talk to the natives' could be the way to fluency. As for hurdles, I had one big obstacle few months ago. Although my conversations were fine, when I was expected to produce a monologue about a random topic (the ones that don't interest me at all), I would start 'forgetting' even the simplest words. It was very frustrating. At the end, it seems that 'stop trying to hard' was the key for overcoming this. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5440 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 13 of 42 04 October 2010 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree. Judged by the small sample at this topic it seems that it is the native English speakers who think that you need to live in a country to be fluent, while people who just had to learn another language in order to communicate with the world/continue their studies/do their business - they just bite the bullet and learn it :). 2 persons have 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 14 of 42 04 October 2010 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
As I have read this thread the real hurdle is the lack of cultural background that foreigners may have, and which normally only comes with exposure during a stay in a relevant country. But there are several fuzzy edges. If you take a New Yorker and put him/her in a village on New Zealand, then it's supposedly the same language and people on New Zealand would probably recognize that a native speaker, though 'not one of use'. More or less the whole cultural background would be different, but people in NZ have seen enough films about NY to know something about that place. Now take a New Zealander and put him/her somewhere in Brooklyn or Bronx. What happens?
Technical language has been mentioned as a hurdle, and somebody wrote (probably in another thread) that you actually can be better at speaking about certain topics in another language than in your own - I guess that language learning and African birds qualify in my case (with English as my L2). But technical language can be learned from books and films and materials on the internet, whereas those parts of popular culture that rarely get written down may be difficult to pick up afterwards. One final observation. Most local people in a society know little about science and history. Must a foreigner be more learned than the average native speaker to qualify as fluent? I'm somewhat sceptical about claims that you must be able to discuss without hesitation and with a rich vocabulary about each and every theme in your target languages to qualify. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BiaHuda Triglot Groupie Vietnam Joined 5355 days ago 97 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Vietnamese Studies: Cantonese | Message 15 of 42 04 October 2010 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I agree with Iverson. Without getting into the whole proficiency/fluency debate, again, there is no reason to expect a non-native speaker to be held to some higher standard in order to be recognized as having native or near native fluency.
As far as the cultural aspect I would also agree. I am a Geordie (the nickname for people from Newcastle upon Tyne in the northeast of England). We are noted for having a very heavy dialect that most people find difficult to understand. I actually lived in the US for a number of years. I had to tone down the accent to be understood, but there is no chance of me ever being mistaken as an American. I could maybe imitate a few sentences convincingly but in short order it would be game over matey. I was also quite clueless about American sports and different foods etc. I was still a native speaker but I spoke alot differently, I used my knife and fork differently and was occasionally mistaken for being a non-native speaker. The adjustment period took nearly a year and that is with me having a full command of the English language. To be able to just step off the boat into a country that uses a completely different foreign language and just start chatting away with the locals would be a very difficult prospect indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5440 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 16 of 42 04 October 2010 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
But being fluent in a language doesn't mean being able to participate in a native conversation heavily loaded with local cultural references, right? Being fluent means having a command of a language good enough that you can ask and understand the explanation when you run into an unknown reference, with fluidity, without thinking about words and grammar you are going to use. Yes, you can just jump of the boat and start chatting with the locals. Maybe not about jokes involving cartoons they watched in their childhood, but about cartoons in general - why not? 4 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
