Which language skills?

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Which language skill would you like to like to learn most of all?

Reading
3
21%
Writing
2
14%
Listening
1
7%
Conversation
7
50%
Grammar
1
7%
 
Total votes: 14

youandme
Posts:5
Joined:2021-02-05, 0:55
Which language skills?

Postby youandme » 2021-02-05, 1:23

Hi, I have been reading the unilang forum for a while now, but never actively wrote a post. I'm native German, and I studied English, French, Russian, Spanish and Mandarin. But the latter 3 I have already forgotten, almost completely. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a couple of questions... Here comes the first:

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linguoboy
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Re: Which language skills?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-02-06, 0:11

It's going to depend on the language. Some languages I'm fairly comfortable reading but need more practice speaking before I can comfortably use them in conversation. Others I can speak conversationally but haven't ever really had to write formally so I'm missing some formal written registers which would be handy for official communications. Other languages I'm only really interested in learning the grammar of, either because I won't ever really have the opportunity to read or speak them or because that's just not what I care about. So there's no single response that fits.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Hoogstwaarschijnlijk
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Re: Which language skills?

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2021-02-06, 19:47

Grammar. It's most fun :)
And after that, reading, because it's useful.
Native: Dutch
Learns: Latin and French
Knows also (a bit): English, German, Turkish, Danish

Corrections appreciated.

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Rí.na.dTeangacha
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Country:IEIreland (Éire / Ireland)

Re: Which language skills?

Postby Rí.na.dTeangacha » 2021-02-06, 20:25

Like linguoboy said, it depends on the language. I consider high proficiency in conversational skills to be the gold standard for language learning, but I don't want to learn all the languages I study to that degree. Reading is usually an attainable goal across multiple languages, especially if they are closely related languages, and is useful as you can easily acquire content to read online. Listening is also pretty useful because of podcasts and YouTube, but is usually harder to achieve.
(pt-br)(ja) - Formerly Ciarán12

vijayjohn
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Re: Which language skills?

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-02-07, 7:28

My answer is actually pretty simple if we're talking about what skill I'd like to pick up most in languages overall: listening, because most languages aren't written anyway (or understanding sign language in real time in the case of sign languages).

But if we're talking about the ones I actually know anything in, then the answer's more complicated and depends on the language. :P

youandme
Posts:5
Joined:2021-02-05, 0:55

Re: Which language skills?

Postby youandme » 2021-02-15, 14:00

Thanks for taking part in my little survey -- and also for this interesting discussion. It is truly amazing how active the unilang community still is - even after all these years!

I'm also quite impressed how many languages some of you are learning in parallel... I used to do that, too, when I was younger - but now I've been getting more picky, I suppose...

Beyond these really interesting answers, I'd be very curious to know what the other people are thinking. After all, 11 answers don't make a statistic, yet ;-)

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linguoboy
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Re: Which language skills?

Postby linguoboy » 2021-02-15, 16:39

youandme wrote:Beyond these really interesting answers, I'd be very curious to know what the other people are thinking. After all, 11 answers don't make a statistic, yet ;-)

It's never going to be a "statistic" because your sample is too small and self-selecting. The best you can hope for here is "anecdata".
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


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