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Quantity makes the difference | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5402 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 25 of 122 20 December 2010 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think that it is a combination of quantity and quality, quality being the effectiveness of practice you are doing. I refer to this article which is a decent summation of this thought line: The Making of an Expert
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| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5350 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 26 of 122 20 December 2010 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think if you restrict yourself to mediocre sources you'll never rise above a colloquial level. Reading good books -many of them- is truly indispensable in reaching full proficiency.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 27 of 122 20 December 2010 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Except that one quarter of all humans do not know how to read or write and still speak one -- or many -- languages fluently. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5350 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 28 of 122 20 December 2010 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Fluently, yes. Proficiency - that's another matter. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 29 of 122 20 December 2010 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
There are millions of people who are proficient, yet illiterate, at more that one language. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5350 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 30 of 122 20 December 2010 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'd like to meet the millions of Europeans, Arabs, Indians or Chinese who are illiterate in their languages yet could understand the literary classics of their tongues with fluency if read aloud to them, while Western high-school graduates struggle with Milton, Hugo or Goethe.
That speakers of languages devoid of a long-standing written literary tradition can reach fluency without reading a literature that does not exist in the first place is a really stupid rebuttal to the proposition that in order to truly master something like French, English, German or Russian one must avail oneself of the good books written in those languages. No amount of watching The Daily Show and making small talk in an United States city will enable you to read English literature with ease. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 31 of 122 20 December 2010 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Juan,
You're ignoring the fact that great literature existed before the written word. The religious sagas and epics were passed down orally for generations, and there are places in the world where this still continues. In fact, they say the Ancient Greeks were initially resistant to writing as they were afraid it would lead to deterioration of their skills in memorisation. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5350 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 32 of 122 21 December 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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But in order for those languages whose literatures have been given written form to be mastered, their literatures must be read because precisely there have they reached their greatest excellence.
The analogy to the languages you make reference to would be to learn them without listening to their epics and songs. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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