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Speaking vs Writing / Equal Difficulty? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5385 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 21 13 May 2011 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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Do most people feel a discrepency between their level of comfort in oral vs. written output?
I don't feel that writing in a language is any easier than speaking. To me, output is output and it's all the same. Apart from the fact that I could obviously produce a more complex text in writing -- fune-tuning it over and over if need be--, producing a sentence orally or in writing doesn't present a different level of comfort or difficulty to me. As such, that shouldn't be noteworthy, except that I get the impression this isn't the same for most people, and I wanted to ask how others feel about this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5457 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 21 13 May 2011 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
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I find writing easier. I have more time to think. In addition: When I'm writing, there is no one around saying things
to me that are hard to understand. Edited by tractor on 13 May 2011 at 10:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5090 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 21 13 May 2011 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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I find that there is a pretty major difference. Most people who read my written German are somewhat surprised by how hard I find spoken German. My writing is far superior.
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| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 4 of 21 13 May 2011 at 8:06pm | IP Logged |
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I think during the course of learning a language it varies. You may start out deficient in one or the other, then they're at par with each other, only to drift apart again. By the time you get to upper intermed. to advanced writing it differs a lot from the spoken language. Think about all the rhetorical devices we use in writing that we don't use when speaking.
I had to communicate first when I came to Germany. The only thing I ever had to write was a grocery list. Understandably, my speaking was better than my writing. It depends on where the emphasis lies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5822 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 5 of 21 13 May 2011 at 9:17pm | IP Logged |
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I have seen it many times with my students. Some can be good at speaking/writing but not
good at the other. I've had some very high-level speakers who just can't write. It's unusual but it can be quite common if they've 'neglected' to practice the skill. Personally I'm not sure. I think my Korean writing is better than my speaking (about the same speed, I'm so damn slow speaking) but with Spanish I'm not sure. When I speak, I can more easily avoid the grammar/vocab that gives me problems whereas when I write, I like to tackle them head on for deliberate practice. Also when speaking you can use very simple expressions, questions and short sentences and sound fine but expressions/questions are not as common in typical written work and if your sentences are too short/simple, you feel as if your writing is at a low-level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5072 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 6 of 21 13 May 2011 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
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For Korean, I'm a beginner and my writing is superior to my speaking. I'm sure this is heavily influenced by my lack of speaking to anyone besides myself [Very few native speakers in my area, and I'm not confident enough for skype, never mind the time difference]. When I write, I can notice grammar mistakes and fix them, look up grammar I forgot or words I don't know. If I realize I used the wrong particle, I can easily fix it. I can insert words and change around the word order so it makes more sense. For speaking, I'm still at the point where I'll start a sentence and then correct myself when I make a mistake, and then repeat the sentence to say it quicker, all the while imagining the words in my head. I hope to be able to overcome my lack of confidence in speaking. Since I don't really have access to native speakers, I do try to read out loud anything I write or read to practice pronunciation, but speaking freely is a problem for me.
On the other hand, for Mandarin I'm only focusing on listening, speaking, and reading right now. I'm working on being able to hear tones and pronounce them accurately. So, my speaking skill is better than my pretty much non-existent writing skill. But that's not saying much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Nguyen Senior Member Vietnam Joined 5097 days ago 109 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Vietnamese | Message 7 of 21 13 May 2011 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
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My wife speaks English very well but her reading and writing skills are a cause of great anguish for her. I am exactly the opposite my writing is far superior to my verbal.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5770 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 21 14 May 2011 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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It depends on how much time you spend practicing either skill. My spoken English isn't anything to be proud of; much inferior to my written English. In Spanish it's just the other way around; when I write it I end up not remembering things I use in conversation quite naturally. The biggest joke is that I favour my better active skill in either language. I used to believe my speaking ability was naturally worse which gave me a nice excuse to not expect too much.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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