Spoken versus written language.
I have had people come over to me and tell me that they’re interested in learning a foreign language. They go on to say that they’re only interested in learning for example, the spoken version of Spanish or French only. This makes sense and seems straight forward because languages exist at the written and spoken levels. However, a closer analysis of their intention reveals a totally different perspective. Usually, what these prospective language students mean is that they intend to discard the written part of their target language in their studies. And, here lies the problem. One can never divorce the written/spoken or spoken/written aspects of language from each other. The insistence on doing so would be like demanding to have a glass of wine made