s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish
| Message 1 of 7 13 February 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged |
Just recently I came across a Youtube video of an aspiring polyglot speaking Spanish. As I listened briefly to some very non fluent Spanish that this person had cobbled together for his fans, I thought about the purpose of this exercise and the proliferation of videos of people demonstrating their language skills.
I know that there are all kinds of reasons for wanting to make these sorts of videos. Perhaps you want to show the efficacy of a method. Perhaps you are asking for a critique. Perhaps you want to dispel any doubts about your proficiency.
Or maybe you really do have something to say. Maybe you just want to talk about language learning. This seems to be the main topic of these things.
I rarely find these videos interesting because there is so little content of interest to me. As admirable as some of these feats of language learning may be, I frankly prefer listening to native speakers talking about subjects other than how the speaker is learning the language.
I wonder what other people think.
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 2 of 7 13 February 2013 at 7:42am | IP Logged |
s_allard wrote:
I wonder what other people think. |
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I think it's been talked about to death. Search the forum to find out what people think,
if that's what you're really after.
R.
==
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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 3 of 7 13 February 2013 at 10:27am | IP Logged |
Stirring up controversy for no reason is not funny, s_allard.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 4 of 7 13 February 2013 at 12:15pm | IP Logged |
What a youtube "polyglot" does or doesn't do means nothing to me. I worry about my own learning. That's what concerns me.
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s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish
| Message 5 of 7 13 February 2013 at 1:42pm | IP Logged |
I did a search on the question and I realized that the question has been raised many times. Not necessarily in terms to my satisfaction but that's a minor issue. So I tender my apologies and will let the matter die. No harm intended.
Edited by s_allard on 13 February 2013 at 1:42pm
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4664 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 6 of 7 13 February 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged |
s_allard wrote:
Just recently I came across a Youtube video of an aspiring polyglot speaking Spanish. As I listened briefly to some very non fluent Spanish that this person had cobbled together for his fans, I thought about the purpose of this exercise and the proliferation of videos of people demonstrating their language skills. |
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I don't know, I imagine there are a lot of motivations, as you said. I've posted recordings (though not videos) before, and my only desire is to get genuine critiques -- to imagine "showing off" at my level would certainly be ridiculous and pretty delusional. :-)
But I agree, I do enjoy it more when they talk about something other than just how they learned the language.
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I rarely find these videos interesting because there is so little content of interest to me. As admirable as some of these feats of language learning may be, I frankly prefer listening to native speakers talking about subjects other than how the speaker is learning the language. |
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Well, I imagine all of us prefer listening to natives when we are in learning mode, since they are the model we strive to imitate! In terms of actual learning of your TL, polyglot videos are of course just a little side-road curiosity, and perhaps a motivational tool.
Edited by tastyonions on 13 February 2013 at 1:54pm
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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 7 of 7 13 February 2013 at 2:03pm | IP Logged |
OK, then let the matter die..
3 persons have voted this message useful
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