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Have you achieved fluency since joining? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6501 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 39 16 July 2007 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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The main difference is that with passive fluency you can start reading large amounts of genuine texts (books and internet pages), and you can also listen to television programmes and things like that without missing large parts of the meaning. In fact this is learning by the 'natural method', but contrary to fashion I have normally avoided to do these things until I had already learnt a lot of grammar and words through black-school methods like wordlists, intensive reading and grammar studies (I prefer to call them 'formal' methods).
I have however concluded from the listening-learning thread that the use of large amounts of genuine material may start earlier than I have previously thought provided that there is an ample supply of parallel texts plus audio to work on. No method should be considered sacrosanct, it is always permitted to become wiser. Intensive reading will in the beginning be very labour intensive because everything - pronunciation, words, idioms and grammar - is unknown and has to be studied. I have at this stage in Greek and Russian found it practical to do ultra-literal translations, with lots of commentaries to points of grammar and lots of words (later to be used in word lists). With languages that you half-way know or that are close to a well-known language you will not need to do such ultra-literal translations, except maybe if you really find something totally unexpected. But it is still necessary to note down moot points of grammar, false friends and idiomatic expressions. Otherwise you will inevitably try to guess how to speak the new language, and guesses are too often wrong. I don't see any risk that ultra-literal translation should harm anybodys language, not even if you are learning a L3 through L2. The reason is that you know that this isn't the proper way of using L2. In fact the usual kind of 'literary' translations are more risky, because you may think that you are writing something perfectly normal in L2, while you have in fact adopted some irrelevant stuff from L3. That won't happen with ultraliteral translations. Edited by Iversen on 03 May 2009 at 5:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6584 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 26 of 39 22 July 2007 at 2:12am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't learn anything concrete after the first 4 to 5 months I joined this forum, because I shared the same thoughts as you and got put off by the fact that hardly any books (i.e. Chinese sources for German) can help - and as someone living far from the majority of members here with a "remote" culture, I didn't really believe that self-learning was possible. In the last months last year, I did start learning through a class course. Since I only learnt through "small talks, plays and inane babble, using very broken L2" (as Iversen pointed out), I found it very hard to mumble something, when I was asked to describe everything in a picture that kindergarten kids can draw perfectly in their Art lessons. I was frustrated and stopped learning any German for literally 3 months. I re-learnt this language for 4 months. Since speaking is not my focus, I only did speaking drills (and alone) sporadically. I read substantially about lang. learning in this forum and some books some members recommended. I designed and often switched between different learning strategies, trying to attack the language in every possible direction. With a rather bookworm approach, I finally proved my methods worked. Recently, my cousin who speaks German natively visited my family, and I was delighted to have heard that my German was "pretty good", though my vocabulary is still very limited and I make countless mistakes. I still consider myself as at best a high-intermediate beginner - well, formally, I learnt German since last autumn, but only for almost 5 months so far. The *first* real speaking practice is a milestone of my beginner's level. Now, I think I can do some small talks with ease and courage, and can soon start reading the first graded readers. I didn't do anything substantial about others except English. For the most part, I un-learnt mistakes and increased my knowledge through reading, and especially anything related to learning methodology. Since I don't share native languages with my cousin, when I can't use German, I have to rely on English and very limited Mandarin. My levels are higher than hers at both. I spoke English most of the time, and happened to find that I paid more attention to make me understood, especially getting away accents with the th sounds, given that I hardly speak English. My German adventure was very fruitful. Besides struggling to learn a language that is not used at my place quickly (at a beginner's level), I have been fortunate to reveal the truths about effective language learning. Many thanks to moderators and members who have contributed so much to this nice forum. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Recht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5599 days ago 241 posts - 270 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1 | Message 27 of 39 02 May 2009 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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A small bump on this thread :)
Since I've been here my German has grown by leaps and bounds. I'm currently listening to "Schlaflos in München" and I can remember the day that I first listened to it. I understood very little. Now if I pay attention I understand a large portion of what is said. Progress in my book! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6979 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 28 of 39 03 May 2009 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I joined I could barely understand any Chinese and only string a few sentences together. Now you could say i'm fluent if by that you mean able to enter a Chinese university with my level of Chinese. Also I can get just about anything done in Chinese. However, I'm still not reading a daily paper, watching the news in Chinese (happily) that will be another year or so.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6291 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 29 of 39 04 May 2009 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have learned to express thoughts in Spanish and got some basic oral fluency during last 1,5 years.
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| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5664 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 30 of 39 04 May 2009 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
I also think this is a powerful technique. I have been trying for several years to convince Radio Netherlands World Service to provide parallel text/audio news in Dutch. They have excellent text and audio, but not parallel. Very recently, I tried again and got a "no" in response. My e-mail and the RNW reply is on the Dutch-learning "Laura Speaks Dutch" Facebook. RNW says language learning is not one of its responsibilities. I am pleased to see that Icelandic Television does see it as a responsibility: "According to the Broadcasting Act the main obligation of RUV is to promote the Icelandic language, Icelandic history and Iceland's cultural heritage." I don't know enough Icelandic to even find their parallel audio. Can you summarise what is available? News only, etc.? Maybe I can point this out to RNW. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eoinda Tetraglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5746 days ago 101 posts - 113 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Spanish, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 31 of 39 04 May 2009 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have listed myself as intermediate in Spanish but I am close to basic fluency I get the gist of movies and I can read
books with only a little help from a dictionary. I'm good at writing but I have a really hard time speaking Spanish. Hopefully I will get over that and reach fluency soon. This site have been great. I have found a lot of help here and above all encouragement. My main method is reading (everything). Even though formal studying is important I think that reading is the way to fluency (at least for me) that was how I learned English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egg_uk Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6216 days ago 203 posts - 204 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 39 04 May 2009 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Though my learning has been stop start and I am not near fluency yet, this site has provided a lot of useful information on resources and techniques that should lead me to fluency. I know I am capable, and I can locate the necessary sources. The only problem is there is so much information here that it can eat into my learning time, thats why I try not to come on here more than once or twice a week.
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