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Realistic languages | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ^veganboy^ Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5921 days ago 51 posts - 51 votes  | Message 1 of 6 01 July 2009 at 5:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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After spending sometime learning an asian language, I've come to the realisation that I will never become fluent in it. Not that I don't dedicate enought time to it, I just don't see it realistically possible to learn it fully as I naïvely thought. Living in the country and immerse yourself fully in that language is a must to reach complete fluency, and due to family commitments among other things, not even travelling there is possible at the moment. It's Pretty demotivating, I know, but am I being reallistic, or am I just putting an end to an already lost battle that should not have started in the first place?
I would like to ask you guys if you've ever realistically learned a foreign language to fluency level without stepping in the country where that chosen language is spoken. If so, what language was it and how long did you take? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LtM Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5862 days ago 130 posts - 223 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 2 of 6 01 July 2009 at 6:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here's a current thread that relates to your question:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=15728 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6449 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 6 01 July 2009 at 6:45am | IP Logged | |||||
BTW, you wrote this in February 09: "I will explain my situation: One year ago, I was in a dilema: What language should I study, Mandarin or Japanese. Well, in the end, I decided to go for both, now I feel I should really leave one of them aside and dedicate my time to them full-time." In April 09: "After a lot of consideration... I've realised I'm more interested in Japanese than Chinese Culture. So my final decision is... JAPANESE! Even though I know only one native speaker, I'm sure there will be hundreds of people able to help me on this forum :)" You spent whole two months (and a half) focusing on Japanese. And the goal was "complete fluency". You gave up. Your conclusion: It's impossible to learn Japanese unless one is fully immersed somewhere in Japan.
Lol, try answering this one in a positive way. Where's that chickenlover? You're asking: Am I being realistic or am I just being realistic by no longer being unrealistic? Your statements are demotivating for others only if they accept them as facts and act like you did. Your statements are nothing but an opinion that is based on faulty observation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 6 01 July 2009 at 6:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course it's possible. I've met people with English which sounds native-level (usually aside from accent) who've never spent time in English speaking countries, or such trivial amounts of time it was probably not of much help (a few days to a couple of weeks).
Yes - Esperanto, ~3 weeks (... give or take). It's perfectly possible to immerse yourself in a language without stepping foot outside of your bedroom - I did with Esperanto, and many languages are even easier to get materials for. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6127 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 5 of 6 01 July 2009 at 8:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, well, for me Japanese is a long term project. I'm about 1.5 years in, and I'm hoping to hit intermediate level and make a decent attempt at the JLPT2 by Dec' 2010. Will I ever be 'fluent'? Honestly? I don't know. Does it matter? For now, I just want to hit the next goal.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dbh2ppa Diglot Groupie Costa Rica Joined 5690 days ago 44 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Japanese, Sign Language | Message 6 of 6 02 July 2009 at 6:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I know I sound nothing like a native English speaker, but I am, as I understand the word, fluent in English. I understand nearly all native-english media I come accross, I can read anything from current academic papers to old literature (I've been able to read Shakespeare without using dictionaries except for maybe 10 or 20 words). And I've been told by native speakers that I have no discernible accent (just a faint trace of cockney, and that was intentional, I like the accent so much I actively worked to learn it.)
All that, and I've never in my life been outside my home country (Costa Rica). I've never actively studied English, as well, just massive exposure to native English media, and a couple of decent dictionaries. On the other hand, if you don't really want to learn the language, you WILL find a way to discourage yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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