h a l f b a k e r yIs it soup yet?
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This I like. Sort of "passive" language skills. |
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Baked. Americans. They can understand English, but can't speak it. |
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Which dialect of English would you be referring to? Estuary?
Kentish? Norfolk? Suffolk? Devonshire? Bristolian?
Cockney? Does any of the above resemble English? |
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// Which dialect of English // |
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Proper English, like what the Queen done speak. |
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I think the speaking and listening half might be more useful. There is a lot of precedent for doing without the reading and writing half. |
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I wonder if the right brain language (gesturing, grimacing etc) is language / culture specific? If an expert watched someone talking expressively with the sound off could he or she tell where that person was from? |
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No fair using the Queen for this test. Maybe test subjects could wear mime makeup and a beret for purposes of camouflaging culturo-ethnic giveaways. |
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That way I learned to read Spanish and a bit of French - but I couldn't talk my way out of a paper bag in neither language. So there is at least anectodal evidence of the principle to work. One of the drawbacks is that you get much of the pronounciation wrong in your mind's ear. |
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I am so glad it was not just the adjectives / nouns or the verbs / adverbs. |
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Relating this to math as a language, I begin to suspect that
we are being taught half a math language. As a society, we
are not fluent in math. |
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The Queen speaks? I thought all she did was wave
and wear silly hats. |
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You hear and read a language. You become comfortable with it.
You associate meanings with it. |
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Not uttering it, you never realise that the meanings you've
ascribed to it are wrong*. |
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*The waiter looks rather offended and brings you an inner tube. |
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Taken to its illogical extreme, as no one could speak or write a language, eventually there would be no one to listen to and nothing to read. |
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In some cases it doesn't matter. I once learned enough "passive
German" to extract the information I wanted from the Pauly-
Wissowa Realencyclopädie, and it didn't matter that I couldn't
hold a conversation. |
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Looking at it from an engineering point of view, rather than a
philosophical point of view, I was wondering how we might
characterise the use cases to which this idea would be
applicable. |
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The study of dead languages would be one, but what are the
others? |
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Watching "foreign" movies, reading "foreign" books (however
"foreign" is defined for you), street signs, menus etc when
travelling.
In light of current situations (pandemics, lately a tsunami
warning) being able to understand emergency instructions
while somewhere else would be rather useful. |
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Suppose you're reading a foreign novel (as opposed to non-
fiction). If you couldn't read it at a fluent speed, you probably
wouldn't enjoy it. If you couldn't hear in your own head how the
words were supposed to sound, you probably wouldn't enjoy it.
If you couldn't imagine the world from the point of view of the
characters speaking the dialog, you probably wouldn't enjoy it.
But if you could do all these things, then you would, in effect, be
able to speak the language. |
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So maybe the "foreign books" use case should be confined to
"non- fiction foreign books". |
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Given that exclusion, is there any use case ascribable to this
idea which would not be handled better by AI translation? |
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Yes; every case where you don't have an AI translator handy! |
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Can I sell you this small rock, which is superior to a hammer in
every case where you don't have a hammer handy? |
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There's a discount if you buy in bulk. |
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//They can understand English, but can't speak it.// |
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Yet I'm surrounded by those who can neither listen nor shut up. |
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Many years ago, I was sent out on a mission across the world by my employers to train classrooms full of users in how to use my
company's software product. I was lucky enough to have a Spanish translator in Argentina, and muddled through in
French-speaking places, but had to improvise in German-speaking Lichtenstein by setting the software's language
settings to German, and using the menu-drop-downs as a kind of crib sheet, with a projector and my laptop to help,
I managed to glue the words from the menus together with variations of "links-clicken" and "rechts-clicken" and
tried to memorise my way through the course topographically. They allowed me to leave at the end of the day, so
apparently they were satisfied at having received enough instruction, but it was a weird day. Sometimes, it's less
a case of having learned half a language, so much as blindly carrying on regardless of knowing essentially nothing
at all. |
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If you want to write & speak you have to
learn the different ways various letters are pronounced in
the
other language. If you're just reading & writing it you can
merrily jog on without ever bothering to learn that. |
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How
can
it not be easier to only have to learn the meanings
of the
letter combinations without worrying about how they're
supposed to sound
:) |
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[pertinax]; I have used a rock when I didn't have a hammer. I
didn't need to buy one; if I was buying something to carry, I
would buy a hammer!
Equally, AI would be better than learning half a language,
but knowing half a language is better when you don't have
an AI. |
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True, but I suspect that the courses at the proposed language
centre would cost more than picking up a rock. |
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