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Passive Fluency

  Tags: Passive | Fluency
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
33 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 35  Next >>
Mtargem
Pentaglot
Newbie
Czech Republic
Joined 6173 days ago

4 posts - 4 votes
Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English, Italian, Polish
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 25 of 33
25 May 2007 at 6:46pm | IP Logged 
gperson000 wrote:
Does anyone here study a living language to acquire passive fluency without being able to communicate? Or is my idea more abstract than I originally thought?

That would be me, I think. I currently study French (at work) but I really don't like the sound of the language. Since I also know I will not be required to speak the language but rather understand its written form, I'm quite content with learning the grammar and vocabulary just to acquire a passive knowledge. I think I already understand a lot when reading but have a hard time understanding the spoken French, not mentioning speaking (I can put together a sentence but only after some thinking). So, yes, I deliberately decided to focus on the passive understanding (of the written French) rather then spending my time getting cramps to my facial muscles when butchering the language I don't like. (My apologies to all the francophiles out there.)
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Polyglot2005
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6948 days ago

184 posts - 185 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 26 of 33
25 May 2007 at 8:36pm | IP Logged 
The French in Action videos seem like a good way to gain a solid grounding in passive fluency. I have been debating whether to really learn one language (speaking) and solely focusing on listening comprehension in another language.
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
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 27 of 33
26 May 2007 at 11:16am | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Serpent wrote:
@Sprachprofi: what do you need active knowledge of Latin for? no offence meant, I'm just curious :) you don't seem to be one of those enthusiasts who think Latin should be reviwed, are you? [this sentence looks incorrect to me :0 ]

Imho the vast majority of people will *not* find any use for active knowledge of Latin. That's what I said.
And that's just what I wanted to know, what use have you found for your active knowledge of Latin?
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MissMyChris
Newbie
United States
Joined 6198 days ago

17 posts - 17 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 28 of 33
26 May 2007 at 2:23pm | IP Logged 
Topsiderunner wrote:
I think this depends on how much "fluency" you really have. For instance,
any English speaker could pick up a French newspaper and get the gist of
every article because of the similiarities in vocabulary, but that doesn't
mean he would understand verb conjugation, adjective agreement, etc.


I'm not sure that's true for most English speakers. Most of the people I know would have no idea what they were looking at, much less what was being talked about. True, most of us folks who like to learn languages would be able to make those types of connections, but I don't think the average English speaker could do that. At least not the average American - maybe it is different in Britain.
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Sprachprofi
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Germany
learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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2608 posts - 4866 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese

 
 Message 29 of 33
26 May 2007 at 2:41pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
And that's just what I wanted to know, what use have you found for your active knowledge of Latin?

Writing or adapting sentences for exercises and texts for lessons. Nothing more.
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 30 of 33
26 May 2007 at 3:14pm | IP Logged 
MissMyChris wrote:
Topsiderunner wrote:
I think this depends on how much "fluency" you really have. For instance,
any English speaker could pick up a French newspaper and get the gist of
every article because of the similiarities in vocabulary, but that doesn't
mean he would understand verb conjugation, adjective agreement, etc.


I'm not sure that's true for most English speakers. Most of the people I know would have no idea what they were looking at, much less what was being talked about. True, most of us folks who like to learn languages would be able to make those types of connections, but I don't think the average English speaker could do that. At least not the average American - maybe it is different in Britain.


I'd say that a native English speaker who speaks any other Romance language should be able to do so, even if they're not particularly interested in languages. I suspect that non-Romance languages would also help, but to a lesser degree. My mother is a native English speaker, and far from a language enthusiast, but she has learned Italian to a usable level. She's also occasionally read ingredient lists out to guests who speak both Italian and French, who then express surprise that she's taken up French - because she didn't notice that she was reading the French one instead of the Italian, because they happened to be quite similar.

I think the critical factor is whether someone is able to look for the 'gist' of an article, and pick out the bits that they know. With English and French, I'd expect even people who have never seen a non-English language to be able to pick some out with at most a little prompting, because there are so many cognates. The only thing that I could reasonably see stopping someone is the realization that the paper is in English, followed by a willful "I don't understand this language!" and refusing to really look at it.

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cymro
Triglot
Groupie
Wales
Joined 6214 days ago

76 posts - 98 votes 
Speaks: English*, Welsh, French
Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 31 of 33
27 May 2007 at 11:50am | IP Logged 
gperson000 wrote:
Is it possible to achieve fluent comprehension of a language without speaking the language?


Absolutely. I was told of an exceptional example of this recently. One of my languages as you can see is Welsh. It is an endangered celtic language that was lost to my family when my grandfather failed to pass it on. So I went to classes to study it. I am now fluent enough to occasionally pass for a native speaker. ( Because I grew up here I speak English with a pronounced Welsh accent which makes this easy.)

I was at a translator friend's birthday party recently.

I should first explain that, sadly, only about a quarter of Welsh people can now speak their own language and they are nearly all natural bilinguals. Because of this any simultanious translation is nearly always Welsh to English

There were several other translators there and they were talking about their work.

The subject turned to the most remarkable person. A woman who was a professional simultanious translator but only did Welsh to English because amazingly she couldn't speak Welsh!

They all knew her. I would imagine that she stuck out like a sore thumb since most of the translators would always speak Welsh to each other. She was excellent at her job though. So it must be possible.










Edited by cymro on 27 May 2007 at 4:09pm

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tsp_uk
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 6420 days ago

30 posts - 33 votes
Speaks: Cantonese, English*
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 32 of 33
27 May 2007 at 12:26pm | IP Logged 
Hmmm in some way I have experienced some passive fluency, I speak Cantonese at home, English for daily use outisde of home, and I can listen to the Hakka dialect but not speak it. My mum speaks the Hakka dialect to her side of the family, growing up I would always hear my mum talking to relatives on the phone etc.... So most of the time i understand her conversations but can't speak it.


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