Emile comments on Near and far skills - Less Wrong

20 Post author: cousin_it 19 October 2009 01:16PM

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Comment author: Emile 20 October 2009 09:32:28AM 2 points [-]

Language is an example of an area where propositional knowledge is pretty important. Sure, you'll progress faster by talking to people than by reading books, but memorizing vocabulary lists and grammar tables does pay off.

On the other hand, I'm not that sure that reading a foreign language textbook really is only about propositional knowledge - deciphering a sentence reauires more work than just reading one, and is more like "real" training.

Comment author: MichaelVassar 20 October 2009 06:37:40PM *  6 points [-]

Actually, you will have more fun talking, but I think you will learn more vocab in an hour by hitting the books and you will DEFINITELY do better with books if you have decent pronunciation and grammar but your goal is to go from conversational competence to actual fluency with a near-native vocabulary.