Nuances in languages lacking natives (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Nuances in languages lacking natives
Tags: Cornish \| Esperanto \| Latin \| Fluency
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

9 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
Joined 6439 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 9 of 9

13 March 2010 at 1:22am | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

It may be seen as an advantage not to have a bunch of natives hovering over you like vultures, waiting to see you stumble and fall. And learning languages without natives could be a way to achieve that. Finding the right level for corrections must be a problem for those who study with a teacher, mentor or in a group. Getting corrections all the time is as problematic as never being corrected.

But there is a more fundamental problem, namely how to get your target language activated if you never hear it spoken by native or nearnative speakers. Personally I learn languages best by getting a solid vocabulary and then using this to work my way through genuine texts/audio clips or TV programs. Having listened to something that interests me in a language that interests me is enough to set my head spinning in that language.

But I don't feel that hearing the pathetic outpourings of other beginners has any positive effect on me, - not because of the risk of picking up errors, but because I instinctively try to avoid listening to something that doesn't sound like I know it should sound. I get the creeps when I hear an actor putting on a show or getting sentimental or dramatic - but listening to somebody who has problems formulating even the simplest sentence is even worse. It is not like the Purgatory of Dante, but like the bottom of Hell.

I agree with you. Having to learn a language which no one was comfortable speaking would be rather painful.

Fortunately, this isn't the case for Cornish or Esperanto; there are some people who speak both quite well. Esperanto has quite a lot of fluent speakers, perhaps a couple of thousand native speakers, and a non-trivial number of really excellent speakers (I can't start to guess exactly how many, though the academy of Esperanto has 45 people and I know people outside of it who are certainly at this level).

Esperanto has quite a lot of audio material by fluent speakers, and massive amounts of literature, a fair amount of which is by normative speakers. (This dichotomy is my own, by the way, not something embedded in Esperanto culture.) Authors such as William Auld, Kálmán Kalocsay, and Anna Löwenstein write with a style and grace I'd consider notable in any language, although I find I don't particularly enjoy Auld. Authors such as Tibor Sekelj command the language more than adequately, and write texts which are interesting even in translation from Esperanto.

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