K. T.

How would you rank your languages HONESTLY? Everyone seems to have their own system. One polyglot ranks languages (in part) by his ability to translate them and in relation to talking about literature
I guess that I would rate languages a little differently (I am NOT saying that HIS way of rating them is wrong. He is interested in reading languages, I'm more interested in all four skills, but chiefly understanding, reading and speaking.)

a. Can you read a newspaper like El PAIS, Le Figaro, or one of the German newspapers without looking up more than seven words per article if it is an easy topic like a human interest story.

b. Can you order a meal, get directions, discuss problems at the airport, hotel, if needed?

c. Could you carry on a conversation with people at a Bed and Breakfast in the target language(s)? This is a situation where you are seated with strangers at breakfast and it is normal to converse with them.

d. Can you write a simple TY note?

e. If you received the wrong book in the mail from a publisher in another country, could you reply in such a way that you'd be understood?

f. Can you watch a movie without subtitles in the target language and get most of it? This would be in the original language

If you can do this, I think you are conversational in the language and on your way to fluency or perhaps already fluent

What do you think? How would you grade your languages? Like this?

I put my name in the wrong space, lol.

Could you please rank your languages according to your system K.T.
Thanks

<<f. Can you watch a movie without subtitles in the target language and get most of it? This would be in the original language >>

This one seems out of place amongst the others. The others are all quite easy, but this one is probably one of the last things you master in becoming fluent. Speech in movies is often harder to understand than conversations in real life.

"This one seems out of place amongst the others."

Thank-you for your comments. Until recently I thought that understanding a language was the easiest task for a second-language learner, but the head of a language school agrees with you; this is the most difficult task for many students.



patinha: Basically, I will not admit that I speak a language unless I can do all or most of these things. In my case, I can usually understand a movie before I can write a good letter. I wonder if it is the same for people who follow Krashen.

I can do the above in most of the big Romance languages, German, and Japanese.

If I were to field a guess, I wouldn't be surprised if a person who has learned as few as four languages finds comprehension comes very quickly as his/her brain subconsciously picks out sounds and structures in new languages.

That's why I think people can:

revive a dormant language
learn languages into old age
learn as many languages as they can find time to learn if the material is available.

The old connections are still there, waiting to be switched on. Don't steal this, SK!

I think you should replace

"f. Can you watch a movie without subtitles in the target language and get most of it? This would be in the original language "

with:

"f: can you watch a news broadcaste without subtitles in the target language and get most of it? This would be in the original language "

or

"f: can you hold a conversation with native speakers and get most of it? This would be in the original language - however the interlocuters know you are non-native and don't get carried away with their language"



I find it hard to believe someone would find it easy to understand native-to-native conversational speech without vast experience, regardless of the number of languages learnt. Native-to-non-native, or native-to-native-formal, sure, but native-to-native-informal is another league.

Dutch
English
Frisian
German
French

However I don't understand any language in movies. Has to do with hearing problems. Even in Dutch movies I have subtitles. :( Movies have background noise which is a big killer for me.

Reading and writing isn't a big problem. The only problem I have is to hear them. Every language is a problem. In fact I can only understand Dutch and Frisian when spoken. Well off course I understand English as well but I should be able to separate the words and if it's spoken quickly I can't follow at all.

As an extension to my last post:
My hearing loss is kinda big. The loss looks like a parabola. High and low sounds are not a big issue.
The loss is about 25dB @ 250Hz and 4KHz.
But within the speaking range at around 1KHz I have a loss of 50-60dB with a maximum at around 1.5KHz. So you can make a drawing with several numbers on it between 100Hz and 10KHz.

Set the lowest point at 1.5KHz..

Make sure the numbers are like:
125-250-500-1000-2000-4000-8000.
Space between these numbers is equal.

Make a hearing loss between 0 and 60dB.
Place a point at around 1.5KHz @ 60dB loss.
Place at 250Hz and 4KHz a point @ 25dB
Make a nice parabola and you'll see my hearing loss. :)

"I find it hard to believe someone would find it easy to understand native-to-native conversational speech without vast experience, regardless of the number of languages learnt. Native-to-non-native, or native-to-native-formal, sure, but native-to-native-informal is another league."

I agree with you about the informal usage, but people seem to vary in how quickly they can sort out the spoken language.

Is it KT or K.T.? There was a KT in the early days of antimoon. Has the prodigal son returned?