If you had a chance to be able to be fluent in every language, would you prefer that you would be able to speak and listen fluently, or to be able to read and write fluently?
What are your reasons?
What are your reasons?
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Would you rather be fluent in all spoken language or written language?
- Thread starter Squarehard
- Start date
Spoken for me. Being able to have conversations beyond a fragmented, child-like level with my in-laws would be amazing.
Been practicing for a while, and still have a long way to go.
Reading and writing would be great, but the family makes me lean spoken.
Been practicing for a while, and still have a long way to go.
Reading and writing would be great, but the family makes me lean spoken.
Spoken for sure. Even if I can't read something in a different country, google can translate it ... but even then, I can always ask someone native to help.
Being multilingual, it's definitely much more better for me personally to be able to speak Chinese rather than read it.
Being multilingual, it's definitely much more better for me personally to be able to speak Chinese rather than read it.
I mean, if I'm fluent in speaking every language, but I just don't know rules of grammar / spelling to be able to read and write, it feels like that's easier to learn than if I know how to read and write in every language but have absolutely no concept of pronouncing the words correctly. So if you could already speak it, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to learn to do the other. Or does the question pre-suppose that I will never be able to learn to read and write fluently in spite of being able to speak? Either way, spoken all day.
Spoken and it's not even close. Being able to read and write a language you can't speak in is fucking terrible from experience.
I already talk as little as I humanely could anyway and having the entire human literature accessible me is way more attractive to me.
Written language for sure.
Plus I always have a harder time learning the written part of language, at least you could somewhat force yourself to adapt with a new spoken language if you do full immersion but texts hurts my brain.
Written language for sure.
Plus I always have a harder time learning the written part of language, at least you could somewhat force yourself to adapt with a new spoken language if you do full immersion but texts hurts my brain.
I haven't decided just yet, but let me be clear here-- written would include... DEAD LANGUAGES, right? Like, I could just read a Paleo-Hebrew manuscript and get the original intent? I could read the Voynich manuscript just like that? I'd just know Linear A?
Because Option 1 seems like a great way to tour the world. Option 2 seems like a great way to just... find the secret wisdom and history of the world.
Because Option 1 seems like a great way to tour the world. Option 2 seems like a great way to just... find the secret wisdom and history of the world.
Spoken, because then you can travel the world and have a handle on how to say anything in any situation
Well, that's the thing, isn't it-- what if there's nobody there to teach you the written language in question? In that case, the written thing gives you something that literally nobody else could.
The spoken has an equivalent in near-dead primarily spoken indigenous languages, which would be a major boon for anthropologists. But holy hell, imagine if the written one extends back into the past. A) You'd be in high demand, thanks to a peerless ability to translate manuscripts, and B) you'd know things nobody else could know. You'd know Linear A, you'd know Paleo-Hebrew, you'd know what the Voynich manuscript says, all dead away. "Written language" might also encompass cyphers-- substitution cyphers particularly, since they retain the linguistic structures but change the characters around.
That's what I based my answer on. I think programming language would also count.
Holy shit, if programming is involved... that'd be fucking something, wouldn't it. I mean, I thought I was thinking big with the "dead languages" stuff, but with programming... Now THAT is a galaxy brain take.
This is an easy. Spoken all the way
Seems like knowing C/C++, Java/Kotlin, and Objective-C/Swift would cover the vast majority of HW
Milo wouldn't have made it very far in Atlantis if he didn't speak Atlantean but he was able to work out the written part of it on his own. But at the same time he was super useful, so *shrug*
This, however, changes everything
I went with written language because imagine if humanity colonized a world that was once inhabited by a dead alien race and you discovered you could read the alien language and they built some kind of superweapon that could be used to overthrow the tyrannical government under which you live
This sounds like the plot of an exciting young adult sci-fi novel
This is definitely not a plug for the book I'm writing for NaNoWriMo
This sounds like the plot of an exciting young adult sci-fi novel
This is definitely not a plug for the book I'm writing for NaNoWriMo
Phonetic pronunciation keys like the International Pronunciation Alphabet are also written language though! You have a tremendous leg up on learning currently spoken languages!
This is more of an everyday practicality vs cool shit thing. I don't have a ton of use for knowing a written dead language but I could go Indiana Jones adventuring with it which might be pretty cool. On the other hand, in the business/political world, being able to speak all the languages would be great for a job.
Otherwise I would've retained my knowledge of being able to read Hieroglyphics, lol
I'm actually thinking of direct practicality as well. You could easily become a translator or localizer, which is something you can start from home. If you had nothing in life but literacy and this superpower, you'd already have a tremendous leg up in translation, history, and programming.
Latin is the classic example. You can kinda sound out the words, but you realize that if a Roman actually heard your pronunciation it'd basically be like that one scene in Inglorious Basterds where Brad Pitt says he can speak Italian. You could recognize vowels but the intonations would be lost on you.
Factoring in programming is definitely a leg up, yeah. When I read the prompt I assumed we were going on currently used human languages
That's the secret, isn't it-- programming languages are currently used human languages, by any standard!
To me programming languages are syntax. The ideas/concepts are what matter...
Eh, more human to machine and machine to machine. Programming languages as we know them are made so that humans can read them more easily. If you whittle it down to what the machine actually sees it's actually a lot different
Well, no. There are plenty of second generation immigrants that can understand their parents and can maybe read but when it comes to speaking it's a game of translating everything in your head you from English into another language leading to slow and disjointed speaking.
It's pretty common.
Something that OP ignored is that you can read phonetically but have a poor understanding which is the only way this makes sense in real life.
Damn, that curve ball of programming languages.
I stand by my first choice of spoken though, I feel like I have a superpower when I can understand people speaking Spanish when I am with Non-Spanish speaking people.
Edit. Yep to the poster above me, that's me pretty much.
Think of someone saying "I talk English real good" with a straight face.
I stand by my first choice of spoken though, I feel like I have a superpower when I can understand people speaking Spanish when I am with Non-Spanish speaking people.
Edit. Yep to the poster above me, that's me pretty much.
Think of someone saying "I talk English real good" with a straight face.
Spoken, much easier to translate written text rather than real time oral speech (at least for now).
