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Most annoying: beginning, middle or end? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6442 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 49 04 February 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged |
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This question is for the advanced learners out there:
Keeping in mind that you are "never fluent" and all the other things people on this forum like to say, for those of you who have attained relative fluency in another language, which time period of your studies was the most fun and which was the most annoying? Beginning - when everything you saw was new and exciting, but you also had to look up just about everything you encountered? Beginning plus - when you suddenly wonder "what am I getting myself into?" and are super overwhelmed? Middle - when it was all starting to come together and you're gaining confidence cuz you can read a little and have basic conversations but there's so much you want to say that you don't know how so you have to express yourself like a little kid End - when you're like "geez, I should know this by now" and having to look something up messes up your flow Having never learned another language to an advanced level, I am curious. Which period was the most annoying/irritating/frustrating to you, and why? 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4873 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 2 of 49 04 February 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged |
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Advanced rocks! Seriously. That's the time when you can thoroughly enjoy your (by now old) new language and still pick up some of the finer parts, so it stays exciting - until you eventually plateau at near-native proficiency and the whole thing loses its wonder and becomes a tad boring.
I think transition levels between one noticeable leap and the next are probably the hardest. But if I have to choose a time, I'll pick Beginning plus - lower Intermediate, because the newness has worn off, but you're still at a level where you're extremely restricted by your lack of knowledge. For me that's a time to study lots of words and struggle with native material and it takes a lot of dedication. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5349 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 3 of 49 04 February 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged |
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The beginning really sucks. You can't really do nothing in it. I rather be in the middle,
or at the end. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5570 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 49 04 February 2012 at 4:23pm | IP Logged |
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Personally, the middle sucks. One has realised that one's initial success was just an
illusion and that there is a long way to go on the journey. If that wasn't bad enough, one begins to realise how much has already been forgotten.... 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 49 04 February 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
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I hate intermediate. The language is no longer new to you, you can already use it in some
situations but you know how bad you actually are. And getting from intermediate to advanced takes much longer than from beginner to intermediate. And there is much less recources than for beginners. 15 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 49 04 February 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
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Intermediate. I hit that level twice, once for passive skills and once for active skills. At first the most frequent frustration I get is that I learnt a word or grammar structure before, but didn't understand it well enough to make sense of it in a new context, and later it's that I know I understand it, but couldn't use it freely on my own.
As a beginner, everything is new and I can accept I'll just have to learn it, and as an advanced student I can weigh up the times I actually have to learn something new or review something old against all the times I don't, and tell myself it's ridiculous to feel frustrated with my progress. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5540 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 7 of 49 04 February 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged |
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I would say intermediate is more annoying. The beginner step has plenty of annoyance as well (especially in a language with a foreign script and its own keyboard layout), but you don't *expect* to know a lot in that phase, so it's easier to brush off frustration with thoughts like: "It's still early in my studies; this should still seem foreign." After you've been at it a while, several things are far easier (including the aforementioned script and keyboard layout, plus new vocab seems to stick better), but it can be more frustrating since you always feel like you should understand more by this point than you do.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6788 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 49 04 February 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged |
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I really expected to hate the beginning. All the basic vocabulary and the grammar. So
much to learn and without it you have nothing. But it was actually fun, and I think all stages are fairly fun. What's most frustrating is getting stuck on something that turns out to be tougher than it seems. I was struggling to break through on Dutch oral comprehension for months. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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