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Polyglots - sinners or saints? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| futurianus Senior Member Korea, South starlightonclou Joined 5008 days ago 125 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: Korean* | Message 17 of 19 20 August 2012 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many years ago, I was surprised when a major newspaper wrote that I had fluency in seven languages. The journalist who had interviewed me had not asked me anything about my languages at all. I suspected that he must have gotten this information from some people who had exaggeratedly high view of me, who obviously had reinterpreted the fact that I had studied many of them during my formal education as meaning that I had fluency in them and overenthusiastically wanted to put me in the best light possible. At that time in my life, I had no interest whatsoever in learning any languages at all. I did not have any time for doing so and I would have thought that such an activity was a total waste of time and was only for students, retired people or those who did not have any better things to do with their lives. I felt confused about how such a misreporting could have happened, somewhat annoyed at irresponsible and unprofessional way the journalist had handled his article, and concerned that such a misinformation might put me in a awkward situation later on and taint my reputation. It was not a comfortable and tactful public relations thing to ask them to make a public correction of their mishandling of the information over such a 'trifle' matter, even as it was not something that had put me in a bad light or something scandalous. I did not feel good about it at all, but I just had to let it pass. ------------
I would think that that 'member' was not 'disappointed' at all. He does not seem to be much interested with the topic of the popularity and its relevant discussions in this forum, but seems to be more interested in recognizing and receiving their 'gifts' to language learners. As a newcomer to language communities and sites just over a year ago and still not familiar with the general milieu of HTLAL, he was at first simply curious as to why 'this kid' was not more discussed in lieu with 'how to learn any language', even though there were many discussions and arguments over other issues concerning her. Nowadays it seems that he feels a need to express an 'admonition' to the larger more academic interdisciplinary communities to pay more attention to these kids for their researches in related fields and has himself taken some steps towards dealing with some specific issues and aspects of their language acquisition. We witness the miracle of language acquisition by millions upon millions of our littlings everyday and everyplace. Witnessing the miracle of multilingual acquisition is rarer, and of globalistic multilingual acquisition rarest. We can get much information as to techniques and handling of issues related to language learning from experienced adult language learners. We can, however, only delve into the much deeper foundational principles and functioning of language learning mechanism by investigating into how our little humanoids acquire an ability to communicate using sonic signals. At the risk of oversimplification, we can say that the children are providing us with the primary sources and the adults the secondary sources. The primacy of primary sources cannot be overstated. I am just pointing out and clarifying in passing that that 'member' has not been and still is not so much interested with the issues of this thread and thus was not 'disappointed', even though he is not denying that they have their own significance within this forum, when he is pointing out the language community's lack of attention to these kids, especially to the 'gifts' within them for all language learners. "Unity in diversity, Diversity in unity" Peace.... Edited by futurianus on 20 August 2012 at 7:53pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6649 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 18 of 19 21 August 2012 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Some YouTube polyglots exaggerate their abilities so they can gain more fame, hits,
visitors to their websites, etc. in order to earn money from YouTube, book sales, etc., all so they can support themselves by learning languages. I don't see anything particularly wrong with this. They are welcome to make a living any way they choose. However, I don't believe they represent most language learners and I don't think they make very good role models for most of us. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 19 of 19 21 August 2012 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Learning many languages just for fun is something most people can't even conceive of doing. Many people also believe that learning more than one or two foreign languages is impossible or an unnecessary wate of time. As a result those who begin, or even express a desire, to learn many languages are often called geniuses(the saints) or frauds(the sinners).
I disagree with this either one or the other approach to analyzing both aspiring and actual polyglots. There is a lot of middle ground between the "saints" and "sinners" and some of us, like me, inhabit that middle ground. We may not be brilliant yet, but many of us do have some abilities in at least a few languages. Another other issue is that one could be declared a saint at first but later condemned as a sinner (I'm reminded of a few examples but I won't name them)while another could start out being branded a sinner and later become a saint. Journalists, at least in the beginning, seem to thrive on overhyping anyone doing something unusual as a brilliant genius. It's almost as if they want the world to initially believe that there actually is a linguistic prodigy somewhere who really does devour grammar books the way children devour candy and has learned between 10-50+ languages to *fluency* within a few days or weeks. The journalists most likely already know that this standard is impossible to meet and after a little while they can gleefully expose the "so-called polyglot" as a fake. Usually the members of this forum and other language enthusiasts know not to get taken by the hype or to make too much of the falls from grace, which is the way it is supposed to be. I don't worry too much about the sinners. They will either learn from their mistakes and misdeeds and become saints or they will not. I believe those sinners who don't redeem themselves will eventually get discouraged by languages and move on to something else. NB. *Fluency is never clearly defined by the journalists, but I believe it's use is meant to imply something like being able to eloquently converse about every subject under the sun and/or write brillant literary masterpieces.* EDIT: Corrected some typos. Edited by mick33 on 24 August 2012 at 9:46am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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