How effective is it to learn a language only by ear?

I have met some people who have learned a language strictly by ear (by mostly working abroad), meaning that their writing skills are beginner level at best. Do you think that this is a viable way of learning a language given its limitations? 

Mel.Palogan wrote:

Do you think that this is a viable way of learning a language given its limitations?

It depends on what you need to do with it.

I believe is somewhat viable if you are just interested in verbal communication. Agree with previous poster, it depends.

It's very effective especially if your interested in hearing those words and you could possibly used it for work or study. For me, it really matters of how interested I am and my intention in hearing them only audibly.

Like Leo told me, it depends on what you hope to achieve from learning a particular language. If you're learning it for basic conversation, learning by ear will come in handy.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, cheers!

I agree with the argument that such language acquisition might be sufficient, depending on the goal the speaker is attaining. If it is a simple communication – it would be more than enough. 

On the other hand, one may still make mistakes because there are many homophones in a language. I believe it is quite difficult to learn the structure and grammatical rules of the language just by listening to it. Besides, when one decides to acquire writing skills, it might be quite challenging at the beginning.

Do you think, one can acquire a proper C1-C2 level of competences this way?

I think it is a great way to learn a language but ultimately you will probably need to read or write or youuse will be limited to conversational , I agree with the homophones statement mei 

Jade.Xuereb wrote:

I think it is a great way to learn a language but ultimately you will probably need to read or write or youuse will be limited to conversational , I agree with the homophones statement mei

I agree with being limited by only learning by ear when it comes to writing and truly understanding the language and how to use it. 

You can probably learn to hold a conversation if you learned purely by ear. Not sure how that's gonna work if you have to write something down though.

That's best when paired with reading and research. But I think it is more effective if you start with your research first then followed by learning through hearing, then application.