The other day in college I was getting an email address off of a girl, and I noticed it was in Irish. I, of course, asked her about any Irish she might have had. She stated that while her Irish was rusty, she recalls in the past been on the Oileáin Árainn and understanding their speech, but that production was an issue.

Anyone know of any research on production vs passive comprehension?

(Or do natives there speak pigin-Irish to incomers?)

Isn't it normal to understand more of a language than you can speak? Don't know of any research though.

Well, I suppose it is.

The thing here would be the degree of difference that might occur in a major/minor language interaction, as to understand fully (self report tho...) but not be able to speak back is quite a difference.

Then again, communication in Irish is deemed of no import in Irish education, or communication in French, German etc

"Anyone know of any research on production vs passive comprehension?"

As Aonghus says, passive understanding is almost always better than active production when it comes to foreign languages. The extreme case for myself is Spanish. I can follow almost any Spanish conversation, but I'm very much a beginnner when it comes to speaking.

I'm a rank beginner, so this is anecdotal - I can read better than I can write, which is still better than I can understand speakers, and all of those are far better than I can actually produce my own speech.

I had a chance to practice my Irish while in Ireland, and my biggest problem -- apart from the fact that everyone speaks so FAST! -- was formulating a reply. I don't "think" in Irish yet. I think in English and translate and then speak.

All the references I've seen say that there is a milestone in learning a foreign language where you suddenly can "think" in the new language and no longer translate everything in your head. I'm still waiting to get there....

Also -- it is impossible for me to have a conversation in Irish with someone I cannot see (on the phone, for example) since I can't gauge meaning from their expression or body language.

Fáilte romhat.

Welcome to the club, a chara. You just outlined the by-laws that are so familiar to a great many of us.

Somebody once wrote:

"Knowledge of a language is complex, dynamic, and always incomplete. Passive ability is prerequisite and is always far superior to one's active mastery of a language. Not everyone who learns well can teach well, nor is every good reader a good writer, and levels of language ability can fluctuate very greatly, depending on study and practice. I've recently read other translators' comments, with which I quite agree, regarding the great difference between a translator's skill and a talent for original writing. It has been said that translation is an art and that a good literary translation is worthy of appreciation as a literary work in itself. The quality of a translation is indeed as important, for those who read it, as the quality and precision of the source text; but, whereas the original writing is very much an active creation, the translation is only a rendering thereof. The translator's passive knowledge of the source language and his mastery of the target language must be sufficiently thorough so that a proper semantic and stylistic understanding of every word and sentence of the original is reflected in his version, but he has the advantage that the bulk of the creative work has already been done. Still, translating a text from a foreign language certainly requires more time and labor than merely reading it and understanding it, and likewise a person's ability to speak a particular foreign language may lag rather far behind his ability to understand it when others speak (provided he is accustomed to their rate of speech and to the phonetic realities of the language)."

Isn't it normal to understand more of a language than you can speak? Don't know of any research though.

Developmental psychologists would point to the fact that infants begin to respond to spoken language before they can speak, and of course, the ability to read and write the language comes later than either. Since the acquisition of a first language is usually part of the developmental process, it seems reasonable to assume that this paradigm -- hear, speak, read -- is according to the natural order in the learning process.

I used to be fluent in Japanese as a child, but refused to speak it when I returned to the States. Consequently, my production level is very low, but my understanding is fair, especially when I'm around the language for long periods of time; I'll pick up words and constructions in a snap after hearing them once, and without anyone telling me their meaning. There's no difference between understanding slow or fast Japanese in my mind, as there is for Spanish, which I learn in a classroom. Errors in Japanese sound the same to me as they do in English, I may not be able to put my finger on it, but I can tell when something doesn't sound right.

Spanish is very different. I have a rough time understanding normal spoken Spanish, as it sounds very very fast. I can read and write decently, however.

So just some of my experiences … I would say it depends on how one learns a language.

"it seems reasonable to assume that this paradigm -- hear, speak, read -- is according to the natural order in the learning process"

The only flaw in that is that reading is not natural! Also, word glyph recognition seems to be visual based, not aural, thus it is not the same as speaking and listening. Still, there's lots of research to be done, and current work assumes that reading is unnatural in children (whic it is) and stays differentiated from speech production in adults (which is less clear cut, but NMR scans show reading in adults to product adchivity in brain areas corrolated with visual processing, and those areas differ with respect to sound areas.

Is dóigh gurb iad 'ginchumas' agus 'gabhchumas' an dá fhocal is tábhachtaí sa snáithe seo.

Cuideoidh an nasc dátheangach seo le cur is cúiteamh is le tuiscint ar an ábhar /
The link has a good bilingual side by side content and should provide some insight for many on this site:

http://www.tcd.ie/CLCS/portfolio/ELP_network/IrishPostPrimaryELP.pdf

Go n-éirí sin libh.

Maith thú, a Shosaimh, mar tá mé abálta comparáid a dhéanamh idir dhá fhoirmeanna