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Personality and language focus | ||
Tags: Personality | Learner type | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5116 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 28 22 October 2013 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have this theory, that people tend to focus more on the aspects of a language which suit their talents and personality.
Since I regard foreign languages as a tool of communication, it is important for me to be able to speak it, and preferably with a good accent, to make it pleasent for people to listen to me. Vocabulary is also very important to me, since I always have a ton of things I want to say, and if I lack the words, it becomes cumbersome both for me and the person that I am talking to. Listening skills are also always very high on my list of priorities - without it there is no real communication - just a monologue, and my experience is that people are even happier about you understanding them, than they understanding everything you say. It gets irritating for a native, if the main word they hear from you is "What?" Reading is also nice, writing I generally try to avoid, and grammar is on my list only because I want people to understand what I say. Knowing the mechanics or the theory of a language is so low on my list of priorities, that it hardly even registers. I could however perfectly well see, that someone that is primarily interested in the structure of a language, and in knowing the grammar, and is not particularly interested in talking to people, or not particularly good at it, could not care less about the perfect pronunciation, or in catching a joke from a native speaker, in order to laugh at the right time. So which aspect of language learning is most important to you, and do you think your personality and talent had an influence on that focus? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 22 October 2013 at 12:19pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4489 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 28 22 October 2013 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know whether I have talent, but my personality dictates that the whole thing
should be easier than a walk in the park on a sunny (and not too hot!) day :D In all seriousness, my personality corresponds to some kind of weird introvert who is capable of talking anyway. I think the skill I value most is probably oral production/comprehension because it's the one I, eventually do it all for. I need to be able to read and write and well because I do communicate through the written language. This is why it all kinda combines for me. I might focus more on particular areas if they diverge more from what I know, but other than that... it all ends up working itself out. I tend to not do much formal writing though. So that's a skill I always learn last. But in general, all of them... Theory of a language is important to me because it allows me to shortcut what you would otherwise have to learn through exposure. It's much easier to learn quickly what a particle is and does than to see it 20000 times and not understand what the hell is going on. Then I'll just look it up. However, it's always a tool, never an end in itself, because essentially I learn a language to communicate with someone for whatever reason. (Because they're cute, because I want them to hire me, because they are my friends, because I am travelling and want to buy ice cream, because I need to pay a travel ticket, etc. etc. etc.). Language is for using with human beings. I use any form I need to get that across. Usually it's talking, it can be writing, and theory helps me, but it's not a goal in itself. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4016 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 3 of 28 22 October 2013 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Reading. Though I haven't much experience in actual language learning. reading is the most important part for me.
The rest just connects to it. Vocabulary? I can't learn words for just to put them in a list. I need to use them, and the most convenient method of using words for me is to read something. For a long time I was both too afraid of grammar and conversations. Now they're higher in my language learning theory, but, honestly, I think that this is more a concern in case of English. If the magician would come to me to offer a choice: speak German or understand German, I'd have chosen the second option without a doubt. I think that my habits and way of living play a very big role here. I'm certainly an introvert. And I started to read very early. Plus, I started to talk later than kids usually do. Well, maybe I have had nothing to say before? :) Anyway, read first, speak later. The rest should be referred from these two positions and results would be different (for me). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4035 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 28 22 October 2013 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Reading and understanding the grammar of the language are the most fascinating things. I'm currently doing German and Icelandic simultaneously (with medium intensity) and I am constantly comparing one with the other; I love to make note of what sort of innovations separate the west and north Germanic branches apart, such as the past participle which has become a homogenous process in north-Germanic languages, almost always ending in a dental and without the ge- prefix;
for example, a comparison; West: -English "I have been" -German "Ich bin gewesen" North: -Swedish "Jag har varit" -Icelandic "Ég hef verið" so I love to make note of what sort of historical changes have happened in languages and how they manifest themselves in each language and what sort of new meanings they get and so on. I also love reading books, but people I can mostly do without. The people I like speaking most with are fellow language enthusiasts. Edited by Henkkles on 23 October 2013 at 8:20am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4470 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 28 22 October 2013 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Not generally in the habit of giving unsolicited corrections, but since this was given as an illustrative example of German grammar:
"Ich bin gewesen." "Gewesen" is the one common verb that isn't clearly a verb of motion, but nevertheless uses the "sein" compound construction and not the "haben" compound construction. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4404 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 28 22 October 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm a fairly quiet and reflective person. I enjoy my own company and spend a lot of time reading.
But funnily enough, my introduction to the German language was being dropped into a more or less monolingual setting where I just had to get on with speaking to the people around me. I could remember some vocabulary and verbs from school so I wasn't starting from zero. But it was a speech-driven sitaution in a sink-or-swim environment. Therefore my spoken German outstripped my reading abilities for some time. I remember discarding popular novels after 3 pages, yet I could actually hold a face-to-face conversation at that time. Through time, my reading improved and I can now manage most books without recourse to a dictionary (although my inner OCD often compels me to look up the more obsure words, even though they don't interfere with the overall context). However, I see German very much as an everday "working" language associated with oral communication and I haven't yet explored any of the so-called classic literature whereas in English I have a strong interest in the great fictional works. For what it's worth, I've always made a distinction between a shy person and one who is quiet. In my mind, being shy implies a sense of unease when around strange people in a social situation, whereas the term quiet simply means that a person chooses not to talk very often. I have no qualms about breezing up to a stranger and introducing myself if I feel like doing so, but I often prefer to keep to myself. Therefore I term myself as a quiet man rather than a shy one. Of course, some folk can be a bit of both. Edited by beano on 22 October 2013 at 4:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4404 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 7 of 28 22 October 2013 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
What about bleiben? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4470 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 8 of 28 22 October 2013 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes. (Which is why I hedged with "common" and "clearly," since I figured there were others I was forgetting momentarily, but they would be less common and more obvious...) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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