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Losing fluency

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
15 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 7018 days ago

563 posts - 757 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 15
05 February 2011 at 5:37am | IP Logged 

There was a thread made a long time ago about becoming fluent since joining this forum.

What I am wondering is the opposite. How many members have been losing fluency since joining due to lack of practice?

I have taken out the fluency of Esperanto in my profile, as I do not maintain the language anymore. I really have no idea if I can keep up a fluent conversation anymore. In other words I was trilingual for a short time, and now back to bilingual.

Who lists fluency, but did not keep up with it.
1 person has voted this message useful



RealJames
Diglot
Newbie
Japan
realizeenglish.com/
Joined 4921 days ago

37 posts - 42 votes
Speaks: French, English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 15
05 February 2011 at 6:32am | IP Logged 
To be honest I'm not sure how much longer I can keep fluency in French.
Since I moved to Japan I have practically no chance of speaking it, and I often find myself word-searching for incredibly simple words whenever I do speak it.
French people I speak to don't know I can speak English, they think French is my mother tongue, but they think I'm an idiot for not being able to remember simple words lol
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5939 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 3 of 15
05 February 2011 at 9:19am | IP Logged 
alang wrote:
What I am wondering is the opposite. How many members have been losing fluency since joining due to lack of practice?

Do you mean because of the horribly addicting nature of this site and its tendency to draw one in and make you lose track of time, leaving you with no time to study or practice your languages? Or is it just a general question asking if we've had to demote certain languages to lower levels since creating our profiles?

Either way, I used to claim basic fluency in Esperanto but would not anymore. I couldn't keep up my motivation for long enough and ended up letting it fall into disrepair. I have it listed as intermediate in my profile now because I can still read and understand it fairly well and still remember a lot of the grammar and vocabulary. But actually producing the language fluently, that would be challenging at this point.

Edited by ellasevia on 05 February 2011 at 9:24am

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staf250
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Belgium
emmerick.be
Joined 5494 days ago

352 posts - 414 votes 
Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German
Studies: Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 4 of 15
05 February 2011 at 10:59am | IP Logged 
I also did loose fluency and practice on Italian. I began to speak out loud Italian sentences yesterday; I have
to !!!
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alang
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 7018 days ago

563 posts - 757 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 15
05 February 2011 at 3:15pm | IP Logged 
ellasevia wrote:
alang wrote:
What I am wondering is the opposite. How many members have been losing fluency since joining due to lack of practice?

Do you mean because of the horribly addicting nature of this site and its tendency to draw one in and make you lose track of time, leaving you with no time to study or practice your languages? Or is it just a general question asking if we've had to demote certain languages to lower levels since creating our profiles?


I am thinking both, as it would cover many reasons why fluency has dropped. I find maintenance more difficult, than becoming fluent, because of other offerings in life. In my case resting on my laurels was the main reason.
1 person has voted this message useful



Darklight1216
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4897 days ago

411 posts - 639 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 6 of 15
06 February 2011 at 6:40pm | IP Logged 
RealJames wrote:
To be honest I'm not sure how much longer I can keep fluency in French.
Since I moved to Japan I have practically no chance of speaking it, and I often find myself word-searching for incredibly simple words whenever I do speak it.
French people I speak to don't know I can speak English, they think French is my mother tongue, but they think I'm an idiot for not being able to remember simple words lol

The internet is your friend. Find someone who speaks or wants to speak French (like moi) and talk to them.
1 person has voted this message useful



polyglHot
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 4863 days ago

173 posts - 229 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 7 of 15
06 February 2011 at 7:06pm | IP Logged 
I don't practice most of my languages, just Russian and occationaly Indonesian. And
English of course. (And Norwegian obviously)
I haven't spoken Spanish in a few years, and not a word of German in a decade, but put me
on that plane to either countries and I will speak it after a day. So called basic
fluency of course, I haven't mastered either. You can't loose it, it's in the back of
your brain.
3 persons have voted this message useful



BTom
Diglot
Newbie
United States
findalanguageteacher
Joined 4972 days ago

10 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: Hungarian*, English
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili

 
 Message 8 of 15
09 February 2011 at 5:21am | IP Logged 
Depending on how much you have used the language before, I think it is relatively easy to get back to the level you were previously. I had a classmate who learned German when he was a kid but he claimed he forgot the language. In a matter of months he was able to remember everything.


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