Posted: Mar 10, 2010 5:59 pm
Wezentrommel wrote:katja z wrote:
Well, it certainly wouldn't work with a recording! But if you actually lived in a community where that language is spoken, you would gradually pick it up, asking how things are called, observing situations of communication and so on.
But the question was, could you learn a language without the help of a native speaker.
Surely in order to hear the sounds and inflexions you need to hear it spoken by a native speaker. You can't learn to speak a language by merely being able to read it.
Archeologists needed the Rosetta Stone to be able to decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphics, they weren't able to read them without it.