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Is speaking fluency always your goal ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6160 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 38 27 June 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is speaking fluency always your goal ? I originally thought it would be for all my languages, but now I'm thinking of introducing languages where it won't. E.g. Latin. I'm also toying with reducing some language skills to very good listening comprehension without developing speaking or writing skills. E.g. Hungarian
What are your thoughts ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5228 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 2 of 38 27 June 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not always but often.
I have no interest in speaking Latin because AFAIK it is nobody's native language. A knowledge of Latin has helped me with English, French, Italian, Spanish. I am happy at the moment to speak and understand (to a certain level) Russian, Polish and Vietnamese but don't actively study reading and writing these. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5280 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 3 of 38 27 June 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, fluency is not main goal in all languages. This is how I prevent myself being overwhelmed with languages and at the same time being able to start new languages without being guilty that I abandon another. For, example, I will probably learn Danish only to the level that I can read and understand written text (news, for example).
Current goal for Arabic is also similar - first, to read longer texts and also faster, second, to understand what I've read. When these goals will be reached, I will probably consider taking these languages to other level. The only languages that I really want to be fluent in is German and French. Conversational level in Swedish and Finnish would be sufficient. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4716 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 38 27 June 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not necessarily (not for Latin, f.e.) but other than that I try to.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4697 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 38 27 June 2012 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Of course not. For example, I use various languages in my work at times (e.g., German, French, Dutch), which involves interpreting documents. I need to be able to read them, but there's no professional need at all to speak, as there's usually no one with whom I would speak, just a document. I like to read in my spare time, and I happen to enjoy being able to read in other languages, so that's what I do. Speaking all those languages well might be nice, but as a busy professional in the US, my opportunities for regular speaking aren't great anyways, and certainly there's no pressing need. There's just no way that regularly speaking German, French, Dutch and Yiddish is going to be my primary usage of these languages, even if it's a meaningful part of some. But I read in basically all of these languages every day. If you want to speak, speak, and if you NEED to speak, then SPEAK! But you're not betraying anyone if you don't happen to think of speaking as the end-all and be-all of your study of all languages. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4877 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 6 of 38 28 June 2012 at 12:09am | IP Logged | ||
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At the moment yes, definitely.
I studied two dead languages at high school and always found it to be a bit of a waste... In theory it's certainly nice to be able to read Socrates and Cicero in the original, but this always involved a painstakingly slow process of translation and I never felt really comfortable with these languages. When the goal is to be able to speak and write a language I have to work harder at them and eventually it pays off and it feels more like I'm making them my own. With a living language I would find it frustrating to only know it passively. I understand quite a bit of written Spanish, Portuguese,and can figure out some Dutch and French, but my criteria for 'knowing' a language is that I can write and speak it. Anything else can be useful, but feels very limiting and I'd never study with such a goal in mind. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5343 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 38 28 June 2012 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
Yes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5271 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 38 28 June 2012 at 2:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Yep. I want to do everything in my other languages that I can do in English and that most definitely includes speaking. There is most definitely nothing wrong with not having speaking as a goal. For me, I can't imagine not wanting to speak a language as well as I can. I would feel incomplete.
If speaking is a goal, then you have to be prepared to sound foolish and be corrected. In order to speak, you must speak- as often as you can. You must crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run and keep running in order to maintain your condition. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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