That she cannot speak English doesn’t imply that she isn’t capable of understanding those nuances mentioned. It is a difference whether you use a language in its written or spoken form.
A historican who has learned Latin will probably be able to understand most ancient texts, even with its nuances in speech and references to the culture, but you will hardly get him to actually speak the language, because he will most likely never had practised it. And why should he? Similarly, if the “german lady” mentioned is translating books, why should she be able to speak the language?
In regards to reading and writing I would consider myself C1 in English, but I would have a hard time holding a real conversiation in English and would probably be more like B1 in that regard. The reason is that I have spent thousands of hours reading and writing in English, but way less time in listening and almost none in speaking it.
Yes, speaking and understanding should have been separated. An excellent translator is definitely capable of understanding. I also believe that the same person would have done countless hours of listening to understand cultural context. Which means TV, radios, songs, and the like.
Speaking is different because if the person doesn’t have any interest in it, or she’s an introvert, there is a big different.
However, with today’s competition, I consider an excellent bilingual translator when this person has lived at least 10 years in the target country, and has a passion for the language. At this point, if you can’t speak or understand (considering both of these things together), there is a problem. You are not excellent but average. Which is not a problem but in this case, it’s normal that an average translator couldn’t speak or understand well the language in different circumstances.
IMHO
Passion and living in country have nothing to do with a profession of translator)) In other case we can say that teachers and linguists are good translators by default. But thats not the case. Every profession as a sum of special knowldedges and skills
I agree, in fact I haven’t said that. And btw, it’s not really a big deal, and I don’t really care about wasting much time about it. It’s not mathematics, we can have different opinions, that’s why I have written IMHO.
I don’t know about the test you took and how well it can test you, but I’ll tell you this:
You can have passed the Advanced 2 level in LingQ, even gotten to over 70K known words or whatnot and still be very, very far from fluency in the language. Why? Because you can pass levels in LingQ by only getting a passive understanding of written words. Of course if you listen about as much as you read and get to that level, you will be a lot better off, but you still absolutely need to do output as well as input. You can never become completely fluent in a language without doing a lot of interactive talking and writing. You especially need to converse a lot.
I can read professional business german at work(IT) but need chatGPT to write a proper reply. I’m too shy to call the customer in german, but I can cope with some small talk.
It sounds like you followed the Krashen advice, so you have a mostly passive understanding. Languages contain redundancy, so you can understand messages, without understanding details such as gender and many details of grammar. I’m sure if you work on gender and grammar on a daily basis you’ll be okay.
When I’ve been learning the grammar of my first foreign language not a single time it felt easy. At some point you just get to the point of accepting it, ie you just internalize it and move on. For quite some time I had all the rules about grammatical tenses and all in my head, and it felt rewarding, I have to admit. But the more time I’ve spent without upkeeping my grammar, the more subconcious of thing it became. You get the feeling that what you’ve just said is right and you roll with it . I consider that at this point there is no need to push any further, unless you want to pass some C2 exam.
So I decided to go back and start the Nico Weg A1 course and I am relearning grammar again and I notice that I don’t have the vocabulaire to explain directions or clean up my house haha. But in general it’s really easy for me the lessons itself. What I’m starting to understand is that you are good in what you train. You can speak a lot about history if you only read about it and you can’t hold a Convo about day to day life If you are not used to it. Goethe tests text that daily vocabulaire so of course you struggle if you only see Artede docs. I think that Anki comes to be useful for targeting those daily life expressions and vocabulaire.
But just to make sure you understand what I was trying to say: As others have stated, if you never actively engaged with the grammar, but instead just passively encounter it, as you’d do if you learn it the ‘Krashen’ style, you will have a hard time learning those aspects of the language.
Even native Germans learn german grammar in school, and although they encounter and use the language everyday, it takes them a very long time to get the grammar correct. And some never, actually.
This has nothing to do with beeing dumb or smart. It is just that if you want to internalize something, you have to actively think about it. You don’t have to memorize it, that won’t work anyways, but read the stuff up from time to time, think about it and do some practices.
Is this because they speak a dialect at home, and struggle to learn the standard form?
There are plenty of non native speakers of English who speak more correct English than a large proportion of British people. Many foreign speakers also express themselves better in English. Have a listen to Angela Rayner, the British deputy prime minister.
Einstein and Karl Popper spoke English with heavy German accents, and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, a French polymer physicist and Nobel laureate, spoke English with a strong French accent. I attended a packed lecture hall to hear Popper, and later on a small lecture theatre to hear de Gennes. I’ve known countless people with PhD’s in physics who spoke English with a strong accent and mediocre grammar. An Austrian friend, who trained as a waiter when young, speaks superb English.
Einstein and Popper spoke with heavy German accents
An obituary in the New York Times in 2021 of Walter Kissinger, the brother of Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, noted that:
“Walter shed his Bavarian accent while Henry notably did not. Asked why he lost his, Walter told interviewers, “Because I am the Kissinger who listens.”
No, that’s not the case. Of course people speak dialects to a certain degree, but they usually don’t differ too much from the standard form or are, to be more precise, something in between the actual accent and the standard form. This is because basically most of our media uses the standard form, so you get to hear a dialect relatively rarely in media.
I too made the observation that foreigners, especially those who came to Germany in when young, speak a much better German then most native germans and that native English speakers tend to make quiet some mistakes, too. I guess besides the possibility that learning another language might cause one to reflect more on those they already know, including their native one, people aren’t as self-critical when it comes to their native language. They simple assume that they can use it properly and never question that belief. As a non-native you are much more aware of your deficits, I guess.
. I consider that at this point there is no need to push any further, unless you want to pass some C2 exam.