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Your personal polyglot ideal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6658 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 41 of 125 07 September 2006 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||
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My personal polyglot ideal would be the ability to speak five languages well enough that the native speakers of those languages understand me and are not jarred by the way I speak their language.
I live in Ohio, and people from other parts of the country have asked me if I'm from Cleveland because of my accent. As far as I can tell, it doesn't carry over to other languages I speak. When I spoke French in France, people assumed I was from Germany or Switzerland. While speaking German in Germany, people assumed I was from France. When I told them that I was actually American, they seemed genuinely surprised. Obviously I've got some sort of accent, but it's not blatantly American and it doesn't stand in the way of communication. I could probably perfect my accent if I had more conversation with native speakers of those languages. Without such opportunities, perfecting my accent is less of a priority that increasing my vocabulary and improving my grammar. For now, my language learning is something I have to do on my own. I think it's possible to learn a language well without formal classes, but I think good input from a native speaker (or better yet, more than one native speaker) is necessary to get the accent right. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6717 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 42 of 125 07 September 2006 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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SamD,
That's funny - I had a similar experience back in my hometown. I was singing & playing guitar at a pub and when I got down to the bar I was talking to some people and I was asked where I was from. I said "here" and they kept saying "yes, but where were you originally from?" LOL I just kept saying "here". I was born in the same town!!! I'm not sure exactly where they thought I was from, but they told me I have an accent! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| virgule Senior Member Antarctica Joined 6839 days ago 242 posts - 261 votes Studies: Korean | Message 43 of 125 07 September 2006 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Walking down the high street of my home town (it's a tourist place) and being able to speak to everyone in their own language... Impossible, but that's the my idea of an ideal. It might be unattainable, but why not aim high ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 44 of 125 23 May 2007 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||
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I've just reread what I wrote earlier about my journey to France and came to the conclusion that I'm rather old-fashioned: what impresses me most is perfect grammar, even if the accent is rather heavy. Although it's needless to say that if the first guide had a native-like accent, I would be even more impressed and probably I'd dare to ask her how she had learnt Russian so well.
I don't know if it's the right thread for that, but I've also noticed that my personal "must" language for polyglots is Finnish, of course I strongly respect all polyglots, but those who have Finnish on their lists arouse deeper admiration in me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 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 45 of 125 23 May 2007 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I admire people who know a lot of very different languages, and I also admire people who know a select number of language exceedingly well. Ideally of course both things should be in order, so my ideal of a polyglot must be somebody who scores highly on both accounts, in other words someone with more languages than Mezzofanti and perfect command of all of them.
But that's just theory. In practice you always have to make a choice as to where you will invest your time and energy, and my personal choice has been to learn as many languages as possible, even though this means that I can't learn them all to perfection and that I limit myself to some relatively closely related languages. So much for the lofty ideals ... reality beckons. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 46 of 125 24 May 2007 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||
For all the languages I learn, I'm going to aim for perfection for as long as I can. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to learn them all perfectly, but that means that I'm not going to hit a point and say, "OK, I speak it well enough that I don't need to build to it anymore." Even if it's just passive building. For example, my English is good enough I don't need to learn any more, but when I hear some of my friends who are English majors speak, I admire some of the vocabulary choices, and try to learn more through reading. On the same token, I try to pay attention to spelling errors I make. This are things I want to try to do with all of my languages, even after I learn them well. Some will likely be btter than others, but why not keep working for an aim, methinks? :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| japkorengchi Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6679 days ago 334 posts - 355 votes | Message 47 of 125 24 May 2007 at 9:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Linguistic ability is important but the way you present your linguistic ability is even more important for a polyglot. A polyglot who speaks many languages may not have the same degree of personal charm as a bilingual because of arrogance or other matters. It is also important to use all languages in an interesting manner so that people who talk to you find it funny and want to do it again.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 48 of 125 24 May 2007 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't say that you should stop trying to get better in any language at a certain point. Even using a language for reading or listening will in the long run improve your knowledge, and an hour here and there with a word list or a grammar will still have an effect even for an advanced language user (though it may be easier to see the immediate effect on a language that you don't know as well yet). For me the choice should be put in these terms: should I postpone learning one more language just because I still make errors in those I already know? And my personal answer to this question is no. It is like asking a couple of parents whether they want one more baby. If they really want it they won't wait until their firstborn is X years old and has a degree in applied linguistics. And they probably still continue throwing a lump of bread to number one once in a while. Edited by Iversen on 24 May 2007 at 10:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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