"Knowing" methods?

[Lucas Garron]

I consider the word "full" to be a disambiguator.

The following are true:

I know CFOP.
I don't know full CFOP.

I know over 30 OLLs. I can solve every scramble using the correct steps, but I don't know the "full" set of algs for each step.

However, it's still a bit ambiguous. I know ZZ, but I'm not proficient at it, and there's no common measure for "full" (what's "full Petrus"?).
I also can follow the steps for ZB, but I've barely learned any special algs for it, so I'm far from being able to do what I would consider "ZB solves."


If I know the basic structure of Latin, do I "know" Latin? Or does "speak" == "know"? Is language even a good analogy?

 

[qqwref]

However, it's still a bit ambiguous. I know ZZ, but I'm not proficient at it, and there's no common measure for "full" (what's "full Petrus"?).
I also can follow the steps for ZB, but I've barely learned any special algs for it, so I'm far from being able to do what I would consider "ZB solves."

Well, ZZ and Petrus can be very efficient, but I don't think you need that to *know* the method. To me, you just have to be able to follow the steps, which for intuitive steps just means being able to intuitively solve those pieces. If you want to say you've mastered ZZ or Petrus, then you do need to get good solutions and not spend a lot of time thinking about what to do, but if we're just talking about knowing an intuitive method, the requirements are pretty open.

For ZB I think the essence of the method is being able to do LS+LL in two looks, so if you can't do that, you don't know ZB. You know what ZB is, sure, but if the whole point of that method is using two looks for that step, it's misleading to say you know it when you haven't reached that level.

If I know the basic structure of Latin, do I "know" Latin? Or does "speak" == "know"? Is language even a good analogy?

No, language is not really a good analogy, because it is a mode of communication. Really knowing a language implies being able to communicate with other users, whatever they might say/write in the language (well, if they say something really weird, you should at least be able to ask what they mean and understand the explanation). If you're specifically talking about spoken language, you also have to be able to do it at a pretty decent speed as well. I think the requirements for knowing a language are a lot more strict than the requirements for knowing a cube method, and for good reason.