练习的收获:练习不同外语以后,你会感觉在学英语很简单
你看看下面的英文,里面即使由于一些生词也能直接阅读理解了。这就是难度对比效应吧。
3.2.1 Thoughtful vs spontaneous use of language
l Etiquette and ethics of using native speakers for
conversation practice.
l Importance of the perceived attitudes of
conversation partners.
m Which should come first, formal or informal study?
‘Another thing,’ Carla went on, ‘I feel comfortable with Germans. Sometimes I’ve
been the only non-German in a whole group of Germans, and I don’t feel
intimidated. Of course,’ she said, ‘no one’s ever laughed at me, either - or in Brazil.
We’d just go ahead and do whatever we were doing. And in Sao Paulo we had
maids, and we used to talk, talk, talk all the time!’
‘At least they didn’t laugh unkindly.’
‘No, no! Of course everyone laughs when something’s funny, but you see, nobody
ever said, “Golly, you’re dumb!” or made fun. And that may have helped me.’
‘Even when someone did correct you, you never felt stopped in your tracks.’
‘Or threatened. No. No.’
‘There in Brazil. life was in Portuguese!’
‘Hm! I mean. it really was!’ she replied. ‘I still remember quite a bit after three
years. And if somebody had just sat down with me and said, “You’re doing so-andso
incorrectly. Do it this way” - if they had done that repetitiously - I’d be speaking
correctly today!’
Carla then began to talk about life in her present class. ‘I’m really finding it
difficult,’ she said, ‘because I’m in with people who got high scores on the aptitude
test. And then there’s this one fellow who knows so much English grammar! Most of
the English grammar I know, I’ve picked up in studying other languages! Oh, I did
have a little grammar from the Portuguese teacher I had for a while, but then I’d
50 Success with Foreign Languages
just come into class and close my book, and she’d start saying things to me, and I’d
just close my eyes, and try not to think, and just absorb what I was learning. Come
to think of it, that may be part of my problem now, having to sit down with a
book . . .’
‘It sounds as though the difficulty is that, instead of being able to close your eyes
and just swap sentences back and forth, you’re now being asked to deal with
grammatical concepts. You’re being asked to take things out of their natural
German setting, and pick them up, and look at them.’
‘Yes, and it doesn’t feel very natural to me, to do all this.’
‘Maybe the difficulty is that now you’re having to introduce thinking into what, up
to now, was a simple, natural process.’
Carla laughed. ‘Maybe that’s what it is!’ she mused. ‘Maybe I’ve started thinking!’
Comments
Which language should I use with speakers of the language I am learning? If the
people I’m talking with really need to improve their command of my language more
than I need to improve my command of theirs, then it would be self-indulgent for
me to insist on practicing theirs with them. If my version of their language is so full
of errors that they find it unpleasant to listen to or very difficult to follow, then
continuing to use them as language instructors would be rude. With her maids in
Brazil, Carla felt no such impediments. The maids had no pressing need to learn
English, and talking with her was probably a rest from their regular chores. They
were able to play the role of Gabelentz’, ‘talkative people with a limited range of
ideas,’ and Carla felt free to ‘talk, talk, talk’ with them.
Carla had already done a great deal of ‘acquiring’ of German before she began to
try to ‘learn’ it. She has two beliefs about this. One is that it would have been better
if she had done her ‘learning’ first: ‘If only somebody had just sat down with me
. . ! ’ The other is that she could have done her learning first if she had tried to. That
would have meant starting out like Bert, absorbing features of German outside of
their setting in German life. Was she in fact capable of doing that, I wondered? In
the next segment of her interview we will find reasons to doubt it.
Working with the ideas
1. In working with other languages, how much need have you felt for conscious
knowledge about the grammar of your native language?
2. Have you had any experiences in which you were uncertain which language to
use with someone? How did you make your choice?