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Jumping from Mediocrity to Excellence? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Heinrich S. Groupie Germany Joined 6944 days ago 63 posts - 85 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 9 29 June 2009 at 2:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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How do you get over that hump of intermediate-ness/mediocrity to advanced/fluent?
I've taken 4 years of high school French and am returning it, meaning I've got most of the basics down (simple grammar, vocab, etc) but could do with reviewing. Sorry if this sounds like another "how do you learn X" but I'm not looking for "oh, just go do FSI, etc" (unless you can argue otherwise) since I'm not a beginner nor advanced. And I've been stuck in that limbo for a while. Do you try to read whole texts, novels, in your target language? Or what? Just looking for some new and challenging ways to learn. Thanks a lot! Edited by Heinrich S. on 01 July 2009 at 6:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6726 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 2 of 9 29 June 2009 at 4:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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This sounds very similar to me, Heinrich!
My tactic at the moment is to expose myself to as much of the language as I can - audio books, reading, writing, talking. Talking is the biggest thing for me. I am trying very hard to put myself in situations where I HAVE to use my target language. I think it's helping! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6711 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 3 of 9 29 June 2009 at 11:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I saw this question I remembered a very good post by FrancescoP in this thread
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6280 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 4 of 9 29 June 2009 at 11:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would phrase it slightly differently. How do you overcome the plateau effect? Being functional in a language, perhaps at a high intermediate level, but not really getting beyond that, despite a great deal of effort?
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| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5677 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 29 June 2009 at 11:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for the link, which I found very enjoyable. To summarise, the main point I got from it (and which I agree with wholeheartedly) is that you have to pick up and learn to use current idioms (rather than stale ones). Even when you feel pretty comfortable - and people tell you how "great" your language skills are - it can be pretty disheartening to go to a party, and all the natives are using idiomatic cultural expressions that flood you to the point of drowning. Catching up and the keeping up with current cultural idioms is an ongoing hard slog (since the natives have a multi-decade head start on you). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5931 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 6 of 9 30 June 2009 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
I remember this point clearly with Spanish. It was listening that opened the door for me. I remember one day just suddenly understanding everything, like I'd finally tuned myself to the frequency of Spanish. This new wave of clarity made me relax so much that everything became much easier. I should point out that obviously living in a Spanish speaking country helps and also knowing that I learn best through listening. However, I think you could apply this to other skills like reading for example. This is my 'your strongest skill will take you to advanced levels' theory. It's not that I neglected other skills, though I will admit that they're a little weaker. I just went with listening as it seemed to be the path of least resistance. French was a little different. It wasn't until I went to French speaking countries that it began to fall into place. I found myself just wanting to forget what I had studied and speak. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| guesto Groupie Australia Joined 5749 days ago 76 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 7 of 9 01 July 2009 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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"Jump" from mediocrity to excellence? Sorry but I'd say going from mediocrity to excellence is a process that takes years and a lot of hard work, hardly a "jump".
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| Heinrich S. Groupie Germany Joined 6944 days ago 63 posts - 85 votes Studies: French | Message 8 of 9 01 July 2009 at 6:52am | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't mean "jump" in that literal sense. Pretend I used 'progress' instead. But what does "hard work" consist of, hence the question. I don't think doing standard conjugation drills etc will help much now even though it is "hard work". Thanks for the link Iverson.
I have a love/hate relationship with idioms. I hate sounding clichéd/stereotypical* when using them, albeit incorrectly most of the time, but love the way they make mechanical speech into something more fluid, which, alas, is the point of this whole thread. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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