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Are polyglots at times overrated ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4391 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 1 of 27 13 December 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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As a preface I want to say that I don't know any polyglot in person ,yet I have been
following attentively many polyglots on youtube over the last 1 and half year . I have been especially impressed by Richard Simcott , Luca lampariello and steve Kaufman . Steve kaufman is the only one who makes really long videos ( 10 mintues and even more ) of him speaking all his languages . He seems to be the only one among these "polyglot gurus" who he is willing to show he really makes mistakes in his languages especially his weakest ones like russian .I have heard Luca and Richard in long videos speaking nothing but English ,french and Spanish ( which I am sure they really know at a naitive like level ) . for languages like German and russian which already begin to pose some problems ,you can not find longer videos ( to be honest there are a couple 10 minutes interview with luca in russian ), anyway they are always talking about : pronunciation , best ways to learn , in one word language learning . what is your opinion ? Edited by albysky on 13 December 2013 at 2:10pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4102 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 27 13 December 2013 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Opinion on what? The question in the thread's title or your commentary on polyglot YouTube videos?
Are polyglots at times overrated? Yes. Practically all things are at times overrated. In particular I tend to think that white western people who've learned a couple of languages to a basic level are unnecessarily lauded as geniuses. It's not that it's a simple feat to learn languages, or that individuals shouldn't be congratulated on their progress, it's just that it doesn't make you a genius or even all that extraordinary on a worldwide or historical level. As for your YouTube commentary. I definitely get why they wouldn't bother to make "long" videos. After all, who wants to sit and stare at another non-native, sometimes mediocre, speaker blather on? I wouldn't make a "long" video even in my native language without a very specific goal in mind and very specific information to share. And if your purpose is just to show which languages you speak, your progress, etc., why speak for more than a minute or two? The only people who are going to stick with you for a very long time are people who are primarily fans of your personality and people who are hoping to spot you making an error and throw it in your face. 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4847 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 3 of 27 13 December 2013 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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As impressive as their achievements are, I also think the YouTube polyglots don't really have that much to say except that it's all about attitude.
Luca, Richard, and Steve have proven their ability to speak several foreign languages at a very high level and that's very entertaining and inspiring, but other than that I don't get much out of their videos to be honest. And please don't get me started on Moses and Benny... Other opinions? Edited by Josquin on 13 December 2013 at 2:40pm 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| m32amir Heptaglot Groupie Canada youtube.com/user/m32Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5653 days ago 53 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Kazakh, Russian*, English, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Turkish, Mandarin | Message 4 of 27 13 December 2013 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
I know Richard and Luca personally. Both speak native-like German, and can deal a wide of range of topics. The fact that they don't make many videos in German or simply post videos talking about other subjects - and both have said it - is that most people are interested in hearing what they have to say about language learning. Richard studied languages at university, while Luca went to a prestigious conference interpreting school. In order to access such schools, one needs to have a high education, being able to tackle countless topics, not to mention great language skills. I have talked to Luca in Russian countless times. I can tell you that he speaks with a 90-95% native accent now and we have talked about pretty much everything. He is "fluent" by any standards. I just wanted to clarify this because as I said at the beginning I have often contact with them on skype (and met them a few times in real life). Edited by m32amir on 13 December 2013 at 3:16pm 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4361 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 27 13 December 2013 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Certainly some of them, in some languages, are very advanced. But the term "polyglot" is generally used as a status title (not by the polyglots themselves, some seem modest). That always irks me.
I like the more old fashioned ideal of a person learned in languages, who uses them in very real settings, or to advance their education and knowledge in other things they enjoy. The cosmoplitan person who feels at ease with most people and in most places, who likes books, or travel or whatever. Not the person who learns languages in order to brag about it. I am sure there are people out there we have never heared of, who are simply amazing. 15 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 6 of 27 13 December 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well said, renaissancemedi. This may be close to sacrilege here on HTLAL but I am more impressed by someone who has something interesting or stimulating to say, something that makes me think or can challenge my perceptions, than by someone who can say any random thing in a bunch of different languages.
Some (not all, by any means) polyglots devote so much (or too much) of their time to language-learning that they don't have much to say beyond this very specialized field. I'd rather be stuck on a desert island with someone who can intelligently discuss life, literature, philosophy, physics or art than somebody who can speak a dozen languages and yet isn't able to say very much that's interesting or stimulating in any of them. Something to beware of for all of us as we pursue this hobby. What's it worth to be able to speak a dozen languages and yet be boring in all of them? Edited by iguanamon on 13 December 2013 at 4:49pm 23 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4671 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 7 of 27 13 December 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would classify people like Stanislav Grof as real polyglots. Dr. Grof is a founder (or one of the founders) of transpersonal psychotherapy, and he can do psychotherapy in: English, German and Czech (his L1).
When you can do psychotherapy in many languages, then you're the real thing in my book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn-P-S6eFxQ It's not about being able to speak many languages. It's all about what you can do in many languages. Edited by Medulin on 13 December 2013 at 3:46pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 27 13 December 2013 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even if some polyglot out there is overrated, so what? It's not my job to go around worrying about what other people do in their YouTube videos. For example, so what if some grumpy, combative troll spends all his time attacking other other language learners?
The second problem is that assessing speaking skill is hard. When I took my CEFRL exam, they had two trained examiners in the room: One to force me out of my comfort zone (so I couldn't rely on islands and other useful tricks), and the other to focus in detail on what I was saying. Very few untrained people can evaluate speaking skills beyond "Do they have an accent? Do they talk fast?" And some of the most controversial internet polyglots actually have a nice stack of high-level CEFRL diplomas, all of which presumably involved convincing a trained examiner that they could speak. Even self-evaluation is hard, because skills vary so much from topic to topic and day to day. For example, I have no problem diffusing arguments between 3-year-olds in French. But ask me to explain how to optimize conversion rates on a commercial website, and my French will fall apart 80% of the time. If I'm well-rested in Montreal, and I've read 100 pages of a French novel in the last 24 hours, I speak pretty well. If I've had 9 hours of sleep in the past two days, and I've just spent 11 straight hours doing complicated work in English, well, don't suddenly ask me whether it would be better to rent or buy a house. I'll be able to answer, but it won't be terribly pretty. Finally, there comes a point when many people get sick of being a "performing monkey." When I use my French online these days, it's usually because I want to talk to French speakers, not because I feel the need to prove the fact I speak French. I know that my French is sometimes OK, and sometimes a wreck, and presumably most French speakers will figure that out on their own. This whole businesses of wanting to measure everybody's language skills via YouTube videos seems like a dubious use of time. 19 persons have voted this message useful |
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