|
|
Listening or reading
It I were to ask a question hypothetically, which option would be better to choose from in your opinion. For starting a language from scratch, 1. Learning solely from listening to the language. 2. Learning solely from reading to the language. Note: There is no combo of these two activities. Pick either one.
Thanks.
I'd stop learning anything for the rest of my life if I can't do both at the same time. I'd prefer becoming mute.
I agree with Xie; although the question clearly is hypothetical, nevertheless it is utterly impractical, meaningless, stupid and trollish. Find something better to do M.
Xie is a dumbass, this is what I can say. After all, kids become fluent in their native languages just by listening to their parents when they were young. They did not do any serious reading.
Here is one more example to illustrate that my question was not meaningless at all. I know people who were born and raised in the USA- they learned the language of their immigrant parents by listening to their conversations on a regular basis but they couldn't read or write a shit in the language. Yet, the life did not stop for them and they could communicate extremely well with the people who speak the language as natives.
I've spoken with such people and they could not communicate EXTREMELY well, although they COULD communicate. The reason is the lack of formal education in STANDARD language. Their language was outdated, crude and sometimes hard to understand. They also had hard time understanding natives, adapting to dialects and culture and this took years in some cases.
But the reason why I believe your topic is stupid is: OF COURSE it's better to learn language in ANY way possible, then to learn it just in ONE way! To "Pick either one" is simply preposterous!
Since it's a hypothetical question, don't be too hard on Guest. And it's maybe not so hypothetical--we can't always get materials in a language, especially listening materials, and especially for less-commonly-studied languages. And some people just really prefer one way over the other (e.g., curling up with a good book vs. listening to recordings.)
Having said all that, here is my take on the question: it depends on the language. With a language that has a straightforward pronunciation and orthography (e.g., Spanish, Italian, German, Swahili, Esperanto) you can get pretty good with reading only, if you have even a little idea of how it sounds. But I don't see how you could possibly do that with a language like Mandarin, even if the writing system wasn't so opaque. With other languages without a straightforward pronunciation/orthography (e.g., Danish, English, French), it's difficult, unless you have a "preview" with a lot of listening. I've tried Swedish with reading only, and it's tough without having the pronunciation/orthography well mastered. The flip side, listening only, is possible, but you'd have to spend a LOT more time at it. (See the antimoon "How to Learn English" section on Input and reading.) It's been mentioned elsewhere, but read about the Mexican who learned Hebrew in a Los Angeles Israeli restaurant: http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/what_does_it_take/all.html Great results, but not a situation that most can duplicate, and it took him a long time. And yes, the ideal is to do both listening and reading. Especially at the beginning, listening is invaluable. Once you have the basics down, reading can take you far.
I'm aware that in REAL LIFE there's a myriad different ways to learn a language; it is exactly the hypothetical nature of the question that bothers me. In THEORY there's no dilemma.
I'd say "listening" is more important.
I don't think it's a stupid question. It just doesn't make sense in practice, LOL. I am sure "listening" is more important, because it the most basic layer in the learning process. When you were young, first you listened, then you spoke, and finally you read and wrote. If you just listen, you can only get benefits. But if you try to read without knowing what English sounds like (because you never listened to anything), how can you know how to read correctly? You can't, and you'll have to make up your own way of speaking, which probably no one can understand, and that habit will be difficult to lose... and that can only be a disadvantage. |