fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4718 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 9 of 33 28 April 2012 at 7:25am | IP Logged |
I'm already 23 and none of my friends have this strong interest as I do... a few are concerned with 1 language in particular (mostly English) and find this area interesting, but most of them don't care much about it....luckily we live in 2012 and there's always the internet! =)
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Kevin Hsu Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 4741 days ago 60 posts - 94 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Korean Studies: German
| Message 10 of 33 28 April 2012 at 8:01am | IP Logged |
Most of my friends in my high school got discouraged too much when they tried out French
class. I tried to talk a few of them out of it but so far, I haven't found anyone who
cares about language learning enough to actually try. Most get scared when I say I try to
go through 150 new words each day on weekends.
It's fine dude, you're not alone. People in my school thinks I'm crazy when they find me
flipping through Korean flashcards when nothing is going on inside classes :)
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Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian
| Message 11 of 33 28 April 2012 at 5:21pm | IP Logged |
I know absolutely no one (young like I am or otherwise) who is interested in languages. I've met some other
teenagers who are learning languages for school, of course, but none of them do it for fun or enjoy reading
books on linguistics before they go to bed. That's one of the reasons I am so glad I discovered this forum!
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frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6946 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German
| Message 12 of 33 28 April 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
My older daughter tells me that among her High School friends there is a girl who has learned Korean to
some level of fluency and plans to specialize in East Asian languages when she goes to college. There is
another girl who went to Spain as an exchange student for a year. I am not sure what other languages she
has studied so far, but from her reaction to my bookcase with language materials during a party we had I am
pretty sure her interests go beyond just Spanish. There is a guy who knows some Italian and is now studying
Mandarin.
So, it's not all gloom and doom.
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ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5035 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 13 of 33 28 April 2012 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
I'm 17, but I won't see myself as a polyglot untill my French and German are at semi-fluent level (b2/c1).
Nevertheless I do see myself as a young language enthusiast.
People around my think it's interresting/strange but they over-rate my abilities way too much.
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drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4915 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 14 of 33 29 April 2012 at 8:27am | IP Logged |
No. Not even slightly. I know some Americans at college who speak Spanish pretty well, and one is honestly near
native, her boyfriend is Mexican and she only speaks Spanish with him for the past 2 years so she honestly from as
far as I can tell has almost no accent.
But that's IT. I know no one else.
And even with kids who I know through traveling programs and organizations, none do. I have a cousin who speaks
Spanish and Polish fluently, as well as German to a lesser degree, but she's in Ireland, and everytime I visited her in
the past 4 years she's been overseas!
But to be honest, I'd rather hang out with natives of my target language than fellow enthusiasts, even though having
a few enthusiasts who knew lots about languages and linguistics would be awesome to talk to!!!
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5337 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 15 of 33 29 April 2012 at 11:32am | IP Logged |
When I was 15 I was fluent in 4 languages and learning the 5th. I knew noone who was as interested in
languages as I am. In 4 weeks I turn 50 and in all those years I have only met one person who was as
interested, or even more interested than me. Given that I spent 10 years at the University studying
languages and meeting only one soulmate it says something about how rare such an intense language
interest is.
That's why I have made this forum my second home. It is not rare to be a teenage polyglot. It is rare to be
a polyglot regardless of age. Fortunately we have this place :-)
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Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 5149 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese*
| Message 16 of 33 03 June 2012 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
Well, I´m 15... And I know only Portuguese. When my English is fluent I will see myself
as a "diglot"
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