Re: Is there an optimal sequence for language acquisition?

>>>>> "Joachim" == Joachim Pense <spam-collector@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Joachim> Am 3 Dec 2005 01:52:38 -0800 schrieb leuwarden@xxxxxxxxx:
>> most people could learn how to *read* a foreign language
>> (passive mastery).

Joachim> Of course, Chinese, Japanese, Sumerian make sort of a
Joachim> difference.

I have passive knowledge of Japanese and French. And because of the
latter, I can often decipher simple Spanish, Italian and Portugese. I
don't speak any Romance language nor Japanese (other than a few simple
sentences). Besides, my knowledge of German and English also enables
me to decipher Dutch.

It's not impossible.


Joachim> I think this also holds for listening. Formal language
Joachim> like news is of course much easier than e.g. movie
Joachim> dialogue.

That's true. I find CNN news much easier to understand than American
movies, because the news people speak much more clearly and refrain
from slangs.


Joachim> So what would be a good order? Read, listen to news,
Joachim> write, speak?

Simultaneously. These 4 skills reinforce one another.
e.g. attempting to write helps you pay better attention to the subtle
differences among words with similar meanings, as well as the
distinction between different grammatical subtleties. Reading alone
can't get you as deep into these areas, as you'll tend to ignore the
most subtle distinctions which you'll find not very relevant to the
main topic of a text. Similarly, if you only concentrate on listening
and never speak, you may not be able to distinguish certain
contrastive sounds. Your teacher would not be able to tell that
you're not able to perceive those differences. If you have to talk
and repeat speech sounds, others can point out your error, from which
you can learn and improve. Reading can (unconciously) enhance your
vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, which are useful for all the
other 3 aspects of language learning.



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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