anitarrc wrote:I urgently need a tutor for East Belgian dialect it seems.
Seriously, I never had a native tutor in my life, unless you count my 10 months of participating in an evening course with a Mexican 40 years ago.
I wonder how I ever learned French. English,German, Spanish, Portuguese and even my own language (partially forgotten) if native tutors are indispensable.
What do you mean that your 'own language' is partially forgotten? No-one ever really forgets their native language. It is impossible to have used a language as the medium with which to have come to awareness and of age, then for it to just vanish out of your head. And if this language wasn't the language you used for those important things, it's not your native language. Simple as that.
Let us just break down some stuff here because this thread is way out of hand. I try to be careful in my word choices, since as soon as a word turns up with a sense of certainty it creates a new tangent to rail against. 'Perfectly', 'fluent' and here 'indispensable'. I don't think it was used by s_allard as a placeholder for '
unless you engage a tutor you're finished'. It might even have been a bold or even debatable choice, but I understood it. More to mean: should you engage a tutor you'll likely unravel a lot of these things far more quickly, because such a person can unravel problems in those enumerated areas which a learner might never decipher or will take a long time to. Discovering things you don't know about is hard.
anitarrc wrote:What on earth is wrong with watching TV and just talking to natives at work? Or in any other daily situation? Do you seriously think I understood every word when I came one of the 6 countries I lived in for more than 2 years? It only takes about 2-4 weeks to "tune in" and get better.
What is 'wrong' with it? Nothing is wrong with it. Apart from the second option not being available to quite a lot of learners for their L2, 3, 4... Or the 'daily situation'. It's why there is a high dependence upon media input. Listening to a lot of spoken language this way is invaluable for input and familiarisation. What I do kick against are these prescriptions for how it is supposed to go. From this basis does it really take only "about 2-4 weeks to "tune in" and get better"? On what basis and level of learning? For whom? Or is it ever like that anyway? Someone who has been going at a language for several years with moderate progress doesn't need to hear advice from globe-trotting 'polyglots' about how it's a simple matter of 'tuning in' within weeks.
This is the problem with the one-size-fits-all school of thought; when it doesn't deliver either the method is trashed or the learner thinks himself a fool. Or conversely if they meet some success the 'method' is declared miraculous. And the number of self-directed geniuses in the language-learning world is tedious to the extreme.
I know the advantages I have living where I do for the languages I pursue. That I can get the chance to speak to Germans and Spaniards and the odd French person and others should I care to look around. It might be less available for some other learners and thus leaves more obstacles to overcome. Moreover I'm put off by the heavy insistence upon 'self-taught', as though no-one is ever gleaning information other people are providing. When the title of a book is '
Teach Yourself', but it actually contains the structured advice and information from other people, you haven't 'taught yourself', you've followed guidance. Everyone needs some guidance.
There will be language learners who will hear this 'just watch the telly' mantra who find themselves just as much up against a brick wall as the person merely going through a grammar book and making slow progress. Being told not to speak, not to bother checking grammar issues, not to look up any words, to do or not do various things based upon reasons plucked out of thin air.
anitarrc wrote:As to abbreviations and acronyms, they lurk everywhere. You learn them when dealing with bureaucracy worldwide, no matter where you live. Just ask, I was never ashamed to do just that. The same abbreviation will never mean the same thing in two countries even if the do speak the same language, with the exception of international standards like incoterms and units. Again, no need for a tutor.
'Tutor' for me means any person or source able to shed light upon obscurity and ease the burden of learning. If I sit there watching some TV serial and not understanding certain words/phrases/constructions, but refusing to check them out to arm myself for the next time I tune in because 'input', I am not an 'advanced language learner I am a fool. Who probably also needs to be horse-whipped up and down the Champs-Élysées for being such a stubborn, ideology-bound fool.
You rightly say above 'just ask', though this will be limited for some people who don't have people there ready to consult. The input warrior-kings think it all comes from self-realisation.