How long does it take to get fluent in another language??

[girasol]

Every year thousands and thousands in the world get their diploma as interpretor/translator in several languages without having spend a day in its country of origin.
And more specifically in Eastern Europe there are training courses aimed at becoming fluent - wihtouth accent - in a foreign language in exactly 3 months, in order to work as tele-operator (sales- or cleintservice) for foreign companies.

All this talk about languages being so difficult that it is pictured as an almost impossible task to learn even a single one. I really don't understand where people get it.

salaam.

There's no way you can become fluent in a foreign language in 3 months - not unless you are some sort of extremely rare prodigy. NOT POSSIBLE for 99.999999% of people. Even if you lived in the country, you'd have to be in a 8 hour a day course and completely imersed in the language, and even then it would take longer than 3 months. When I was 7 years old I moved to Mexico, and children are the fastest learners when it comes to a new language, even then, it took me 6 months to get the hang of it.

You may be able to speak sentences that fit a job, and emulate the accent, but that doesn't mean you're fluent. Most of non English speakers can sing in English with perfect accents but that doesn't mean they can speak the language.

 

[Ms T]

It depends on a lot of things - how much you work at it, whether you have a natural facility for languages or not, how much time you spend in Italy etc.

After six months of living in France at the age of eighteen, I was pretty much fluent, and with barely any accent, but I had studied it at school for seven years before that.

 

[laptop]

Your last line is exactly what I was getting at

But from a comparative linguistics perspective neither is a pure syllabary, is it?

your description of hiragana and katakana are inaccurate

Imprecise. I'll give you "imprecise"

Have your forgotten that I teach Japanese when not researching it?

In fact, I have just spent the day translating the 2006 Fundamental Law of Education from Japanese into English.

That is why I am now drinking vodka.....

Was it sake this morning?

 

[gaijingirl]

But from a comparative linguistics perspective neither is a pure syllabary, is it?

As a linguist (albeit one who is struggling to keep it all going) and a Japanese speaker I would say that I have always seen and heard katakana and hiragana referred to as syllabaries - certainly that's how they're described in my grammar books and all the other references I have. Having done a bit of research though I see that it is sometimes called a moraic writing system.

Regardless - my original statement that Japanese does not have an alphabet still stands and your statement that it has three is incorrect.

 

[gaijingirl]

Imprecise. I'll give you "imprecise"

Or perhaps "miles out"??

(Certainly not the kind of standard I would expect from you Laptop!!!!)

 

[Badgers]

I learned Slug in about half an hour

 

[ramjamclub]

What is Fluent?

What is Fluent? I suppose the best way to test your fluency is to see a
stand- up comic perform. If you can understand more than 90% and also are able to tell a joke in the same language then you're pretty fluent.
I don't think you have to be able to translate the complete constitutional laws.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Japanese is much more complex than Chinese and even children can learn it. Which shows that no language is "impossible to learn" for anyone.

salaam.

Ah, but japanese doesn't have the ridiculously difficult tonal system which makes chinese so hard for westerners. When I did my TEFL course, we had a 10 minute show lesson to teach us some japanese, to show us how to teach English. I picked up more in that than I did of Chinese in my first year in China. And I had, at one point, a travel book about Japan which had some phrases in. I tried repeating them to some japanese people and they understood straight away.

The Chinese are ridiculously petty and fussy about how their language is spoken. Everything has to be 100% perfect or they refuse to understand. That is the difference between the two.

Sure, I can believe that Japanese could get more gramatically challenging at the higher levels, but at least it's sort of accessible. Chinese is bloody hard to just get into speaking a bit of - that's not just my experience, it's that of many, many westerners in China.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I have experienced that the main problem with British people learning a language is the embarrassment factor. To use the tones and sounds of the language, nasal, guttural, sharp or sing song sounds that many languages have and be confident about it. The "G" and "CH" in Dutch is very hard and guttural.
At first it's like bring up phlegm but after you learn it propely it becomes a normal sound to you. Not wanting to sound like a show-off when you speak the language in front of your "British friends" with a good pronunciation.
Not wanting to offend anyone is another problem the British have with languages. You will always make mistakes but in 99% of the time people do take that into consideration. Laziness is the worst offender, often when if gets difficult to express yourself and you revert back to English because they all speak English anyway. Just keep practising with the natives and you'll get there.

What about the problem of THEM wanting to speak English to US!!!!

I had that in PAris, where I was a year away from finishing my Degree and spoke fluent French for heaven's sake! It makes it bloody difficult!

In China this is another huge problem. It happens much more in places like mcdonalds, pizza hut, large department stores, anywhere 'westernised'. They see a westerner and assume he is only in there because he doesn't know what he is doing, and hence speak in bad english to him, even if he is speaking to them in very good chinese, they just refuse to understand.

 

[gaijingirl]

Ah, but japanese doesn't have the ridiculously difficult tonal system which makes chinese so hard for westerners. When I did my TEFL course, we had a 10 minute show lesson to teach us some japanese, to show us how to teach English. I picked up more in that than I did of Chinese in my first year in China. And I had, at one point, a travel book about Japan which had some phrases in. I tried repeating them to some japanese people and they understood straight away.

The Chinese are ridiculously petty and fussy about how their language is spoken. Everything has to be 100% perfect or they refuse to understand. That is the difference between the two.

Sure, I can believe that Japanese could get more gramatically challenging at the higher levels, but at least it's sort of accessible. Chinese is bloody hard to just get into speaking a bit of - that's not just my experience, it's that of many, many westerners in China.

I agree, Japanese is actually very easy to speak - it's the writing/reading system that's just silly with so many potential ways of reading kanji characters - hence the simplified kana at train stations etc - because even the Japanese can't know how to read random sets of characters!!!

 

[ramjamclub]

What about the problem of THEM wanting to speak English to US!!!!

I had that in PAris, where I was a year away from finishing my Degree and spoke fluent French for heaven's sake! It makes it bloody difficult!

In China this is another huge problem. It happens much more in places like mcdonalds, pizza hut, large department stores, anywhere 'westernised'. They see a westerner and assume he is only in there because he doesn't know what he is doing, and hence speak in bad english to him, even if he is speaking to them in very good chinese, they just refuse to understand.

Yes, I agree. The locals wanting to try their English out on you, even if you are fluent. I learnt a couple of humourous comebacks in Dutch to stop them in their tracks. Once I almost got into a fight with a drunken Dutchman who persisted in speaking broken English to me. When I told him he was corrupting my English, he demanded that I speak English with him . Ok I said and asked him if he knew what being a prize c*** meant.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I agree, Japanese is actually very easy to speak - it's the writing/reading system that's just silly with so many potential ways of reading kanji characters - hence the simplified kana at train stations etc - because even the Japanese can't know how to read random sets of characters!!!

On the other hand the kanji can make reading easyer in some ways. Mrs Suplex finds is a pain reading hirigana alone. When we look at familiar words we are only seeing the pattern (hence the trick where you change all the letters around in the words within a sentence bar the first and the last letters but can still read. Obviously I'm not as advanced in my kanji knowlege but the sign for 'man' and 'woman' on toilet door or 'push' etc are easyer for me to read than if it were writen in katagana/hirigana.

 

[gaijingirl]

On the other hand the kanji can make reading easyer in some ways. Mrs Suplex finds is a pain reading hirigana alone. When we look at familiar words we are only seeing the pattern (hence the trick where you change all the letters around in the words within a sentence bar the first and the last letters but can still read. Obviously I'm not as advanced in my kanji knowlege but the sign for 'man' and 'woman' on toilet door or 'push' etc are easyer for me to read than if it were writen in katagana/hirigana.

That's a good point too - I find it almost impossible to read texts completely written in kana.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I'm nowhere nearly advanced enough to read anything other than comics with all the kanji spelt out in hiragana.

And I do this very slowly.

 

[tim]

Basics for everyday stuff like shopping/asking the time are easy. Then you get all the other almost pointless stuff. The best way to learn is get some basics and some pointless stuff underyour belt then go and meet some people who don't speak english and have a chat. You will soon figure out the most important phrases.
On my last trip to Japan I spent loads of time without Mrs Suplex talking to my new music friends etc. My Japanese improved I think, I at least got more confident.

Totaly fluent? That's gotta take ages. Mrs Suplex has been learning english of sorts since she was 12 and she is not 100% fluent.

Fluency is, of course, not the same as accuracy. You should be able to develop a fluent command (the ability to communicate, understand and respond) of the language with 6 months to a year. You will however probably make lots of errors that don't hinder communication, but mark you out as a foreigner when you speak

 

[tim]

Yes, I agree. The locals wanting to try their English out on you, even if you are fluent. I learnt a couple of humourous comebacks in Dutch to stop them in their tracks. Once I almost got into a fight with a drunken Dutchman who persisted in speaking broken English to me. When I told him he was corrupting my English, he demanded that I speak English with him . Ok I said and asked him if he knew what being a prize c*** meant.

If they want to speak English to you, invoice them for services rendered.

 

[selamlar]

Have been learning Turkish (in Turkey) for two and a bit years now. Have a good level of understanding of the spoken language, and I can read a bit, but I can't write to save myself. Other than really really stupidly easy sentances. Depends what you mean by fluent I guess.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Have been learning Turkish (in Turkey) for two and a bit years now. Have a good level of understanding of the spoken language, and I can read a bit, but I can't write to save myself. Other than really really stupidly easy sentances. Depends what you mean by fluent I guess.

Then I'm fluent in asking the time, shopping, and banal broken chit chat.

With of course plenty of gramatical errors.

 

[electric.avenue]

Japanese is much more complex than Chinese and even children can learn it. Which shows that no language is "impossible to learn" for anyone.

salaam.

Actually I found Japanese relatively straightforward once you get to grips a bit with the writing system. You don't have the complexity of different gendered nouns like you do with most European languages. Also, you don't get the complications of different tones like you do in Chinese - I think Japanese is quite straightforward to pronounce, once you get used to the fact that it's unstressed.

Oh, and nice to hear you are going to study @ the City Lit, zenie - great place - I did Arabic there once.

 

[LDR]

Oh, and nice to hear you are going to study @ the City Lit, zenie - great place - I did Arabic there once.

The City Lit is brilliant. I used to work there many, many years ago.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Actually I found Japanese relatively straightforward once you get to grips a bit with the writing system. You don't have the complexity of different gendered nouns like you do with most European languages. Also, you don't get the complications of different tones like you do in Chinese - I think Japanese is quite straightforward to pronounce, once you get used to the fact that it's unstressed.

Oh, and nice to hear you are going to study @ the City Lit, zenie - great place - I did Arabic there once.

I would aggree, a fairly straightforward/logical (for the first parts at least) language to speak and read. Well a lot easyer than Chinese that's for sure.

 

[zenie]

I feel even more ashamed that the guy I met at the weekend speaks Ukranian, Russian, Italian and Spanish as well as English

Some people are just 'good' at languages innit?