"Reading" a language that one does not speak.

[Gil]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a person being able to (phonetically/orally)  read and pronounce a language that they don't speak conversationally?

How often is this done?

How do you develop the skill of being able to read a language into a tool for being able to speak that language?

I know that this is done in other education systems, and that it can be done successfully. I'm just trying to wrap my head around why this works and in what conditions this is most beneficial.

[HomeAgain]

I have no idea how often this is done.   I have found a couple of benefits:

1. While traveling around Europe it was easier to get by in smaller Greek/Croatian places because I could read the language and didn't have to rely on English translations posted.  I had enough grasp of word families and origins that I could make out what was being said.  I don't speak a word of Greek or Croatian.

2. For kids who struggle with English reading and handwriting, I have found that introducing a phonetic alphabet like Cyrillic helps them to see the connection between the symbol and the sound, and move back to apply that to English.  Usually these kids have had heavy sight word lessons and missed that connection, or they never understood how form is connected to the end result (like putting sounds in order), and there's a gap there.  A novelty lesson with a few Cyrillic characters before moving them back to English is kind of a "water" moment.

 

I have no idea how one moves from just reading to speaking, but I know that my ds, who was reluctant about speaking in French for many years (but would do the reading, writing, and listening), casually had a conversation and ordered in French at the bakery.  For him, it was a lot of being comfortable with reading text about characters his age and his development level that helped him form his words.

[Clarita]

I'm not sure but I may have spent the first 6 years of my life in a place that does this. It's hard to say cognitive benefits because in this particular area it happens because there is a practical need at the time, most official documents were written in the second language. (Technically, I think they do get some education on how to speak/converse in that language, but definitely there is more emphasis on reading and understanding vs. communicating - if you had to choose.)

Reading @HomeAgain's post it might depend on the languages on how helpful it is. Maybe there's some it makes your brain smarter just to know more things that might happen too.  

I've seen the reading translate into speaking but also not, depending on the person and the need. When you are speaking to a whole population of an area there is a lot more moving pieces. 

[wendyroo]

My Spanish reading is far better than my listening or speaking. I took five years of Spanish in high school and one semester in college. In all those years the emphasis was on conjugation charts, written translations, and reading. I think this was simply the most common model for teaching classrooms full of teenagers and adults new languages at the time - minimally qualified teachers, lots of reading and worksheets, easily administered fill-in-the-blank tests, and no need to police how much English students (or teachers) were using in class.

I, obviously, wish that my spoken Spanish was much stronger, but I am glad for the ability to read Spanish. I have a very large Spanish vocabulary, and while I might miss some nuance, I can passably understand signs, instructions, newspaper articles, fiction at the level of Harry Potter, etc.

My limited ability has been a huge boon in helping my kids reach much higher proficiency. Obviously I outsource all of their conversational tutoring, and started them on that journey at a much, much younger age than I began learning. But I have been able to expose them to vast amounts of Spanish by reading books to them. Obviously we could get the same effect with audiobooks, but they are often too fast for beginners to understand, or not on topics that interest my kids. Plus, with me reading, I can keep them engaged with questions...either those within my limited spoken proficiency or ones I formulate ahead of time.

But, bottom line, learning to read a language first is not something I would advocate. I don't necessarily think it has any real advantages over learning to speak first. And at least with Spanish (I know this would be wildly different with other languages), my kids have not found learning to read it a difficult task once they were solid English readers and had several years of immersion/comprehensible input Spanish instruction under their belts.

 

[Clarita]

Also there have been studies that show, for the majority of people learning to speak a language before the age of 11 they will be able to speak that language without an accent and if they learned to speak after the age of 11 they will have an accent. The study was conducted on children immigrating to a country (perhaps only the USA to any country, I learned this over a decade ago so...), even siblings.