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Educated vs Articulate

  Tags: Speaking
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
MixedUpCody
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5015 days ago

144 posts - 280 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 7
20 July 2012 at 10:08pm | IP Logged 
Hey all,

I have read several posts wherein people say that they want to speak like an educated person in their target language, but I wonder if this is the correct approach. I've had many professors with PhDs that seem to babble almost incoherently. These professors are probably smarter than me, and they are certainly more educated, but they still don't seem like someone I would want to model my speech after. Obviously there are very educated people say that speak very well, but there are also uneducated people that sound great. So I guess my question is: when people say they want to speak like an educated adult, do they mean in terms of vocabulary, or are they more interested in being an intelligible and articulate conversationalist?
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 2 of 7
20 July 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged 
Great point!
I always feel undereducated when people start listing the themes you're supposed to be able to talk about :) I sincerely believe that apart from the language itself, the only thing you have to learn is the culture. It's kinda sad that some exams require you to know things you really don't care about (for many that's politics or science, for example). If you're not preparing for such an exam, nobody has the right to force you to get "educated".
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tractor
Tetraglot
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Norway
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Studies: French, German, Latin

 
 Message 3 of 7
20 July 2012 at 11:25pm | IP Logged 
MixedUpCody wrote:
So I guess my question is: when people say they want to speak like an educated adult, do
they mean in terms of vocabulary, or are they more interested in being an intelligible and articulate
conversationalist?

– vocabulary
– grammar
– pronunciation
– idioms
– etc.
1 person has voted this message useful



Gala
Diglot
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 4 of 7
21 July 2012 at 2:39am | IP Logged 
I doubt if my command of Spanish vocabulary, grammar, or idiom will ever rival that of
even many pretty uneducated native speakers, and I'm sure I'll always be less
articulate than them.

I do, however, try to model the speech patterns and vocabulary of fairly educated (not
necessarily PhD's)Spanish speakers. Why? Mainly because it's easier. Practically all of
the instructional and native materials are in that register. Accent is also a huge part
of it. Educated speakers usually have accents that are more comprehensible, not only to
non-native speakers, but also to native speakers of that language from other (pick-a-
language)-phone regions. I know that in both English and Spanish (and I suspect
that the situation is similar in other languages,) the speech-patterns of the less-
educated tend to be full of idiosyncrasies, such as regionalisms and/or street-lingo,
as well as heavier accents and less distinct enunciation.

On various occasions, I've been told by people learning English that they find my way
of speaking English much more comprehensible than that of most Americans. Since these
people have all been immigrants they tend to live and work in working-class or even
under-class settings. My guess is that they encounter a lot of Americans that slur
words together, mumble, drop letters, and use a lot of slang; all things that their
study of English (whether in classes or on their own) would give them little
preparation for.

Edited by Gala on 21 July 2012 at 5:48am

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microsnout
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
Canada
microsnout.wordpress
Joined 5230 days ago

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Speaks: English*
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 Message 5 of 7
21 July 2012 at 4:50am | IP Logged 
Gala wrote:
the speech-patterns of the less-educated tend
to be full of idiosyncrasies, such as regionalisms and/or street-lingo, as well as
heavier accents and less distinct enunciation.


This matches my experience. In a French language TV show I watch, I had a very high comprehension level of
lawyers, teachers and judges (say 75-95%) and then the scene would switch to a garage mechanic or street person
and I am instantly knocked back to about 25% !!

Just today I met someone that I had previously exchanged emails with. Their emails contained at least one serious
grammatical or spelling error per sentence, often more. They were the native speaker but I could have given them
lessons in French grammar as I have studied it all recently. I should have taken this as a indication that they would
be hard to understand in person as this indeed turned out to be the case.   
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Gala
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 6 of 7
21 July 2012 at 5:32am | IP Logged 
microsnout- I wasn't even thinking about spelling when I posted. That is indeed one area
in which my Spanish has long since overtaken uneducated native speakers. Now that you
mention it, I think my written grammar is also better than that of a number of native
speakers. Spoken...I doubt it.
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MixedUpCody
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5015 days ago

144 posts - 280 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 7
21 July 2012 at 7:01am | IP Logged 
People have made some very good points. Just to be clear: I was only referring to spoken language. Of course you would want to write like an educated speaker. I had not considered accent when thinking of an educated person's speech, but that makes sense as a consideration.


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