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Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

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Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#111

Post by dorfuss »

j7ake wrote: post #95
westiseast wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask respectfully what you mean by fluent? Only because...the textbook definition and the colloquial definition differ. I think generally when people say 'fluent' they mean 'native speaker level at reading, writing and speaking language X', whereas fluent actually means you can speak without hesitation on a range of topics. Just a clarification, not an attack! Edit: Plus, I wouldn't knock wordlists. I started tr…

One test of fluency would be to have the person watch a modern film in the language of interest and ask them to transcribe the dialogue into text and also describe in own words (in language of interest) what is going on in the movie. You can then put that person on a scale from 0 to 100 by comparing the score by a random sample of "known" native speakers. This test is nice because it probes many aspects of language:…

Movies are, in my humble opinion, not the best "standard" yard stick to measure fluency. First thing is that films most often use quite limited vocabulary, and it's wildly different vocabulary than, say, found in newspapers, technical writing or in business language. Moreover films present a wide variety of communication styles. It's much easier to understand James Bond than South Park, because humour is actually quite high and demanding register of speech.

Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#112

Post by Agentlien »

behnamoh wrote: post #107
Agentlien wrote: post #104

I live in Sweden, which means I've had to study English since I was nine years old. Disregarding that, I also speak fluent Dutch (with a Flemish accent). The way I learned Dutch came from having a long-distance relationship with a girl from Belgium. When I was visiting her on vacation her family would speak Dutch with one another at the dinner table and I would sit and listen. In the evening they would watch TV. Some…

> The way I learned Dutch came from having a long-distance relationship with a girl from Belgium. When I was visiting her on vacation her family... > We have now lived together in Sweden for five years, we're married... And yet they say long-term relationships don't work :/

You have no idea how many times we were told that over the years.

We met via an online game 13 years ago (pretty much before online dating was a well-known thing). I was 15 at the time. A lot of people wanted to "save us from the inevitable heartbreak". Thankfully, our parents were nothing but supportive and happy for us.

Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#113

Post by mlenny »

I've studied both Spanish and German extensively, even living in countries that speak each target language, but have only become fluent in Spanish.

The way I became fluent in Spanish was that I went to a Spanish speaking country and immersed myself completely. I lived with people who only spoke Spanish, joined a local rec sports team, got a job, and took formal classes for 3 weeks (focused strictly on the subjunctive, which is tricky in Spanish) when I arrived. The most helpful thing by far though was having a local girlfriend, aka the "long haired dictionary". If it's an option, having a significant other with whom you speak the target language is a major leg up. It took me about 18 months after being immersed to feel really fluent and comfortable.

The reason I never became fully fluent in German was because although I lived in the country, I spoke a lot of English there. My Canadian study abroad roommate didn't speak any German and I found that most Germans I met spoke better English than my German would ever be, so many times we'd speak English instead of German. I was in Germany for almost a year.

At the end of the day I think becoming fluent in another language takes a solid base of self study and a whole lot of practice with native level speakers. Build your base with Duolingo, explicit grammar study, and Vocabulary (I recommend memrise), and then find a way to practice natural conversation with native level speakers of the target language.

Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#114

Post by mettamage »

Hmm... every comment I read actually talks about making an effort. Let me give some mundane advice.

For English, I didn't have to make much of an effort. I was 12, loved Dragonball Z -- we have subtitled television. I wanted to know more about it, the US was further in the series than The Netherlands, so I started reading English websites even though I didn't understand much of it.

Eventually I got on forums being a smartass that Goku's power level was not xyz because at website abc.com I read it was abc. All the while I was forced to look in the dictionary from time to time. Also, we went on vacation, then you have to speak English or their native tongue, so I always chose English.

I got on more forums after realizing that the English web has more information than the Dutch web. I started writing there as well. Eventually I'd watch English instruction videos on any topic and learned a lot of things. Eventually I'd even watch psychology courses from Harvard while still being a high school kid.

Then I got to uni and some Dutch people had trouble with academic writing or writing English in general. All that I understood from those people is that they haven't been as much on the English web as I have been.

So yea like many of us who learned English as a 2nd language (in order of importance): the web, videos/series/movies, instructional books, vacations, games and music.

Note: if Japanese would've had a roman alphabet and a stronger web presence I'd be better in that too, since anime is kind of 'force feeding' me Japanese words as well.

Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#119

Post by rsmsky1 »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #74
westiseast wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask respectfully what you mean by fluent? Only because...the textbook definition and the colloquial definition differ. I think generally when people say 'fluent' they mean 'native speaker level at reading, writing and speaking language X', whereas fluent actually means you can speak without hesitation on a range of topics. Just a clarification, not an attack! Edit: Plus, I wouldn't knock wordlists. I started tr…

I also have a problem with the word "fluent". Ok you say you're fluent, here's a simple self-check: Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.). If you can't do this, or grapple with the fact that you don't have a repertoire of these words in your vocabulary, you might want to recons…

Is tinder a real word? I thought it was just a made up word for an app? I can't be expected to explain such words in another language when I can't explain them in my native language. But I think if you said spark instead that would be more reasonable such you need to rub two pieces of wood together and create a spark and then a fire starts.

Re: Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, what did you do?

#120

Post by ivm »

mettamage wrote: post #114

Hmm... every comment I read actually talks about making an effort. Let me give some mundane advice. For English, I didn't have to make much of an effort. I was 12, loved Dragonball Z -- we have subtitled television. I wanted to know more about it, the US was further in the series than The Netherlands, so I started reading English websites even though I didn't understand much of it. Eventually I got on forums being a…

English is a low-hanging fruit because of the amount of quality content that is available only in English, especially tech- or science-related.

I'm now learning Spanish and the main problem is finding interesting things in Spanish without forcing myself into something irrelevant.

So I go for dubbed movies, TV series, listen to talk-based radio channels in background. My OS is in Spanish too, it makes many sites to switch into Spanish locale.

But still generating phrases in Spanish is much harder for me than reading or listening to it, because of this now I'm translating English book into Spanish and verifying my translation with a professional one.

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