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Ever studied a foreign language? Answer my linguistics survey (please)
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| Eleazar |
Greetings International Trance Community,
I'm studying modern languages and linguistics at university and for my second language acquisition class that I am currently taking I need some responses to a short questionaire from people that have ever learned or attempted to learn a foreign language.
I knew that the boards here would be a great place to get diverse responses, as there are people here from all over the world.
So, if you wouldnt mind helping me out, I'd love you forever and hopefully I can get a good grade on this paper.
;)
Ok, here it is:
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Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken:
Which Languages Spoken/Studied:
Length of Time Studied:
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages:
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Rate the characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner...
- ...is a willing and accurate guesser:
- ...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking:
- ...is willing to make mistakes:
- ...constantly looks for patterns in the language:
- ...practices as often as possible:
- ...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others:
- ...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned:
- ...enjoys grammar excercises:
- ...begins learning in childhood:
- ...has an above-average IQ:
- ...has good academic skills:
- ...has a good self-image and lots of confidence:
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| butterfly |
Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: 2
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: English (fluent); french (not so fluent)
Length of Time Studied: 5 years
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages: moderate
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Rate characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner
[list=1]
[*]...is a willing and accurate guesser: 4
[*]...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 2
[*]...is willing to make mistakes: 1
[*]...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 1
[*]...practices as often as possible: 2
[*]...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 3
[*]...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 5
[*]...enjoys grammar excercises: 5
[*]...begins learning in childhood: 3
[*]...has an above-average IQ: 4
[*]...has good academic skills: 3
[*]...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 3 |
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| Yan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Eleazar
Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: 2
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: Russian, English, Hebrew (studied), Spanish (studied), Japanese (studied).
Length of Time Studied: Hebrew studied for 5 years. Spanish studied for 4 years. Japanese studied for 1 year.
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages: I wasn't interested in learning Hebrew at all. I wasn't too excited about learning Spanish but I did enjoy it. I was very excited about taking Japanese and I am enjoying currently taking it.
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Rate characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner:
- ...is a willing and accurate guesser: 3
- ...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 5
- ...is willing to make mistakes: 5
- ...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 3
- ...practices as often as possible: 5
- ...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 3
- ...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 5
- ...enjoys grammar excercises: 3
- ...begins learning in childhood: 4
- ...has an above-average IQ: 5
- ...has good academic skills: 5
- ...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 2
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Good luck with your grade. :)
It'll probably take Lira a decent amount of time to fill this out. You scholar, you. :p |
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| Eleazar |
wow, thank you all soo much!
Yan, you are very interesting to me. You have studied major languages from such a wide range. That's awesome. Are you Jewish? Why the Hebrew? And where do you live?
thank you butterfly, it's good to get female responses! You are from the US? |
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| Miss Bliss |
Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: 4
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: Russian (native), English, French, German in that order
Length of Time Studied: Russian - I've been speaking, reading and writing, all my life I guess, but I only have an actual grammar course for the first time in my life this semester; English - since I was 6; French - past 6 years; German - 2 years
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages: very high in all
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Rate the characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner...
...is a willing and accurate guesser: 2
...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 1
...is willing to make mistakes: 1
...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 2
...practices as often as possible: 1
...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 2
...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 3
...enjoys grammar excercises: 5
...begins learning in childhood: 5
...has an above-average IQ: 5
...has good academic skills: 5
...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 3 |
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| Floorfiller |
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eleazar
Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: 2
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: Japanese and English (Native)
Length of Time Studied: Took Japanese for 4.5 years
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages: i did want to learn it, but unfortunately didn't put the effort in
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Rate the characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner...
- ...is a willing and accurate guesser: 3
- ...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 1
- ...is willing to make mistakes: 1
- ...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 3
- ...practices as often as possible: 1
- ...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 2
- ...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 3
- ...enjoys grammar excercises: 2
- ...begins learning in childhood: 1
- ...has an above-average IQ: 3
- ...has good academic skills: 3
- ...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 4
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| Yan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Eleazar
Yan, you are very interesting to me. You have studied major languages from such a wide range. That's awesome. Are you Jewish? Why the Hebrew? And where do you live? |
I was born in Beltsy, Moldova (that's how I know Russian) but moved to Kiev, Ukraine after birth and then moved to New York when I was 4. The family was too poor to afford a normal public school so I went to a Yeshiva (Hebrew School). We would pray each morning and have Jewish studies for the first half of the day. I wasn't too interested in that, though. Between 5th and 6th grade, I made a move from Brooklyn to Long Island. I went to a normal middle school (6th grade and on). Knowledge in a second language is necessary to graduate from school so it was either Spanish, French, or Italian (the only choices the school was providing). I chose Spanish. Now I'm taking Japanese in college out of sheer interest.
I still reside in New York.
Hope that helps. |
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| Eleazar |
Again, you guys rock! thanks for the quick responses and interesting as well. i knew this place would be perfect for this
:crazy:
@MISS BLISS: it is interesting that you gave "begins learning in childhood" a 5 (not important at all) since you learned all your languages during childhood. Are you saying that one doesn't necessarily have to begin learning their languages in childhood to be a "good" language learner? I am hoping you could elaborate a little. |
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| Lira |
I'm going to post all details, as I'm not sure what could be useful here :p I really hope it doesn't look cocky, it's just that this is one of my favourite subjects :D
Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: Fluently 3 (English, Spanish, Portuguese)
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: It depends. I'd say 7 (the former 2 non-native languages + Intermediary Japanese, Basic Russian - good grammar but poor vocabulary, Basic german, and I used to speak Italian till I was 7 years old, so I can't speak it fluently but I can often communicate without major problems), but...
As for phonological/phonetic systems, for example, I've studied Korean and Chinese as well, not only because I plan to learn these languages in the future, but because of correspondent vowels (like the closed central unrouded vowel, present both in Russian and Korean), tones (as it exists in Chinese in a more complex environment than in Japanese) and writing (you probably heard about hangul and its amazing features).
However, notice that it would be humanly impossible to be fluent at all these languages without meeting the proper criteria (i.e. although I have Russian TA's to talk to, I barely have the chance to speak Russian with someone in real life, specially after all my friends who were Russian decided to go back to Russia, the bastards :p), and learning languages was actually a hobby of mine till I decided to study linguistics as well (although I'm majoring in Japanese Literature and Culture) so it now became part of my work :)
Length of Time Studied:
Portuguese = native language
Italian = second language (eventually ditched it as I was having trouble at school*)
English = 5 years
Spanish = 3 years
Japanese = 2 years
Russian = 1 year
German = 3 months :p
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages:
Portuguese = crucial, as I would die of hunger if I didn't speak it :D
Italian = reasonable
English = high
Spanish = high
Japanese = high
Russian = very high
German = reasonable
Rate characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner:
1. ...is a willing and accurate guesser: 1
2. ...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 1
3. ...is willing to make mistakes: 1
4. ...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 2
5. ...practices as often as possible: 3
6. ...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 2
7. ...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 4
8. ...enjoys grammar excercises: 3
9. ...begins learning in childhood: 4
10. ...has an above-average IQ: 4
11. ...has good academic skills: 5
12. ...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 3
*I was learning to read, and learning to write in Portuguese and Italian at the same led to some problems. |
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| Miss Bliss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Eleazar
@MISS BLISS: it is interesting that you gave "begins learning in childhood" a 5 (not important at all) since you learned all your languages during childhood. Are you saying that one doesn't necessarily have to begin learning their languages in childhood to be a "good" language learner? I am hoping you could elaborate a little. |
I actually started learning French at 13 and German at 18. I also can read a fair amount of Spanish considering all I've ever done with it is read ads in the subway and look over my boyfriend's shouler while he does Spanish homework. And I end up tutoring him in Spanish lol. I think all you need to be a "good language learner" is enthusiasm and hard work. And if you have a talent for making connections that connect different words and grammatical structures, and a good memory, that definitely helps.
Of course it's better to learn during childhood... it's easier... but you don't have to. Accent is a different story though. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yan
It'll probably take Lira a decent amount of time to fill this out. You scholar, you. :p |
:D |
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| NiteMer |
I'm studying modern languages and linguistics at university and for my second language acquisition class that I am currently taking I need some responses to a short questionaire from people that have ever learned or attempted to learn a foreign language.
I knew that the boards here would be a great place to get diverse responses, as there are people here from all over the world.
So, if you wouldnt mind helping me out, I'd love you forever and hopefully I can get a good grade on this paper.
;)
Ok, here it is:
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Biographical Information
Number of Languages Spoken: 4
Which Languages Spoken/Studied: English, Norwegian, French, and Spanish
Length of Time Studied: all my life, 2 years (Note - I have been speaking Norwegian since I was a child), 4.5 years, .5 years.
Amount of Interest in Learning this/these Languages: Was very interested
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Rate the characteristics below as follows:
1 = Very Important
2 = Quite Important
3 = Important
4 = Not Very Important
5 = Not Important At All
A good language learner...
[list=1]
[*]...is a willing and accurate guesser: 2
[*]...tries to get a message across even if specific language knowledge is lacking: 1
[*]...is willing to make mistakes: 1
[*]...constantly looks for patterns in the language: 2
[*]...practices as often as possible: 1
[*]...analyses his or her own speech and the speech of others: 1
[*]...attends to whether his or her performance meets the standards he or she has learned: 1
[*]...enjoys grammar excercises: 3
[*]...begins learning in childhood: 3
[*]...has an above-average IQ: 2
[*]...has good academic skills: 2
[*]...has a good self-image and lots of confidence: 2 |
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