Writing, reading or speaking to learn a language
Historical context of the written word
Many people focus on the written word in school when trying to learn a language. Their homework is written, they have reading assignments etc. But think about it, until a hundred years ago less than ten percent of population of most counties read or wrote as a form of communication. It was actually like less than one perfect, and that was only a limited form of communication. Think about it most of your communication is the spoken word. A better home work assignment would watch the news and in a recorder explain your target language what it was about, rather, than reading and written homework.
What I learn in an African market about language learning
When I was in Africa I met many people in the markets using three or four languages with ease. Do you think they learned it for a book or in school? They could have been a market full of geniuses, but I think it was they listened and spoke. They learned it by speaking to people, not out of a book. I think most of them would not know how to write in maybe but one of these languages. But what does it matter, they can speak many languages. And to speak and understand a language is most people’s modest objective.
People who can not understand when people speak a foreign language
When learning a language you should always focus on understanding and speaking. Use the written word only as an aid to speaking. For example, if seeing the written word I your target foreign language will help you remember better. Or if you do not have any audio resources and want to read to learn, but make sure your pronunciation is good. Once you speak a language you can improve through reading, but many people I know can kind of read a language but can not understand native speakers when they speak. This is a separate and more complex skill compared to reading and writing a language. Language is auditory. Learn to understand and speak as your first focus and reading and writing as a secondary focus. So focus on understanding, then speaking, then reading, then writing. If you can understand the rest is easy as you can listen to the radio all day and will eventually be able to repeat the patterns, just like you learned English.
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