teza Stone Newbie Brazil Joined 4871 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes
| Message 1 of 17 27 November 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
What are your biggest frustrations, disappointments, insecurities and fears regarding language-learning?
On a lighter note: what are the greatest rewards associated with language-learning?
1 person has voted this message useful
|
languagewarrior Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4873 days ago 5 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English, Spanish
| Message 2 of 17 27 November 2010 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
One of my biggest frustrations is my inability to understand the average person who
speaks without clear pronunciation and almost mumbles when they speak.
This is not the
case with all speakers, but is very frequent in my experience.
Edit. On a positive note I can understand almost everything when the speaker is
clear (e.g. some people I meet,dubbed movies and tv shows)and when I stop and realize
that almost two years ago I could not understand anything beyond por favor and gracias
and that in reality I have made a great deal of progress........but alas, we always want
more.
Edited by languagewarrior on 27 November 2010 at 11:57pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5409 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean
| Message 3 of 17 27 November 2010 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
My biggest frustration: always new vocab to learn.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
stout Senior Member Ireland Joined 5131 days ago 108 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 4 of 17 28 November 2010 at 1:54am | IP Logged |
My biggest frustration is when I was in France...I always make an attempt to make an
effort to speak French with French people...However as soon as I open my mouth and they
hear my British Isles accented French they immediately switch to English especially if
the French person speaks English...Very frustrating indeed.
It seems a paradox...When non-English-speaking foreigners speaks French to French
people...They stick to French...In contrast when an English-speaking foreigner speaks
French to a French person...They automatically switch to English especially if the French
person speaks English.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4890 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 5 of 17 28 November 2010 at 2:35am | IP Logged |
stout wrote:
It seems a paradox...When non-English-speaking foreigners speaks French to French
people...They stick to French...In contrast when an English-speaking foreigner speaks
French to a French person...They automatically switch to English especially if the French person speaks English. |
|
|
So there's your answer. Hang out with French speaking foreigners. Or better yet, make friends with the French. Don't just be a consumer.
The times I've been in France with an Italian friend who speaks French quite well, the French have never once tried to speak English to me. And I don't speak French :-) Even when I'm sputtering out something - obviously not well - they're patient with me. If I were by myself, I doubt it would have happened that way.
R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5076 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish
| Message 6 of 17 04 December 2010 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
The biggest frustration for me I think is prepositions, followed closely by idiomatic
ways of saying something and different shades of meaning of words. Also, learning
antiquated words (like Vetter in German), using them and getting looked at weird.
When Im in mid-sentence and want to use a preposition, its such a killjoy to guess or
not
know what preposition to use.
The greatest rewards would have to be slowly, but confidently navigating my way through
a
new spoken sentence that Id previously never uttered. Also, every time I can actually
understand a native and can immediately at least answer them back in such a way that
they
know that I know what they just said even if my response itself isnt perfect.
Edited by Ubik on 04 December 2010 at 1:13am
1 person has voted this message useful
|
translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6679 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 7 of 17 04 December 2010 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
Frustration: Not enough time in the day to study everything I want and the tediousness of extracting vocabulary to learn.
Reward: Getting a natural high out of something I am passionate about.
Edited by translator2 on 04 December 2010 at 1:30am
1 person has voted this message useful
|
leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6310 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog
| Message 8 of 17 04 December 2010 at 1:31am | IP Logged |
Biggest frustration - I'm not a closer. I haven't gotten any language to advanced fluency except Spanish, which I
practically grew up with. And I haven't gotten Japanese to the point where I can read it comfortably, despite several
thousand hours of study. Second place is the amount of effort required to learn a language to the point that it's
useful to me.
Biggest pleasure - the foreign women I've been able to hook up with due to my language skills. Second place is the
feeling of accomplishment I have for actually being able to speak all my languages well quite quickly. I've really
figured out what works for me, thanks in great part to the folks in this forum.
1 person has voted this message useful
|