What is the difference between "not to mention" and "much less"?

Best Strategy to Master Speaking

How would you describe your best strategy to master the skills of speaking a second language? Write it in one sentence only. And mention the level of learning to which your strategy will fit best. You may write different stragies for different levels, but do not use more than one sentence for a single strategy. 

Problem of Familiarity: The Danger of Practicing Foreign Language with only a Handful of Friends It smacked me a while ago that there is a disadvantage of practicing a foreign language with only a few selected friends for a longer time. The problem is that when you practice with exclusively these people for a certain period, you become familiar with their behavior and thought process. You regularly predict what they are saying, and similarly they also can predict what you are trying to say. You know how to express yourself to them, and they also know how to receive you. Even sometimes making minor mistakes from your part seems permissible. But what about the performance with the people you don’t know anything about? How would you deal with the eccentricities of an unknown guy? I think our communication skill is not judged by our performance with only the partners we are accustomed to but also with the people we know nothing about. Our mastery of a foreign language is brought under scrutiny whenever we perform with the stranger we just met. I think we overlook this because most of the learners live in their own society where they don’t face the problem at all, and they are complacent with their performance within their respective closed group. We, especially the introverts, feel a certain degree of discomfort in communicating with the strangers even in our native language. The situation is just more severe when we are forced to communicate in foreign language, at least in the language we are yet to be a master. Now, how to work around this problem, if it is a problem at all? Just meet a new guy every once in a while. That’s all what I can say. Your time will not be wasted in following this advice because at the least you will have a new friend! However, this proposition has little to do with learning. We must learn from the teachers we are accustomed with. In fact, we can’t comfortably learn from strangers. You know, in law there are two correlative terms: “in rem” and “in personam.” “In rem” means that you have a right against the whole world out there while “in personam” means that you have a right against a specific person only. So let’s have our foreign language practice “in rem,” not “in personam”!

Problem of Familiarity: The Danger of Practicing Foreign Language with only a Handful of Friends

It smacked me a while ago that there is a disadvantage of practicing a foreign language with only a few selected friends for a longer time. The problem is that when you practice with exclusively these people for a certain period, you become familiar with their behavior and thought process. You regularly predict what they are saying, and similarly they also can predict what you are trying to say. You know how to express yourself to them, and they also know how to receive you. Even sometimes making minor mistakes from your part seems permissible. But what about the performance with the people you don’t know anything about? How would you deal with the eccentricities of an unknown guy?

I think our communication skill is not judged by our performance with only the partners we are accustomed to but also with the people we know nothing about. Our mastery of a foreign language is brought under scrutiny whenever we perform with the stranger we just met. I think we overlook this because most of the learners live in their own society where they don’t face the problem at all, and they are complacent with their performance within their respective closed group.

We, especially the introverts, feel a certain degree of discomfort in communicating with the strangers even in our native language. The situation is just more severe when we are forced to communicate in foreign language, at least in the language we are yet to be a master.

Now, how to work around this problem, if it is a problem at all? Just meet a new guy every once in a while. That’s all what I can say. Your time will not be wasted in following this advice because at the least you will have a new friend!

However, this proposition has little to do with learning. We must learn from the teachers we are accustomed with. In fact, we can’t comfortably learn from strangers.

You know, in law there are two correlative terms: “in rem” and “in personam.” “In rem” means that you have a right against the whole world out there while “in personam” means that you have a right against a specific person only. So let’s have our foreign language practice “in rem,” not “in personam”!