|
 |
Not Being Fluent in any Language (Cost of | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4237 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 9 of 26 18 June 2014 at 2:02am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Being fluent in at least 2 languages will beneficial later in life when a person starts working. In the
beginning when a child is introduced to more than 1 language, he/she tends to get words & phrases mixed up. After a while, the child will be much more fluent in his/her native language when learning the second language is kept up. Very few people would actually be classified as not being fluent in any language. Even native-speakers of a language has to look up the dictionary occasionally. Don't forget, on the Internet you can pick up all sorts of news, info, videos from other countries. You just need to explore on your own time. Being fluent in multiple languages is a personal thing. My grandfather knew how to speak 5 European languages including English, French, Dutch and Spanish but my father did not pick these up. Part of language learning is what you pick up at home from your parents and your peers. The other part is your life experiences including places you travelled to, classes you attended. I know some people who studied Chinese before but have totally forgotten how to write the characters not because their parents haven't taught them but because they haven't kept up later in life. Edited by shk00design on 18 June 2014 at 2:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4237 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 10 of 26 18 June 2014 at 7:02am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
There are all sorts of people so the last thing that we shouldn't do is to assume all monolinguals,
bilinguals and multilinguals behave the same way. I know someone who supposedly graduated from a university with a basic Bachelor degree. He had to write research papers in English like everybody else. The last time he asked me to edit a letter he wrote in English. There were at least 6 grammatical errors including the word "witness" incorrectly used in a sentence as a noun when he was using it in the context of a verb. Being fluent in a language you can still be functionally illiterate. Based on personal experience a few years ago I took a summer job taking care of city parks. The job involved painting public facilities, trimming trees and removing trash. There were several people doing the same job. One was a native Canadian who was raised as an unilingual English speaker. The other 3 were Italians who came after the War. (During the War the Italian gov't encouraged people to have large families to support the war effort but then the population became too big so many were encouraged to leave). The Canadian did not complete his high school education. Back in the 1950s & 60s it was much easier to find work and he never had the inclination to attend college. Although the Italians did not have college education but they all completed high school with diplomas. When talking you could notice the Italians speak with a slight accent but that wasn't a concern. They could read an English newspaper without any trouble. The Canadian, on the other hand, couldn't write a single English word on paper besides his name and could not even do simple math calculations of adding and subtracting. Never mind reading a newspaper. The point: there are people who are raised in a monolingual environment but their education and life experiences determine their language proficiency. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3875 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 11 of 26 18 June 2014 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Let us restrict our attention to people who have a college degree.
There will always be people in any country who are barely literate/barely educated. The people of relevance to this thread are people with higher education who might have had better mastery of some language had they had a monolingual upbringing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4326 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 12 of 26 18 June 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Bilingualism has been pretty heavily studied. What's the evidence, if any, that bilingual children suffer in terms of language abilities later? I am sure that some children raised in bilingual households do not learn their L1 as well as they might, but this might be due to lots of other factors other than the fact that they are being raised bilingual (e.g., parents are poorer - kids go to poorer schools - they don't get exposed to reading as much at early age - their parents are fluent in their L1 etc). As far as I know, children raised in bilingual households are just as good with languages as monolingually raised children, given they are brought up in the right environment. Edited by patrickwilken on 18 June 2014 at 1:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3875 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 13 of 26 18 June 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Hmmm. You are right - perhaps the problem is that I am looking at people whose main language of focus changes as life goes on, and these isnt a language to latch on to for an extended period of time during school and college years.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4415 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 14 of 26 18 June 2014 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
But most people don't study at degree level, and most of them can use language perfectly well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3875 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 15 of 26 18 June 2014 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Correct, but I am taking a conservative subset. All monolingual degree holders have mastery of their language, as opposed to "most" of the general population.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 16 of 26 18 June 2014 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, the title of the thread is about fluency. Fluency and mastery are different things. (Where is s_allard when you need him?)
I agree, this is quite a different thing than being raised bilingual. EDIT to take into account a new post made while I was writing:
It isn't always true that monolingual degree holders have "mastery" of their language. (Unless you take a very weak definition of mastery). It is even less true that all monolingual degree holders are "fluent". Edited by Jeffers on 18 June 2014 at 2:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
