Learning without trying

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If you were to drop a person in a foreign country and they decided they couldn't be bothered to study how long do you think it would take for them to learn this language.

About 5 Minutes
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Total votes: 0

mesomorph
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Learning without trying

Post by mesomorph » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:22 am

If you were to drop a person in a foreign country and they decided they couldn't be bothered to study how long do you think it would take for them to learn the language.

Note - this language has the same alphabet as their native tongue.

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:35 am

You'd have to describe the situation. If their living situation forced the language on them, a few years perhaps. If it didn't, never. Plus, it depends how close the language/culture is to their own.

mesomorph
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Post by mesomorph » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:48 pm

The situation and language/culture vaguely:

They have exposure to the language and people who speak it everyday.
They are active in society, go out and do stuff in the city.
They watch foreign language TV, look at the newspapers, road signs, shops signs etc.
They make general attempts at understanding the language, drawing inferences from social situations for example.

The language/culture are as close as say Dutch and Spanish are.

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:44 pm

Define "study". Does it include "read with a dictionary", "ask people to explain themselves", "ask people to repeat", "ask people to speak more slowly" or even "ask people who can to translate"? In other words: duplicate aspects of what studying involves without the label "studying".

I think a Dutchman, dropped into a Spanish village or town without a Dutch-speaking family or friends and interacting as you described, so trying to learn as naturally as possible but without making the efforts I mention, might take about two years to pick up a "good survival" level. It took me about three years to understand far more written Spanish than spoken, and to understand more spoken Spanish than I could produce at the time without really being able to write it at all. I've never had a "Spanish class" in my life but I've done class-like things, including conversations with people for the sole purpose of practising. I had the advantage of forgotten French and Latin, but the disadvantage of spending my considerable working and family time in English. Friends with Spanish boy/girlfriends and one who gave up teaching to work in a factory as well as having a Spanish lover "learnt" better than fair Spanish in two years.

mesomorph
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Post by mesomorph » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:05 pm

JuanTwoThree wrote:Define "study". Does it include "read with a dictionary", "ask people to explain themselves", "ask people to repeat", "ask people to speak more slowly" or even "ask people who can to translate"? In other words: duplicate aspects of what studying involves without the label "studying".

I think a Dutchman, dropped into a Spanish village or town without a Dutch-speaking family or friends and interacting as you described, so trying to learn as naturally as possible but without making the efforts I mention, might take about two years to pick up a "good survival" level. It took me about three years to understand far more written Spanish than spoken, and to understand more spoken Spanish than I could produce at the time without really being able to write it at all. I've never had a "Spanish class" in my life but I've done class-like things, including conversations with people for the sole purpose of practising. I had the advantage of forgotten French and Latin, but the disadvantage of spending my considerable working and family time in English. Friends with Spanish boy/girlfriends and one who gave up teaching to work in a factory as well as having a Spanish lover "learnt" better than fair Spanish in two years.
In this situation 'study' would not count as any of the things you mention.

'Study' would be going to classes for 20 hours a week, working at home with a good selection of books for 1-3 hours a day, going to the library, using the internet, etc, with motivation and earnestness.

Which level on the European Framework would you say a good survival level was?

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:11 pm

I think that in my experience the state of affairs you describe distorts the skills considerably. Considering that I now have a near native reading and listening ability but that my non-impeding spoken errors (plus embarrassing impeding ones) are many, it's very difficult to categorise a picked up language in terms of the Framework. I would say, you see, that you'd need, to do your tax returns or follow a film, and might have after a couple of years of TV and papers, something like even a very high B2 (Vantage) in the receptive skills but really only need, what with supermarkets and pointing a lot, something more like low Threshold (B1) when speaking productively. Writing could be even more elusive if there are lots of accents and hair-raising tenses. I would say that's how I was after three years of making an effort but not studying as such.

mesomorph
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Post by mesomorph » Mon Sep 08, 2008 10:39 pm

JuanTwoThree wrote:I think that in my experience the state of affairs you describe distorts the skills considerably. Considering that I now have a near native reading and listening ability but that my non-impeding spoken errors (plus embarrassing impeding ones) are many, it's very difficult to categorise a picked up language in terms of the Framework. I would say, you see, that you'd need, to do your tax returns or follow a film, and might have after a couple of years of TV and papers, something like even a very high B2 (Vantage) in the receptive skills but really only need, what with supermarkets and pointing a lot, something more like low Threshold (B1) when speaking productively. Writing could be even more elusive if there are lots of accents and hair-raising tenses. I would say that's how I was after three years of making an effort but not studying as such.
So it seems the better situation is a 'studious' one.

How long do you think it would take an everyday person to get to B2 in all skills if they studied in the manner I described? Starting at A1/A2 level?

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Mon Sep 08, 2008 11:47 pm

Not long, less than a year. A Dutchman in Spain would probably act like that as well, and tut tut about that lazy English git Juan next door.

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:22 am

Yup. Mormon missionaries in the country where they are sent seem to crack something like B2 in a year: loads of motivation, more contact with natives than I could ever sustain and, I imagine, classes before or during their stay.

Don't diplomats have the same steep learning curve?

mesomorph
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Post by mesomorph » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:44 pm

How long do we think it would take the studious Dutchman to get to fluency?

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:37 pm

It might be that the Dutchman or lady already knows a considerable amount of Spanish. They study so many langauges in school and have so many people visiting their country that they often speak a number of languages very well.

mesomorph
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Post by mesomorph » Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:26 pm

Sally Olsen wrote:It might be that the Dutchman or lady already knows a considerable amount of Spanish.
Unfortunately this one only knows Dutch.

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