Polyglots?

[DRSB]

Kimpatsu wrote:

As a rule of thumb, I say you should be able to read a daily newspaper without resorting to a dictionary.

Then I should be able to put on the list the rest of the Slavic languages too as I understand them all and can make myself understood, but if I want to stick to one particular language and not speak just some pan-Slavic salad, I can do it only in the 5 ones I mentioned above.

[FBM]

I guess it depends on how well you have to speak it to be considered "able to speak" a language.

As a rule of thumb, I say you should be able to read a daily newspaper without resorting to a dictionary.

Ah. In that case, stratch English off my list.

Seriously, though, reading skill isn't a good indication of speaking skill. I have a lot of students who score very highly on the TOEIC test but can't get past "My name is..." in oral communication.

Receptive skills: Listening and Reading.

Productive skills: Speaking and Writing.

Very distinct skill sets. [/pedantry]

[Rum]

I know for a fact I have no aptitude for other languages. In fact I learnt very little French in school despite my teachers' best efforts.

Despite that my French isn't too bad having spent the equivalent of several months or more over the years travelling there. I also spoke Cantonese fluently from living in Hong Kong for so long. Very rusty now.

I briefly had a business partnership - a publishing venture with a friend years ago. He had been a writer for Lonely Planet guide books and together we started a small business, which was part time for me - did the design and graphics, artwork and so on. He was a true linguist and extraordinarily brainy too. He spoke ten languages fluently and could get by with at least another ten.

[Kimpatsu]

Seriously, though, reading skill isn't a good indication of speaking skill. I have a lot of students who score very highly on the TOEIC test but can't get past "My name is..." in oral communication.[/pedantry]

Then I would say they are not applying what they have studied. I don't think you can call yourself fluent in a language like Korean, though, unless you can read Hangul.

[Eriku]

Quoting Rum:

I know for a fact I have no aptitude for other languages. In fact I learnt very little French in school despite my teachers' best efforts.

Silly man... there's no real magical boundary between English and other languages... deep down they're all the same and we're all language savants. People say they don't know the difference between a noun and an adverb or whatever, but they'll easily discern who's doing what to whom, and what with, in a sentence.

Learning in school, however, is not the easiest way... My competence in English is far more due to excessive watching of television during my formative years, rather than what they taught me in school... and my Spanish and Portuguese aren't far off from my German, despite my German having been acquired through school for 5 years, whereas my rudimentary grasp of Spanish and Portuguese came about when I was backpacking through South America for 6 months... FAR more efficient than the tedious lessons you get in school.

There's a case to be made for accents being hard to shake if you learn a language after the age of 6 or so, due to certain neural developments finishing off at that point, but most of all I think people just don't get enough exposure, plus they're far too self-conscious about pronounciation, syntax, conjugation, etc. when speaking with fluent speakers of a language... whereas childrens are all newbs anyway, so they don't really find that to be a hindrance.

I need to move out of this bloody country and get another language under me belt...

I might as well clarify in this thread as well... I study language and intercultural communication at a Norwegian University... and as such am a language geek... albeit a theoretically sloppy one.

[FBM]

Seriously, though, reading skill isn't a good indication of speaking skill. I have a lot of students who score very highly on the TOEIC test but can't get past "My name is..." in oral communication.[/pedantry]

Then I would say they are not applying what they have studied. I don't think you can call yourself fluent in a language like Korean, though, unless you can read Hangul.

단근이지. 물론 한글 읽을 수 있어. 참. 내 말은...아이구...그냥 신경 쓰지 마

No joke. My point is that there are 4 language skills, each one with a distinct training method. Proficiency in one does not imply proficiency in another. The ability to read a newspaper w/out a dictionary says practically nothing about one's ability to converse in the target language. I get along quite well in conversation, but both written and spoken journalistic forms are distinct from the vernacular in every language I've studied. It doesn't help that Koreans still use Chinese characters in newspapers here because it's still anachronistically considered to be a sign of intellectual status.

In the language classes I took in the US, oral conversation skill was taken to be the primary target skill. It's not universally so. It's quite possible to develop high skill levels in listening, reading and writing without developing equivalent proficiency in speaking. In fact, this is the norm in Korea and Japan.

Edit: Don't make me bust out with "Polyglot a cracker?"

[Svartalf]

. Never been drawn to Roman languages.

Not everybody is... I'm French, I got a well rounded education with learning Latin and serious exposure and lessons in Spanish, but I've always felt more at ease with Germanic languages (English, of course, but nearly breached the fluency barrier in German before stopping practice and forgetting it nearly completely, and I can wrestle my way in Medieval Icelandic if I've got a dictionary and it's not poetry)

[Svartalf]

I guess it depends on how well you have to speak it to be considered "able to speak" a language.

As a rule of thumb, I say you should be able to read a daily newspaper without resorting to a dictionary.

Ah. In that case, stratch English off my list.

Seriously, though, reading skill isn't a good indication of speaking skill. I have a lot of students who score very highly on the TOEIC test but can't get past "My name is..." in oral communication.

Receptive skills: Listening and Reading.

Productive skills: Speaking and Writing.

Very distinct skill sets. [/pedantry]

Funny... I've got the reverse problem with Spanish, I can produce some very basic stuff when I need to (but definitely not sustain a real conversation), but I have only the most rudimentary understanding of written material (actually, I get Portuguese better, even though I never studied it)

[chaggle]

Seriously, though, reading skill isn't a good indication of speaking skill. I have a lot of students who score very highly on the TOEIC test but can't get past "My name is..." in oral communication.

Receptive skills: Listening and Reading.

Productive skills: Speaking and Writing.

Very distinct skill sets. [/pedantry]

This is interesting.

I have lived in Spain for about 10 years and still have difficulty with conversation (due at least in part to being a bit lazy and not grafting at it)

I can usually say what I want to without too much difficulty but I have great difficulty understanding spoken Spanish. On the other hand I can read a newspaper fairly readily but cannot write much in Spanish. To me this makes sense. When I'm talking I only use words I know but when people talk to me they use lots of unknown words/grammar. When I'm reading I'm doing it at my own pace so I have time to work out the bits I don't know but I don't think I could write well (to be honest I haven't tried much). This contradicts what you are saying about the receptive/productive skill sets.

I have noticed two types of learners here:

Type 1 - My type - learn slowly. We are able to speak better than understand. What we say tends to be accurate but we are severely held up by our lack of ability to understand. We are somewhat in awe of the other type although ultimately we speak much better Spanish.

Type 2 - learn extremely quickly (weeks to fluency in some cases). They can understand spoken Spanish very rapidly and hold a conversation. The quality of their spoken Spanish is cringemakingly bad but they don't care and nor do the people they are speaking with.
They tend to stop learning after a time. They are somewhat disparaging of type 1's abilities.

I wish I was type 2.

My point is that there are 4 language skills, each one with a distinct training method.

I'm not too fussed about reading and writing but I would love to be able to understand better - what's the best training method for that?

BTW I don't know what level you are expecting in the poll. I said three - English, Spanish, French.

[FBM]

Funny... I've got the reverse problem with Spanish, I can produce some very basic stuff when I need to (but definitely not sustain a real conversation), but I have only the most rudimentary understanding of written material (actually, I get Portuguese better, even though I never studied it)

That's very natural, actually. If you think about how you learned your mother tongue, you started with listening (as a baby), then basic speaking, later reading and last, writing. If you practice listening, it will help your speaking skills. If you read a lot, it will help your writing skills. The rule of thumb I teach my students is: ears to mouth, eyes to hand. If you want to improve your speaking skills, you should listen carefully and imitate what you hear. If you want to improve your writing skills, you should read more and reproduce what you see.

Stephen Krashen's Second Language Acquisition Theory and the Natural Approach. Don't get me started. We'll be here all night. It's my job to teach this shit.

This is interesting.

I have lived in Spain for about 10 years and still have difficulty with conversation (due at least in part to being a bit lazy and not grafting at it)

I can usually say what I want to without too much difficulty but I have great difficulty understanding spoken Spanish. On the other hand I can read a newspaper fairly readily but cannot write much in Spanish. To me this makes sense. When I'm talking I only use words I know but when people talk to me they use lots of unknown words/grammar. When I'm reading I'm doing it at my own pace so I have time to work out the bits I don't know but I don't think I could write well (to be honest I haven't tried much). This contradicts what you are saying about the receptive/productive skill sets.

I have noticed two types of learners here:

Type 1 - My type - learn slowly. We are able to speak better than understand. What we say tends to be accurate but we are severely held up by our lack of ability to understand. We are somewhat in awe of the other type although ultimately we speak much better Spanish.

Type 2 - learn extremely quickly (weeks to fluency in some cases). They can understand spoken Spanish very rapidly and hold a conversation. The quality of their spoken Spanish is cringemakingly bad but they don't care and nor do the people they are speaking with.
They tend to stop learning after a time. They are somewhat disparaging of type 1's abilities.

I wish I was type 2.

My point is that there are 4 language skills, each one with a distinct training method.

I'm not too fussed about reading and writing but I would love to be able to understand better - what's the best training method for that?

BTW I don't know what level you are expecting in the poll. I said three - English, Spanish, French.

(Wasn't my poll. I wouldn't have phrased it that way.) By "understanding" I'm guessing you mean listening comprehension. You need to find recordings that are roughly 10% above your current production level and listen to them over and over again. Once you understand them completely, advance to the next level, which should also be roughly 10% above your production level.

Think about how you speak to a young child. You use simple sentences and easy vocabulary and repeat it over and over again. That's the way the human brain evolved to acquire (vs learn) language. You speak to a child a little above their production level and that's the way you should select your learing material, whether it's for learning listening, speaking, reading or writing. That's the natural order for language acquisition. L=>S=>R=>W

Doing it by rote memorizatioon will work if you have enough time and energy to devote to such an unnatural and innefficient method. You can cut down the time/energy requirements by applying the Natural Approach as your primary method and using memorization/grammar as only a supplementary activity.

Trust me on this. I've been teaching and applying it for nearly 15 years. It has made me locally "famous" . (Inside joke.)

[Azathoth]

Personally I need to see a word written down before it goes anywhere near my long term memory. Maybe that is just Icelandic though. There are far too many things that sound almost exactly the same and more grammar than is healthy.

[Beelzebub2]

Funny... I've got the reverse problem with Spanish, I can produce some very basic stuff when I need to (but definitely not sustain a real conversation), but I have only the most rudimentary understanding of written material (actually, I get Portuguese better, even though I never studied it)

That's very natural, actually. If you think about how you learned your mother tongue, you started with listening (as a baby), then basic speaking, later reading and last, writing. If you practice listening, it will help your speaking skills. If you read a lot, it will help your writing skills. The rule of thumb I teach my students is: ears to mouth, eyes to hand. If you want to improve your speaking skills, you should listen carefully and imitate what you hear. If you want to improve your writing skills, you should read more and reproduce what you see.

Stephen Krashen's Second Language Acquisition Theory and the Natural Approach. Don't get me started. We'll be here all night. It's my job to teach this shit.

This is interesting.

I have lived in Spain for about 10 years and still have difficulty with conversation (due at least in part to being a bit lazy and not grafting at it)

I can usually say what I want to without too much difficulty but I have great difficulty understanding spoken Spanish. On the other hand I can read a newspaper fairly readily but cannot write much in Spanish. To me this makes sense. When I'm talking I only use words I know but when people talk to me they use lots of unknown words/grammar. When I'm reading I'm doing it at my own pace so I have time to work out the bits I don't know but I don't think I could write well (to be honest I haven't tried much). This contradicts what you are saying about the receptive/productive skill sets.

I have noticed two types of learners here:

Type 1 - My type - learn slowly. We are able to speak better than understand. What we say tends to be accurate but we are severely held up by our lack of ability to understand. We are somewhat in awe of the other type although ultimately we speak much better Spanish.

Type 2 - learn extremely quickly (weeks to fluency in some cases). They can understand spoken Spanish very rapidly and hold a conversation. The quality of their spoken Spanish is cringemakingly bad but they don't care and nor do the people they are speaking with.
They tend to stop learning after a time. They are somewhat disparaging of type 1's abilities.

I wish I was type 2.

My point is that there are 4 language skills, each one with a distinct training method.

I'm not too fussed about reading and writing but I would love to be able to understand better - what's the best training method for that?

BTW I don't know what level you are expecting in the poll. I said three - English, Spanish, French.

(Wasn't my poll. I wouldn't have phrased it that way.) By "understanding" I'm guessing you mean listening comprehension. You need to find recordings that are roughly 10% above your current production level and listen to them over and over again. Once you understand them completely, advance to the next level, which should also be roughly 10% above your production level.

Think about how you speak to a young child. You use simple sentences and easy vocabulary and repeat it over and over again. That's the way the human brain evolved to acquire (vs learn) language. You speak to a child a little above their production level and that's the way you should select your learing material, whether it's for learning listening, speaking, reading or writing. That's the natural order for language acquisition. L=>S=>R=>W

Doing it by rote memorizatioon will work if you have enough time and energy to devote to such an unnatural and innefficient method. You can cut down the time/energy requirements by applying the Natural Approach as your primary method and using memorization/grammar as only a supplementary activity.

Trust me on this. I've been teaching and applying it for nearly 15 years. It has made me locally "famous" . (Inside joke.)

Very interesting and much appreciated.

Very good manner of learning one foreign language is through other - for instance imparare Latino/Spagnolo/Rumeno or aprender Rumano/Latino/Italiano. Much fun as well.

Also reading on various Wiki articles on any subject in the language of interest and then opting for the multilingual options.

[DRSB]

Beelzebub2 wrote:

Also reading on various Wiki articles on any subject in the language of interest and then opting for the multilingual options.

A good idea! I learned a great deal of Slovene by reading every day my horoscope in a Slovene online newspaper (for a while).

[Svartalf]

LOL...FBM, there's no way I'll improve my spanish by imitating what I'm exposed to.

What I studied in school was formal Castillan, and that's still the model I look for in grammar and pronunciation. Trouble is that, of late, all my exposure to "Spanish" (I can't even regard it as such myself) I've had was deep south, small town Andalucian that is weird on every level... I don't have as much difficulty dealing with the enforced specificity of Catalan dialect... and of course, for some weird reason, I seem to have more of an affinity for Galician and Portuguese anyway, which is not saying much given that I neither study, nor ever get to practice those.

[Svartalf]

Personally I need to see a word written down before it goes anywhere near my long term memory. Maybe that is just Icelandic though. There are far too many things that sound almost exactly the same and more grammar than is healthy.

Dunno... I'm similar in everything, I conceptualise everything in writing... Of course, the fact that I learned several languages (Latin, Greek, Icelandic ) in writing only, with expression not being practiced at all may have made it worse for some.

Honestly, I'm not sure that what I learned of Saga Icelandic would help me at all if I tried my hand at the modern version.