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Educated vs Articulate | ||
Tags: Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5257 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 20 July 2012 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all,
I have read several posts wherein people say that they want to speak like an educated person in their target language, but I wonder if this is the correct approach. I've had many professors with PhDs that seem to babble almost incoherently. These professors are probably smarter than me, and they are certainly more educated, but they still don't seem like someone I would want to model my speech after. Obviously there are very educated people say that speak very well, but there are also uneducated people that sound great. So I guess my question is: when people say they want to speak like an educated adult, do they mean in terms of vocabulary, or are they more interested in being an intelligible and articulate conversationalist? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 7 20 July 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great point!
I always feel undereducated when people start listing the themes you're supposed to be able to talk about :) I sincerely believe that apart from the language itself, the only thing you have to learn is the culture. It's kinda sad that some exams require you to know things you really don't care about (for many that's politics or science, for example). If you're not preparing for such an exam, nobody has the right to force you to get "educated". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 7 20 July 2012 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | ||
– vocabulary – grammar – pronunciation – idioms – etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4551 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 4 of 7 21 July 2012 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt if my command of Spanish vocabulary, grammar, or idiom will ever rival that of
even many pretty uneducated native speakers, and I'm sure I'll always be less articulate than them. I do, however, try to model the speech patterns and vocabulary of fairly educated (not necessarily PhD's)Spanish speakers. Why? Mainly because it's easier. Practically all of the instructional and native materials are in that register. Accent is also a huge part of it. Educated speakers usually have accents that are more comprehensible, not only to non-native speakers, but also to native speakers of that language from other (pick-a- language)-phone regions. I know that in both English and Spanish (and I suspect that the situation is similar in other languages,) the speech-patterns of the less- educated tend to be full of idiosyncrasies, such as regionalisms and/or street-lingo, as well as heavier accents and less distinct enunciation. On various occasions, I've been told by people learning English that they find my way of speaking English much more comprehensible than that of most Americans. Since these people have all been immigrants they tend to live and work in working-class or even under-class settings. My guess is that they encounter a lot of Americans that slur words together, mumble, drop letters, and use a lot of slang; all things that their study of English (whether in classes or on their own) would give them little preparation for. Edited by Gala on 21 July 2012 at 5:48am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 7 21 July 2012 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||
This matches my experience. In a French language TV show I watch, I had a very high comprehension level of lawyers, teachers and judges (say 75-95%) and then the scene would switch to a garage mechanic or street person and I am instantly knocked back to about 25% !! Just today I met someone that I had previously exchanged emails with. Their emails contained at least one serious grammatical or spelling error per sentence, often more. They were the native speaker but I could have given them lessons in French grammar as I have studied it all recently. I should have taken this as a indication that they would be hard to understand in person as this indeed turned out to be the case. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4551 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 7 21 July 2012 at 5:32am | IP Logged | ||
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microsnout- I wasn't even thinking about spelling when I posted. That is indeed one area
in which my Spanish has long since overtaken uneducated native speakers. Now that you mention it, I think my written grammar is also better than that of a number of native speakers. Spoken...I doubt it. 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 7 of 7 21 July 2012 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
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People have made some very good points. Just to be clear: I was only referring to spoken language. Of course you would want to write like an educated speaker. I had not considered accent when thinking of an educated person's speech, but that makes sense as a consideration.
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