37 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 33 of 37 20 November 2010 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
The problem that this man doesn't parrot any of the languages he is supposed to speak - he just says some gobbledigobble (or rather "муфтолингве", to use his own expression). I don't know what role the brain injury had in all this, but right now I tend more to see him as a performance artist who is pulling our leg by pretending to be a superhuman polyglot.
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| Midnatt Triglot Newbie Czech Republic Joined 4427 days ago 10 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English
| Message 34 of 37 18 October 2012 at 3:17pm | IP Logged |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gWZWiU5u9g
Haha. I especially like the first comment that says he talks about it being easy to get rid of an accent in a foreign language, yet his "English" sentence/phrase was totally incomprehensible :)
Edited by Midnatt on 18 October 2012 at 3:18pm
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 35 of 37 18 October 2012 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
I've seen him in real life and he's... interesting. It was something like a lecture at LingvaFestivalo and I jotted down some clear/googleable facts he mentioned (about the obscure origins of several words like taiga, Texas and something else). I couldn't find a single reference online to what he said.
However, to me he's beyond the categories of fake/genuine. He's very enthusiastic and he shows there can be something mystical about languages. I'm sure he's inspired more people to learn languages/write poetry in non-fluent languages/create conlangs than I have :-)
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| Midnatt Triglot Newbie Czech Republic Joined 4427 days ago 10 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English
| Message 36 of 37 18 October 2012 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
Well. I don't know half the languages he claims to speak (Russian Wiki) , but I think it would be more awesome, if he read his poetry in Sumerian and we could trust him. But if you look at his pronunciation in German and English... Oh well.
He's definitely a different persona than Ziad Fazah or Cesare Monteleone.
EDIT: I'm not mad at people with high-end claims anymore. I pity some of them though. Because what's in it, if you will make a few ppl believe you are fluent in 50-80 languages if you can't really do anything much in any of them. I mean. I once made a list of about 120-140 languages I would love to know, but it was unreal. Even 50 is a unreal number. So I decided to become fluent in one and then go on and on a see where I stop. I'm thinking of about 9 languages in total (including my mothertongue), but if I managed to do more like Tim, or any of you guy, it'd be great. But I just wouldn't feel good taking the path of Laoshu505000 who only learns a language for three months at most and quit, just to have a basic conversation with all the people at the supermarket. But that's for show.
P.S. F.e. On Unilang Cesare told me he's just a few steps from reaching fluency in Swedish, yet he didn't even understand the difference between en and ett words. If anything I think it's sad.
Those are my 2 cents
Edited by Midnatt on 18 October 2012 at 8:49pm
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 37 of 37 19 October 2012 at 12:15pm | IP Logged |
And let's not forget that some modern poetry (written by native speakers!) doesn't make sense at all and is more like playing with the sound. Same with song lyrics, lol.
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