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What does "activating a language" mean? | ||
Tags: Activating a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4102 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 1 of 20 27 October 2014 at 9:23am | IP Logged | ||
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This has probably already been discussed, but what different definitions are there on
this phrase? Interpreting it from its use in the Alexander Arguelles shadowing videos, I always took it to signify that blurry line between knowing a language intellectually and knowing it as a way of life. I think he said or implied that activation by living in a country for about a year is the only way to achieve true fluency. In other words, it's highly important if you really love a language, and impossible to do by books and study alone, even if only for the demands on time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4327 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 20 27 October 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I always thought it was like activating a sleeper agent in some spy drama. Everything is in place, but until the spy is activated they are 'sleeping' (passively) in the community.
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| epictetus Groupie Canada Joined 3676 days ago 54 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 20 27 October 2014 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I interpreted activation to mean making the language come alive from an otherwise
dead state. This really only seems possible by needing and wanting to use it constantly over some period of time. A week-long holiday could be enough, but perhaps one's definition requires 6 months or more. I don't think there is a blurry line between "knowing a language intellectually and knowing it as a way of life". Intellectualism and lived experience are not really two positions on the same sliding scale. The Prof studies languages at an academic level, but he also tries to use them in a practical and grounded way. Edit: I always associate the word activation with sleeper agents, too! Cue 1960s spy thriller music... Edited by epictetus on 27 October 2014 at 10:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6703 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 20 27 October 2014 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's activating a (sometimes dormant) language, whatever skills you once had.
If reading is all you do, you can activate the language by speaking or writing. If you once had six years of French in school and haven't used it for decades, you can activate it by doing something. It doesn't have to be moving to the country. Personal example: I've studied Esperanto on and off - some meager attempts in the 90s, another attempt in May 2007, more regularly in the spring of 2010 and so on. Probably not more than 50 hours in total. Then I activated the language during a weekend in Berlin. Not at C2 level, we didn't have chats about nuclear science, but we used the skills we had and improved them like we couldn't believe. To me, that's activating a language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4315 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 5 of 20 27 October 2014 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I use it in the sense that I want to transfer passive skills (listening/reading) to
active skills (writing/speaking). If I had active skills before, but those have suffered from attrition, then I would call it "reactivating a language" if you want to get back to your former level. Edited by daegga on 27 October 2014 at 2:07pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4432 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 6 of 20 28 October 2014 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Someone who has spent years reading in a language every day "knows it as a way
of life". Activation is about taking the ability to comprehend and turning it into an ability to produce. It has nothing to do with having a "real" love for the language. Language activation isn't about the level the language is at. You can have A1 active skills, or B2 active skills, or native level active skills, or anything in between. Whatever the Professor means by "true fluency" is something else entirely. I find it bemusing when learners complain of the difficulty of learning a language actively without spending time with native speakers. If you're not spending time with native speakers what is the point of activation? Edited by AlexTG on 28 October 2014 at 3:35am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4102 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 7 of 20 29 October 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm getting an aggressive vibe from this post that seems to me uncalled for, given I only asked a semantic question about an unsettled phrase in the community. You seem galled by the idea that I'm qualifying what loving a language means. I only meant to say how I remembered Alexander Arguelles using the phrase. And I don't understand your last question: which learner complaints you mean or, here at the end, what your sense of "activation" is, since I can't make sense of it in light of your first paragraph. That said, I don't think it's in the spirit of the phrase "a way of life" to use it to describe a hobby of reading in a foreign language. To return to the professor's meaning, just to contrast, the meaning of "to make passive skills active" cannot apply, because he advises productive skills from day one, and only refers to the act of living in a country where the target language is spoken as the act of activation. Edited by Retinend on 29 October 2014 at 3:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4501 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 8 of 20 29 October 2014 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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What he means is that by immersion you will be required to activate your skills much more
because it is a very pressing issue. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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