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Advice please. I have "party French". In social circumstances where someone is willing to be gracious to me, and talk slowly, and explain what certain words me

by bravura 15y ago

Advice please. I have "party French". In social circumstances where someone is willing to be gracious to me, and talk slowly, and explain what certain words mean, I can carry on a conversation. So I believe I have reached and done Step 3. I now want to develop "adversarial French", i.e. a command of the language that I can use in circumstances where people don't actually care if I understand them. However, I feel like I hit a plateau. Perhaps it was because I didn't do complete immersion, and switched back to English? Would that be the solution to me advancing further, or is there another technique to use?

jballanc 15y ago
I've been told that you cannot consider to have mastered a language until you dream in that language. Total immersion is likely the only thing that will get you over that plateau.
- heyitsnick 15y ago
  I dreamt in Spanish (and spoke Spanish in my sleep) way before I had mastered it. Hell, I haven't "mastered" it now after four years and doubt I ever will. It's not a particularly useful barometer for language domination; I dreamt in it just because I was immersed in the language and went to sleep reading or thinking about it.
ghshephard 15y ago
Some interesting research/Myths on learning a second language: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html The one that caught my attention was, "Myth 3: The more time students spend in a second language context, the quicker they learn the language" - I would have never guessed that. Just goes to show -it's always important to do the research.
swombat 15y ago
I remember being sent by my parents to Germany, when I was a kid, where I stayed with a German family for 2 weeks. My command of German was pretty pathetic, but that didn't stop me from engaging in a (in hindsight, hilariously insensitive from both sides) debate about whether the Swiss were more evil than the Germans (my hosts unwisely decided to claim that Switzerland was evil because of the Swiss banks... I couldn't resist such a gaping wide opening for counter-argument, and the ensuring argument included me retorting that I felt that given the history of Germany, they were hardly in a position to call other countries evil, considering they had slaughtered millions of people around Europe not all that long ago). I was 12 or so, I think. Anyway, the point of this: I think adversarial conversation is more a matter of mindset than of mastery of the language. If anything, not understanding half of what is being said helps to encourage adversarial conversation on both sides :-) With respect to your problem, yes, total immersion is a good solution (imho, disclaimer, etc). Travel to that country and stay away from English speakers, and speak only that language for a month. If I'm right, you'll build the mental wiring necessary to speak that language in any circumstances (whether you're understood is then just a matter of practice).

by bravura 15y ago

jballanc 15y ago

I've been told that you cannot consider to have mastered a language until you dream in that language. Total immersion is likely the only thing that will get you over that plateau.

heyitsnick 15y ago
I dreamt in Spanish (and spoke Spanish in my sleep) way before I had mastered it. Hell, I haven't "mastered" it now after four years and doubt I ever will. It's not a particularly useful barometer for language domination; I dreamt in it just because I was immersed in the language and went to sleep reading or thinking about it.

ghshephard 15y ago

Some interesting research/Myths on learning a second language: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html The one that caught my attention was, "Myth 3: The more time students spend in a second language context, the quicker they learn the language" - I would have never guessed that. Just goes to show -it's always important to do the research.

swombat 15y ago

I remember being sent by my parents to Germany, when I was a kid, where I stayed with a German family for 2 weeks. My command of German was pretty pathetic, but that didn't stop me from engaging in a (in hindsight, hilariously insensitive from both sides) debate about whether the Swiss were more evil than the Germans (my hosts unwisely decided to claim that Switzerland was evil because of the Swiss banks... I couldn't resist such a gaping wide opening for counter-argument, and the ensuring argument included me retorting that I felt that given the history of Germany, they were hardly in a position to call other countries evil, considering they had slaughtered millions of people around Europe not all that long ago). I was 12 or so, I think. Anyway, the point of this: I think adversarial conversation is more a matter of mindset than of mastery of the language. If anything, not understanding half of what is being said helps to encourage adversarial conversation on both sides :-) With respect to your problem, yes, total immersion is a good solution (imho, disclaimer, etc). Travel to that country and stay away from English speakers, and speak only that language for a month. If I'm right, you'll build the mental wiring necessary to speak that language in any circumstances (whether you're understood is then just a matter of practice).