Personality and language focus (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Personality and language focus
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Chung
Diglot
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 9 of 28

22 October 2013 at 5:20pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

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?

In general and by a hair it's about using the language. This means that I aim to develop pronunciation in the target language with as little interference from other languages as possible, and also come to understand enough grammar and acquire enough vocabulary so that I have a fighting chance to express myself usefully (if sometimes only briefly) on the spot. Because getting to grips with the grammar is important for letting myself be understood and presenting a favourable impression on my target audience, it may require me to delve into history of the language or some theory so that I can see the pattern. A good example is how I came to grips with the direct object in Finnish. I could not simply figure it out with exposure or superficial explanations that were founded on semantically similar constructions in languages that aren't actually governed by the same rationale. It was not until I dug into what telicity is that I could figure it out and start producing grammatical Finnish sentences with transitive verbs over 80% of the time on the first try.

All the same I don't learn a language to get a better handle on the diversity of typological structures found worldwide despite my interest in linguistics which seems higher than that of most non-linguists. Ergative-accusative languages seem fascinating but I'm not exactly itching to start learning Nez Percé or Ainu.
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Henkkles
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 4035 days ago
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Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: Russian

Message 10 of 28

22 October 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged

geoffw wrote:

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.

Yep I dhurpd, I wasn't paying attention as what I was thinking was to translate the English directly into German. I guess that's one thing to pay attention to too; English has only in the recent centuries lost the distinction between intransitive/transitive auxiliary verb for compound tenses, whereas in at least most north Germanic languages it's all the same.
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darkwhispersdal
Senior Member
Wales
Joined 5822 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin

Message 11 of 28

22 October 2013 at 7:57pm | IP Logged

Reading, Grammar and Writing are the most important to me. However, I spend alot of time on dead languages and there isn't much opportunity to speak to native speakers (Unless time machines are invented soon).

For modern languages the same order, but followed by listening then speaking because I spend more time listening to radio, music or watching films than speaking to a native.

I actually enjoy grammar and the puzzles it throws up at times. It makes me wonder how differently I see the world in English compared to someone who speaks Russian as a first language for example.
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1e4e6
Octoglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

Message 12 of 28

22 October 2013 at 11:54pm | IP Logged

In some cases is it not allowed in English to use the intransitive "be" auxiliary though?
Example, instead of "He has arrived at the store", "He is arrived at the store", which
would correspond to the West Germanic construction, like in Dutch, "Hij is gearriveerd
naar de winkel".

Reading and listening are most important for me, and I am not socialable, so speaking is
not very important although I try to practise it anyway. I barely speak to anyone in my
own native language (English) nowadays, so even far less for foreign languages.
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chokofingrz
Pentaglot
Senior Member
England
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Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish

Message 13 of 28

23 October 2013 at 1:03am | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

I have this theory, that people tend to focus more on the aspects of a language which suit their talents and personality.

A valid observation. I am introverted and my priorities have always been:
1) Reading
2) Listening
3) Writing
9) Speaking

My main strengths have always been spelling and written grammar. Nevertheless, I don't let that stop me striving for an excellent pronunciation and natural turn of phrase when I do hold a conversation in an L2.

I'm also interested in etymology and the relationships between similar European languages. That's not very useful from a practical perspective, so I practice spoken languages by holding random conversations in my head when doing mindless tasks like cooking, cleaning or showering.
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montmorency
Diglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 14 of 28

23 October 2013 at 2:04am | IP Logged

Henkkles wrote:

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;

North:
-Swedish
"Jag har varit"
-Icelandic
"Ég hef verið"

I can't resist adding Danish and Norwegian for comparison:

Danish - Jeg har været
Norwegian - Jeg har vært

EDIT:

Although on the face of it, English, with infinitive "to be" and past participle "been"
doesn't look that close to DK, NO, SE, the fact that its infinitive and p.participle
are closely related makes it closer to Scandinavian than German or Dutch with their

"sein" and "gewesen" and "zijn" and "geweest".

On the other hand, English dialect usage (more so in the past) of "be" and "bist" in
the present tense would seem to suggest connections to Dutch and German.

Edited by montmorency on 23 October 2013 at 2:24am
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Lorren
Senior Member
United States
brookelorren.com/blo
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Studies: Russian

Message 15 of 28

23 October 2013 at 5:00am | IP Logged

I would agree that in many cases, your personality type will influence how you interact with another language. I am an introvert, and reading would probably be my main focus. Listening is probably second. I figure that if I can read and listen, then I'm probably going to be able to get my point across... but being an eloquent speaker is not at the top of my priorities.

Even my main reason for being interested in outside languages revolves around being introverted. I mostly want to be able to read books, get the news, etc. from sources in another language. I am a blogger and a designer of print-on-demand products: information that I get from reading will probably end up in some of my blogs (for now, probably only in English), and words and phrases that I learn in foreign languages could easily end up in some of the products that I design. Unless I'm actually traveling to another country or run into someone in my country that speaks a foreign language (it happens with Spanish, but not so much with other languages), I probably won't spend too much time speaking it.

Edited by Lorren on 23 October 2013 at 5:01am
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Henkkles
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 4035 days ago
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Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: Russian

Message 16 of 28

23 October 2013 at 7:37am | IP Logged

montmorency wrote:

On the other hand, English dialect usage (more so in the past) of "be" and "bist" in
the present tense would seem to suggest connections to Dutch and German.

That's an innovation of the west Germanic group.

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