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Most annoying: beginning, middle or end?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
49 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  Next >>
IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6196 days ago

663 posts - 941 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 1 of 49
04 February 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged 
This question is for the advanced learners out there:

Keeping in mind that you are "never fluent" and all the other things people on this forum like to say, for those of you who have attained relative fluency in another language, which time period of your studies was the most fun and which was the most annoying?

Beginning - when everything you saw was new and exciting, but you also had to look up just about everything you encountered?

Beginning plus - when you suddenly wonder "what am I getting myself into?" and are super overwhelmed?

Middle - when it was all starting to come together and you're gaining confidence cuz you can read a little and have basic conversations but there's so much you want to say that you don't know how so you have to express yourself like a little kid

End - when you're like "geez, I should know this by now" and having to look something up messes up your flow

Having never learned another language to an advanced level, I am curious. Which period was the most annoying/irritating/frustrating to you, and why?


6 persons have voted this message useful



druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4627 days ago

1181 posts - 1912 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean
Studies: Persian

 
 Message 2 of 49
04 February 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged 
Advanced rocks! Seriously. That's the time when you can thoroughly enjoy your (by now old) new language and still pick up some of the finer parts, so it stays exciting - until you eventually plateau at near-native proficiency and the whole thing loses its wonder and becomes a tad boring.

I think transition levels between one noticeable leap and the next are probably the hardest. But if I have to choose a time, I'll pick Beginning plus - lower Intermediate, because the newness has worn off, but you're still at a level where you're extremely restricted by your lack of knowledge. For me that's a time to study lots of words and struggle with native material and it takes a lot of dedication.
7 persons have voted this message useful



zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5103 days ago

561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 49
04 February 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged 
The beginning really sucks. You can't really do nothing in it. I rather be in the middle,
or at the end.
6 persons have voted this message useful



Elexi
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5324 days ago

938 posts - 1839 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 4 of 49
04 February 2012 at 4:23pm | IP Logged 
Personally, the middle sucks. One has realised that one's initial success was just an
illusion and that there is a long way to go on the journey. If that wasn't bad enough,
one begins to realise how much has already been forgotten....
7 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4768 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 5 of 49
04 February 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged 
I hate intermediate. The language is no longer new to you, you can already use it in some
situations but you know how bad you actually are. And getting from intermediate to
advanced takes much longer than from beginner to intermediate. And there is much less
recources than for beginners.
15 persons have voted this message useful



Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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Joined 5525 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 6 of 49
04 February 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged 
Intermediate. I hit that level twice, once for passive skills and once for active skills. At first the most frequent frustration I get is that I learnt a word or grammar structure before, but didn't understand it well enough to make sense of it in a new context, and later it's that I know I understand it, but couldn't use it freely on my own.
As a beginner, everything is new and I can accept I'll just have to learn it, and as an advanced student I can weigh up the times I actually have to learn something new or review something old against all the times I don't, and tell myself it's ridiculous to feel frustrated with my progress.
6 persons have voted this message useful



Warp3
Senior Member
United States
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Joined 5294 days ago

1419 posts - 1766 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 49
04 February 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged 
I would say intermediate is more annoying. The beginner step has plenty of annoyance as well (especially in a language with a foreign script and its own keyboard layout), but you don't *expect* to know a lot in that phase, so it's easier to brush off frustration with thoughts like: "It's still early in my studies; this should still seem foreign." After you've been at it a while, several things are far easier (including the aforementioned script and keyboard layout, plus new vocab seems to stick better), but it can be more frustrating since you always feel like you should understand more by this point than you do.
1 person has voted this message useful



numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6542 days ago

856 posts - 1226 votes 
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 49
04 February 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged 
I really expected to hate the beginning. All the basic vocabulary and the grammar. So
much to learn and without it you have nothing. But it was actually fun, and I think all
stages are fairly fun. What's most frustrating is getting stuck on something that turns
out to be tougher than it seems. I was struggling to break through on Dutch oral
comprehension for months.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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