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Have you achieved fluency since joining? | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6993 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 17 of 39 13 July 2007 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Fluency is a matter of degree. I feel like I've achieved what the forum calls basic fluency in my first target language. Part of my success is attributable to the community of individuals here and the sharing of ideas. I take language learning much more seriously because of this forum than I would have otherwise.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6491 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 18 of 39 14 July 2007 at 5:22am | IP Logged | |||||
The dictionary (Hólmarsson et al.) has duly arrived yesterday so now I will as promised have a go at Icelandic according to the 6w rules, spending maybe half the time on grammar and word lists, the other half on intensive reading. I expect to be able to read fluently and maybe even understand spoken Icelandic before New Year, while becoming actively fluent may take longer. By the way: I did learn a bit of Old Norse 30 years ago in order to be able to read the sagas, but that was purely passive knowledge (like most people's Latin) and as such it has almost evaporated. This time I'll focus on the modern language, and I expect to learn to speak it. Soon. And I want to retain it better this time. Edited by Iversen on 16 July 2007 at 3:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| solidsnake Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6829 days ago 469 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 19 of 39 14 July 2007 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, i joined this forum two months after beginning chinese, and I now
do interviewing, discoveries, interpreting, declarations, etc. for an all- chinese clientele base at my law firm where the office "common" language is mandarin. But what is fluency anyway? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| johntothea Senior Member United States Joined 6416 days ago 193 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French | Message 20 of 39 14 July 2007 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not 'fluent' yet. But without this forum, I would be no where near where I am today. Before I was one of those people that thought it was impossible to learn a foreign language, but now, I can successfully communicate in a foreign language, albeit with some mistakes, but a lot better than I thought was possible.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6385 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 21 of 39 15 July 2007 at 2:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not sure myself. I could express my ideas on such topics as language learning and others I have some ideas on, but I wouldn't be able to speak about politics etc because I simply lack the knowledge needed. I wouldn't also pass for a native because of my accent and intonation, and sometimes I would express my ideas in a simple way because otherwise I wouldn't be sure I'm speaking correctly.
But if you meant getting fluent from scratch since joining the forum, then no. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6385 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 22 of 39 16 July 2007 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6491 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 23 of 39 16 July 2007 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can tell you as one important element that - following some of the ideas from the listening-reading thread - I'll be listening for 15-30 minutes every day to the audio-with-transcript news at the homepage of the Icelandic Television. Having the language pounding into your ears even before you understand it all probably does have an effect on how early you are able to think in the language, and I may have underestimated the potential of this technique. Besides I will of course do my usual intensive reading and word lists, though - because my main project right now still is to learn Russian - much less than I would normally do. It is important to have some hardcore knowledge even about a neighbouring language, because you otherwise will find it too tempting just to guess.
Thinking in the language has always been the first and most important step towards active fluency in my world. In this respect I do things in a very different way from the normal classroom situation, where you are expected to answer simple questions from your teacher, discuss or even make small plays in badly broken L2 with your fellow students, all that stuff. I have always hated that forced inane babble. My wish is to become fluent in my head before I say even the first sentence in public, but I know from experience that when at last I do start to speak then local people do understand what I say from the beginning, so apparently it does function. Edited by Iversen on 16 July 2007 at 3:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6385 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 24 of 39 16 July 2007 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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But what's the difference between the way you're studying now and the way you're going to study once you've reached passive fluency? (if I haven't misunderstood anything)
Although maybe I should try intensive reading... The problem is that I'm trying to study German and Esperanto through Finnish in order to make it feel less "foreign", but I'm not confident enough that it won't harm my Finnish to do hyper-literal translations. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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