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Josquin: My attempt at polyglottery | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4843 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 1 of 15 15 November 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everybody,
some of you know me, some of you don't, but here I am. After having seen and enjoyed many polyglot videos by Richard, Luca, Iversen, Fasulye, and others on YouTube, I decided to make an attempt at polyglottery myself. I'm a bit camera-shy, so I decided to make an audio and only add a photo of me. The seven languages that I speak in my video/audio are: German, English, French, Italian, Swedish, Icelandic, and Russian. At the end, I added two sentences in Scottish Gaelic. Josquin's polyglot video Please note that I'm not trying to compete with any of the accomplished hyperpolyglots. It's just humble me speaking the foreign languages that I know. Some of them are better, some of them worse. Especially Icelandic could be much better, but I tried my best. However, I would appreciate any constructive criticism and honest responses. Please note the following corrections: le base della lingua --> le basi della lingua molte di opere --> molte opere í síðasta árinu --> í fyrra ég get lest --> ég get lesið мне хотелось --> мне хотелось бы slàn leat --> slàn leibh Enjoy! Edited by Josquin on 20 November 2012 at 2:11pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 15 16 November 2012 at 4:06pm | IP Logged |
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Your English is excellent (!), it sounds quite English (like the UK variant), but I
find that the prosody and intonation that you have is markedly carried over from German to English - so whereas your phonemes are completely accurate, I can hear it's you speaking just because I recognise the way you phrase melody in English as being very similar to how you do it in German. So that gives quite a funny effect. You also have a very "stiff" way of speaking, with whole sentence structures (in any language) sounding very "choppy". I can't comment on your ability in anything other than English really because your French is as good as (if not better) than mine and I don't speak any of the other languages you know better than you do either, except Dutch, but you didn't include that. I did manage to make it to the end of the tape and I understand everything you said in the languages we have in common. I guess it's because you speak very clearly (I speak very slurred). Edited by tarvos on 16 November 2012 at 4:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 15 16 November 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged |
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You have a German prosody in English but not as much in French and Italian (from what I could hear). I've already commented on your Swedish in the other thread (right?), but I'm sure there was a strange phrasing or two in this clip.... I have to listen again.
For one moment I was able to follow your Icelandic - maybe because you speak clearly and the lack of fluency makes you (want to) simplify your phrases, who knows. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 16 November 2012 at 7:50pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 15 16 November 2012 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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I indeed did catch some of the Icelandic too, even though I haven't actually studied
that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Roman Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5451 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Italian, French | Message 5 of 15 16 November 2012 at 4:58pm | IP Logged |
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I could follow you only in English and Italian, quite good! But I'm not native in any of
your languages... You seemed to be reading a text, did you? If I'm correct, maybe it'll be better to just try to talk without a script. What do you think? If you were not reading, please discard my suggestion :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 6 of 15 16 November 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
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To my Norwegian ear, your Swedish is very good, especially if you have never been to Sweden, as you say. I only noticed one or two obvious mistakes (but again, I am Norwegian, so do not claim to know Swedish as a native). I am sure you could get really excellent in Swedish if you had the chance to immerse in the language.
Your French and Italian are also good, but as tarvos says, it sounds a bit "stiff", and especially your pronunciation of Italian "betrays" your German background. The tone is rather flat, compared to native Italian speech. (Then again, as a non-native one should also take care not to exaggerate the "sining tone" of Italian.) Finally, your Russian is better than mine, but to the extent I can comment on anything, I think you sometimes make the same mistakes as I do as regards vowel reduction, i.e. pronouncing unstressed vowels almost the same way as if they were stressed. I also think that you speak very clearly, so except for Icelandic, which I don't speak at all, I could understand everything you say. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5055 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 7 of 15 16 November 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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I liked the video. There were several wrong stresses in Russian: нАчал (не начАл), мнОгие
(не многИе I heard нагие (naked) at first), нЕ был (не не бЫл, which you pronounce as не бИл). In fact, ы is reduced to schwa here. I think that you should say Я хочу немного поговорить по-русски or сказать что-нибудь по-русски, because you are speaking about the concrete situation, not a general desire. Edited by Марк on 17 November 2012 at 2:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4843 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 15 16 November 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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Well, first of all, thank you very much for your positive responses! I was harbouring many doubts whether I should put such a video online, but thanks to you guys I can see it was a good thing to do. I'll try to answer your comments and suggestions one after the other, but I'm really happy everyone could understand me. I tried to enunciate as clearly as possible.
@tarvos: I'm glad you liked my English although my prosody was not native-like. An authentic prosody is arguably the hardest thing to achieve in language learning, if you have never been in a long-time immersion situation and you're not Richard Simcott or Luca Lampariello. After re-listening to my audio though, I think I could do much better in a real-life conversation than in this soliloquy ranting about my life. Moreover, I was reading a prepared script (@Roman: Yes, you were right!), so that might have influenced my accent, too. I thought it was better to note down what I wanted to say, because I'm generally rather bad at holding improvised speeches, and I have never done that in my weaker languages. However, I'm thinking about recording a new video, in which I am going to speak more freely. Let's see if that works out. I think this point directly correlates to sounding a bit "stiff" or "choppy", but I'm generally not the touchy-feely, outgoing type of guy, so this may be an aspect, too. Moreover, I don't really know how to change that, except that I could drink some beers before making the next recording, but that would bring us back to the question if drugs can enhance your capacities in foreign languages. ;) Anyway, if I should make a new recording, I'll try to relax more. @Jeff: Thanks for your comment! Yes, you already gave me some advice on my Swedish. If you find any mistakes in this video, please let me know. I wasn't quite sure about the use of "ovillkorligen" myself. It's interesting that you and tarvos could follow some of my Icelandic, probably because my Icelandic pronunciation is not in the least native-like. I find spoken Icelandic to be nearly impenetrable, but that's another story. @Ogrim: Thanks for your compliments! It's good to hear my Swedish doesn't sound completely off. I have very little contact to spoken Swedish, so I'm glad you liked it. The same goes for French and Italian. I learned those languages more than ten years ago and I have never really used them, so my passive understanding is much better than my speaking abilities. @Марк: Thanks for your corrections! I'm glad you liked the video. Trying to stress Russian words correctly is a never-ending source of joy and entertainment for me, so sorry for butchering your language. And thanks for your suggestion on сказать; I wasn't sure about that one. So, once again: Many thanks for your compliments and your criticism! It's really a good feeling to get such a feedback. Edited by Josquin on 16 November 2012 at 11:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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