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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 16 26 January 2015 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Several years back I read a book about learning foreign languages. At a high level, the two authors gave the five components above as the keys to foreign language learning.
What do you personally find most important? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 16 26 January 2015 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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One skill encompasses all the others: speaking.
If you focus on being able to speak, you will be able to write, understand and read at last as much. It's the bottom floor that pushes all other skills up. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5343 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 3 of 16 26 January 2015 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on your objectives and priorities. If you limit yourself to speaking, you won't be exposed to the more complex and richer vocabulary and syntax necessary for reading good books.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5234 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 4 of 16 26 January 2015 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reading helps you learn vocabulary which helps you speak, listening helps you learn vocabulary which helps you speak. And of course speaking helps you speak. But thinking in your target language can also help you speak.
Personally I find listening more difficult than speaking. I can speak French until I'm blue in the face, it is understanding the response spoken at light-speed which causes me problems. :) 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 5 of 16 26 January 2015 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you focus on being able to speak, you will be able to write, understand and read
at last as much. It's the bottom floor that pushes all other skills up. I can speak from personal experience that this is not true. I spent two years in the Peace Corps speaking Micronesian. It was full immersion - I only heard English a few times per year. I could speak and understand quite well after that, though I probably read at an elementary school level. I think any one skill can pull the others along to some extent. I've worked on languages where I speak better than I read (Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic), and ones where I read better than I speak (French, Italian). I can't even say that one way is better than the other. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 16 26 January 2015 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe I'm lacking in imagination, but I can't see how this is possible. Unless a language uses a complex writing system, one should be able to read at least all that they are able to say (I suspect "quite well" is more advanced than "elementary school level"). It's possible that reading is slower if the learner has little experience reading, but I don't think that's much of an issue. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4097 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 7 of 16 26 January 2015 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
I could definitely imagine someone being able to go about their day in a language, handling all situations that arise with ease and fluency, without being able to handle literature. For one thing, the vocabulary and grammar of literature often varies from spoken language, and not by a little. For another, it's entirely possible to get very good, great even, at speaking in limited situations with limited vocabulary and grammar... sounding like a far more advanced learner than one really is. I've worked with a lot of people who spoke seemingly excellent English, but then we socialised outside of their regular work environment or covered a new topic and suddenly they had no suitable vocabulary and their grammar suddenly was not as good any... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 8 of 16 26 January 2015 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Let me try. For Micronesian there are two problems: the language was first transcribed by linguists (who should never be allowed to create standardized spellings for any people), and was based on the dialect in the capital. This makes it difficult for speakers of other dialects. So a word that sounds like pung (right, correct) is properly spelled pwuungw, a word that sounds like turitiw is spelled ttuuruutiw, and the land itself was called rhuuk but spelled chuuk (as speakers in the capital don't pronounce the soft 'r' sound). People end up making up their own spelling for day to day needs, but official documents use the official spelling ... and any act of reading requires you to slowly untangle how each word relates to the actual spoken word. I actually have a similar problem with Portuguese. I can understand some basic conversation, mostly through osmosis (I used to play capoeira, and a lot of the instruction was in Portuguese) - but the spelling conventions are different from what I know & make no sense to me. Though in this case I could probably figure it out given a couple days of actual studying. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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