ronp Heptaglot Newbie Australia ronpeek.blogspo Joined 6093 days ago 33 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, German, Flemish, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Norwegian, Mandarin, Esperanto, Finnish, Macedonian, Hindi, Greek, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Basque, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic (Written), Sign Language Studies: Turkish, Swahili
| Message 1 of 33 15 October 2010 at 10:01am | IP Logged |
FYI
Just came across this on the web on a woman who aims to learn 13 languages in 3 years:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870344000457554 8341647547242.html?goback=.gde_1799190_member_32136776
Kind regards,
Ron
Edit: I have amended the link
Edited by ronp on 15 October 2010 at 12:42pm
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 33 15 October 2010 at 10:27am | IP Logged |
ronp wrote:
FYI
Just came across this on the web on a woman who aims to learn 13 languages in 3 years:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870344000457554 8341647547242.html?goback=.gde_1799190_member_32136776
Kind regards,
Ron |
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I would like to read this article, but:
When I insert the link, I land on the "Wallstreet Journal Error Page" and get the message "page unavailable". So I can't read anything.
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 15 October 2010 at 10:30am
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 3 of 33 15 October 2010 at 10:53am | IP Logged |
There's a space inserted between the 4 and 8 in the link. Remove this and it works fine! :)
Edited by Teango on 15 October 2010 at 10:54am
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jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5230 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian
| Message 4 of 33 15 October 2010 at 11:08am | IP Logged |
"Italian, Chinese, German, Russian, French, Korean, Arabic"
Wow. The least she could have done was choose some hard languages :-) Sarcasm aside, 3 or so months to become conversational in a language probably isn't all that difficult if we put in the time and effort. I think irishpolyglot has shown us that. That said, she's definitely got her work cut out for her. Her method is top notch I think. Immersing yourself in the language every day will make all the difference in the end.
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Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5172 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 5 of 33 15 October 2010 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
I have tried to learn so many languages in a certain length of time, but I have not had the success I would have liked. The article is interesting, but at the time of writing, the lady was 15 months in. It would be interesting to see if she succeeded. It seems to me devoting a fair part of the day is significant in learning a language - Kato Lomb, the Hungarian polyglot said to achieve a reasonable level you must devote hours a day. I must admit I have always found this difficult and frustrating as my inability to devote the time has delayed my language development. Devoting a great deal of time to languages seems to be essential to be one of the "greats," like Heinrich Schliemann, Richard Burton and Prof Arguelles.
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 6 of 33 15 October 2010 at 9:32pm | IP Logged |
It is a fine ambition, but it is strange that out of her 13 languages, the only one they
tested was German, since it states elsewhere in the article "German, which she learned to
speak as a child while living in Germany (she also majored in at college)"
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Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5172 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 7 of 33 18 October 2010 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
Splog wrote:
It is a fine ambition, but it is strange that out of her 13 languages, the only one they
tested was German, since it states elsewhere in the article "German, which she learned to
speak as a child while living in Germany (she also majored in at college)" |
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Yes, that does seem to be strange. It's easy to claim proficiency in a language, but difficult for someone to test. Thanks for your Youtube videos, by the way, very interesting - puts together a lot of stuff I knew in interesting ways.
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Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5344 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 8 of 33 19 October 2010 at 5:17pm | IP Logged |
With an hour and a half *each day* one could achieve very respectable results in three years. So let's say she has an income and can devote nine hours every day to language study. That's six languages maximum by my reckoning. And that's not taking into account Arabic, Chinese or Korean, which typically require at least double the time and effort of other languages (for a Westerner).
I'd be skeptical of her achieving anything more than a very nominal level in each of her languages.
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