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Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is …
Understood or Correct?
What is the purpose of learning a language? Okay, let’s break that down a little more so you know where I’m coming from. Is the purpose of learning a language to be understood by the person you’re talking to, or to be correct?
I’m hoping you answered to be understood to that question, because the likelihood is that you’ll never be entirely correct, with anything but the simplest of sentences. And what is correct, anyway? Many people don’t speak entirely correctly in their own language. How many times do you hear someone on TV, or in a drama, pronounce a word in a way that you think is incorrect? I’ll bet it’s a lot. Or perhaps it isn’t pronunciation, perhaps it’s sentence construction. They say things in a really weird way that doesn’t conform to what you consider to be the norm, or correct. This is so common that you might wonder if there are any rules at all for your own language and why you’ve bothered following them when no one else does. And what about in written language? That’s just as bad - possibly worse. There’s that thorny problem of apostrophes in English and their lack of, or misuse of, in many public signs all over the UK (and, no doubt, other English-speaking countries). Memes galore have come out of that. And then there are authors who just make up words, ahem, and put them in their books, as if they’re actual things in a dictionary. I know. Shocking. But languages always evolve.
Are English people perfect at speaking English? No. Are French people perfect at speaking French? No. Are the Spanish perfect at speaking Spanish? No. They’re not.
Perfection, or correctness, in a language is a goal that will never be truly achieved - by anyone.
So, that leaves us with the option of simply being understood. Being understood is a completely different prospect to being correct. There are many ways to say something, to rearrange words and sentences, in order to be understood, even if you don’t know all the words that you think you need. Yes, the sentences you create to get around your lack of knowledge might be a little clumsy, weird, raise an eyebrow, or a grin, but if the meaning can be understood by a native speaker then, surely, you have achieved your goal.
For those who follow my YouTube channel - do you think, that I think, that all the stories and poems I write in Italian are correct, exactly like an Italian would write them? Heck, no. If there’s anything I’ve written that doesn’t have errors in that would be nothing short of a miracle. I don’t expect things to be correct. Yes, I’ll try and get them to be as good as I can make them, but a native speaker will always spot the places where I went wrong, or I said something in a really weird way (although, truth be told, sometimes that’s deliberate), or I missed an agreement (I hate agreements with a passion when I’m writing), or I even used the wrong verb, because it’s similar to the correct one and I just got them mixed up. I don’t know whether or not that last one’s happened, but it’s definitely a possibility.
Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with striving to be correct. That’s what continuing to learn, and listen and watch and read is all about, to reduce the number of times you will get things wrong, to enrich your vocabulary and to find out how natives really do things, as opposed to how textbooks or apps tell you they do. But you’ll never be 100% correct. Unless you’re an AI. Actually, strike that. AI are frequently wrong.
That’s all for today. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, hwyl and bye for now.