5 Point Languages

[TGLS]

This is just tooling around with things.

Normally you buy languages in three levels, marginal understanding, non-idiomatic understanding, and idiomatic understanding. You buy both Spoken and Written language at these levels. I don't understand how one could understand a language idiomatically in one sense (Written or Spoken) and not the other. So I've been wondering whether it would make sense to knock full fluency of a language down to five points, where having native understanding in one half applies to the other.

[Celjabba]

You have many native speakers, the young or uneducated mostly, that would only have accented writing in Gurps.

And many non-native students of a language may approach native written fluency but still struggle with the spoken form, from lack of practice, heavy accent...

I read more in English than in my native French, I can write in it at an adequate level, but no one hearing me speaking English would confuse me with a native speaker.

[evileeyore]

I can speak and understand Russian and German at between Broken and Accented (there was a time when this was solidly at Accented). I can understand (but not speak) a number of other languages at Broken.

I can read Russian and German and read and write Latin at Broken. I cannot write Russian or German without reference materials, and even then, at best it's at Broken, and at no time has my understanding ever been better at written Russian or German, though I'd have put my four years of Latin at Accented writing and reading 20 years ago (it's radically degraded over the years).


For example, to answer your "I don't understand how one could understand a language idiomatically in one sense (Written or Spoken) and not the other"...

Right now I can nod along to Japanese (at Broken comprehension) there is no way I could read or write it. And while I could 'get by' hearing French and speaking English if I were in France, I couldn't read French to save my life (outside of lone words in English and stolen from Latin).

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by TGLS

This is just tooling around with things.

Normally you buy languages in three levels, marginal understanding, non-idiomatic understanding, and idiomatic understanding. You buy both Spoken and Written language at these levels. I don't understand how one could understand a language idiomatically in one sense (Written or Spoken) and not the other. So I've been wondering whether it would make sense to knock full fluency of a language down to five points, where having native understanding in one half applies to the other.

Idiomatics are just one of the many aspects to fluency.
I can write in my native language just fine, but I speak imperfectly enough to warrant a penalty to Public Speaking and similar skills, which would be taken in GURPS by taking Accented [2] speech and 'Native' [3] writing. Conversely, I can speak my second language just fine, but writing in it clearly shows that I haven't finished studying it, which, again, would be bought in GURPS by taking a Native [3] spoken and Accented [2] written level (the point values do not account for inter-language defaults for the sake of simplicity).
Finally, I'm text-fluent at whatever level I am at with English, but have more trouble understanding it by audio at times, and have a ridiculous very foreign accent (that doesn't even quite match the accents coming from where I'm from for some reason).

[Polydamas]

Similarly, my spoken German works just fine, but my written has problems.

Spoken and written forms of languages have significantly different style, vocabulary, subject matter, rhythm, sentence structure ... and people accept different non-standard forms in each. Someone who can have a conversation about a wide range of topics may not know how to write a CV with properly coded indicators of race/class/gender/family connections or read a technical academic text, someone who can read a wide range of texts may have no idea how to flirt or make small talk in the same language, most of Chaucer's contemporaries would have struggled to write fluently in English because if it was worth writing you used a real language not a peasant jargon.

[bocephus]

I'm also in a similar situation with one of my additional languages where I can:
1 Understand "Accented +" (there are some native phrases/words/dialects [legalese] that I need help or clarification)

2 Speak "Accented -" (I speak much like a native in several dialects, but mostly only in phrases more like a mimic. If we start talking about a deep or abstract subject you would quickly see my vocab lacks nuance and my understanding of grammar is horrid)

3 Read "Broken +" (I often have to read aloud, or have someone else read it, to hear the words to figure out what it is)

4 Writing Likely barely qualify for "Broken -" (I don't know how to spell phonetically in the language so I default to an English phonetic which is terrible, and I have almost no taught understanding of the grammar structure so my writing is an utter joke, without a translate program/app I'm essentially a mute in text. Friends message me and I reply in English to avoid misunderstandings)

My situation is that I learned it only by hearing it and repeating it. So my accent is spot on, I can infact speak in 3 dialects well enough that people don't realize I'm not a native so long as I stick to "canned phrases" or oft spoken topics. As soon as I have to construct freeform speech (as in public speaking or fast talk) no one would confuse me for a native, in fact they often even notice that Im likely a native English speaker.

I can see how it would be difficult to have this much range in a Native language, but some places like India have 3 or more NATIVE languages, and then multiples of dialects of each of them. Likewise there are languages today that we know because of writings, but we don't actually know how they sounded spoken. A good example of this is Daniel Jackson of Stargate, the movie and first season of the TV show. He could "translate" Ancient Egyptian writing into English, but the first time he encountered it spoke it took time to even realize thats what he was hearing.

So I guess the situation of the character would have to be evaluated in each individual piece to get a proper understanding of how you want the language to reflect ability to communicate. There is a good campaign diary here that has a great intro of an Orc character that cant speak Human and they have to go through the steps of learning to communicate. It happens somewhere towards the middle of the thread, but I found the journal an enjoyable read. You can really see the Character point progression as each one puts points into incrementally learning to communicate and where they stopped and just decided that's enough points for now.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=160440


OTOH:
I could see how having one would help you learn the other quicker, but only because you have a frame of reference to start with, the point cost for the advantage/skill would be the same. The time could probably be as much as halved if you track such things closely.

[Gollum]

Being able to read and write English quite quickly (surely with an "Accented" level, in GURPS terms) but having some problems to speak and understand it verbally, I fully do agree with everything said above.

And I fully do agree with this sentence:

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Idiomatics are just one of the many aspects to fluency.

Furthermore, idiomatics are not exactly the same in speaking language than in written one. Hence the french phrase: "il parle comme un livre" ("he speaks like a book") which indicates that someone is obviously cultivated but that he still doesn't know how to speak normally.

People who speak like that are often non-native speakers. They lack the ellipsis and abbreviations of spoken language.

[Donny Brook]

And then, there are people with excellent ('Native' level) spoken fluency but with an undeniable accent in pronunciation.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by TGLS

This is just tooling around with things.

Normally you buy languages in three levels, marginal understanding, non-idiomatic understanding, and idiomatic understanding. You buy both Spoken and Written language at these levels. I don't understand how one could understand a language idiomatically in one sense (Written or Spoken) and not the other.

Leaving aside being illiterate, quite easily really, because the idioms are *different* in writing and speaking. Most written languages use a different register - essentially a separate dialect or accent - than that of most speakers.

The one that is a bit difficult is Native proficiency in one and Broken in the other. Sure using the literary register in speech (or vice versa) may sound funny, but if you are fully proficient with it talking like a book (or conversely writing in a casual or impolite form) doesn't prevent you from being able to communicate understandably on any topic.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The one that is a bit difficult is Native proficiency in one and Broken in the other. Sure using the literary register in speech (or vice versa) may sound funny, but if you are fully proficient with it talking like a book (or conversely writing in a casual or impolite form) doesn't prevent you from being able to communicate understandably on any topic.

Nah, still doable. You can learn how to (for instance) speak french without learning its tendency to not pronounce the last letter of the word, and as a result look like you're a first grader when it comes to writing.