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Which skill/s do you practice more? | ||
Tags: Study Plan | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| LinguaMan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5076 days ago 20 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 17 30 March 2011 at 3:53am | IP Logged |
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I'm curious to know which skills do the majority of you put more time into; speaking and listening or reading and writing or all four? Some of you may put more effort into speaking and listening while others may enjoy just reading and writing in their languages. I bring this topic up because I feel speaking and understanding are the more important skills. However, I feel reading is excellent for being to exposed to new vocabulary and grammatical structures. Writing helps to use new words and reinforce old ones. Does anyone just focus on speaking and listening in their languages without ever reading or writing in them? Just curious. Here's a something I found online in regards to this, "Dr. Pimsleur was convinced and indeed proved with his work that learning to comprehend and speak a language was much more important than learning to read or write in it". http://socyberty.com/languages/how-to-learn-and-speak-a-new- language-in-three-months/
Edited by LinguaMan on 30 March 2011 at 4:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JasonE Groupie Canada Joined 5071 days ago 54 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 17 30 March 2011 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
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I'd be interested in knowing this as well. Especially those who respond would be obliging enough to give rough
estimates of relative percentages of time. I'll start. French Reading - 50% Listening/Watching - 35% Writing - 10% (just starting to get into writing now) Speaking - less than 5% (if trying to talk and make in my head counts, less if not) Accurate estimates will be hard to give as one section often overlaps with another (e.g. I try to find audio for books that i read which could go towards reading and listening, and I do a lot of transcription of native french materials which could go towards reading and writing.) But I think my estimate is roughly accurate. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tbone Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4992 days ago 92 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 3 of 17 30 March 2011 at 4:37am | IP Logged |
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Personally, I'm switching to speaking and listening. I had always relied on reading and knowing how to translate.
The approach suits my personality and strengths, but it really held me back when I lived and worked in Germany. And very little daily life in California (where I am) and Mexico goes on in reading and writing. Have collected a bunch of Spanish courses and am starting over, trying out the audio approaches. Going quickly thru Paul Noble and Michel Thomas at the moment. May also add Pimsleur to this beginning stage, because that darned 'r' is impossible for me to say. I'd like to try L-R after that. To sum up: I'm going verbal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5187 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 4 of 17 30 March 2011 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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I think I'm much like JasonE. I'm very happy all alone, so I tend to focus on passive skills much more than I should. I'm trying to write more now, though. Speaking is rather harder because I don't have anyone to practice with, and am too lazy to find one, though I've tried quite a bit. Plus, I'd have to do it over the phone or a computer mic, a communication method that I have a slight phobia of.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Segata Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 5172 days ago 64 posts - 125 votes Speaks: German*, Japanese, English Studies: Korean, Esperanto | Message 5 of 17 30 March 2011 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
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Korean
Does talking to your friends or that nice old lady at the grocery store qualify as speaking practice? If so: ~60% listening ~38% Reading ~2% Speaking and writing Long story short: I hardly practice speaking and writing because I learn languages in order to watch movies, read books etc. If I were to suddenly wake up in Korea tomorrow morning, I'd be able to make myself understood (..I guess), but speaking has never been a priority for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5398 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 6 of 17 30 March 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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I would say that my time is split mostly between speaking and listening, followed by reading and writing is at the
bottom. It is my thought that if I can read at a high level I will be able to write fine, thusly I don't put much practice into the writing aspect of my languages at this point. ~70% speaking/listening ~30% reading 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 17 30 March 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
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Reading mostly just because it's the easiest to practise - I can do it during lunch/idle time at work, and pretty much anywhere and I don't need any resources to do it apart from a book or article and perhaps a dictionary. I'd rather practise speaking more but the resources aren't there, so I figure reading is a lot better than nothing.
Listening/watching would come second, again because of the lack of necessary resources: all I need is something that plays audio and at least a few minutes of time to focus. Speaking's third: I try to do as much as I can but because of the resources/situation needed (either being with people to speak to or somewhere alone) it's not possible to practise it anywhere near as much as I'd like to. Writing is fourth: it's just not a big priority, but I enjoy doing it from time to time. My skills definitely reflect this: I read French almost fluently now, can understand the spoken language well, but am not so good at speaking it. It seems to be true that you only get good at what you practise; I'm starting to think more and more that I'll only ever be able to speak fluently any time if I get in a situation where I'm speaking for a reasonable amount of time every day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 7037 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 8 of 17 30 March 2011 at 12:48pm | IP Logged |
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I am pracicing the passive skill more then the active ones. So the biggest part of that is probably reading. Mainly because I read a lot anyway, and as the bookworm that I am, I also want to enjoy books in my different languages. Listening makes a large part as well: audiobooks, radio, movies, TV etc.
I know that I should try to also practice my active skills some more. I guess I still have to figure out a way to fit them into my life. Though there are times when I get more possibilities to speak and write then at other times. Of course it also depends on one's personality. I am not really a shy person, but not very outgoing eighter. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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