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How Fluent Are Polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4888 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 19 09 February 2012 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I was a bit sad when I realized that my friends in the Linguistics Department couldn't actually speak any of the languages they studied!
I find that a language can get switched 'on' while traveling, that I can move from reading to speaking in a way that I rarely can at home. Edited by kanewai on 09 February 2012 at 9:33pm 1 person has 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 10 of 19 09 February 2012 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
It's probably different in the world of art music, but in other genres it's not that uncommon to find people who play a handful of instruments equally well. The people I know who play just one instrument are a minority. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Northernlights Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4674 days ago 73 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 11 of 19 09 February 2012 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Sorry, yes, you're absolutely right, I was only thinking of classically trained players, which is rather limited! But in any case I wouldn't be such a harsh judge myself when deciding the level when you could say a person plays an instrument, I was only trying to give an example of what one person might call "well" or in terms of languages, "fluent". Edited by Northernlights on 09 February 2012 at 6:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5299 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 12 of 19 09 February 2012 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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In my case I find some of my languages get rusty if I don't use them during some time... which is perfectly normal if you speak more than a few and are not constantly traveling all over the world. The key is to not let them get too rusty... basic fluency should always be within reach (a few weeks of intensive practice I guess).
That's in order to maintain basic fluency... To me basic fluency is the point where using a language (be it in conversations, reading literature, watching movies, etc) has become fun and enjoyable, ie, you don't see it as "language learning" anymore. Usually at that point you are able to read books without having to use the dictionary, you are able to sustain long conversations on general topics without getting mentally tired, understand a movie without subtitles, etc etc. Once you get to that level getting any further is not very important, to me anyway. Talking about electric eels shouldn't be a problem because you can already say "you know, the fish that kind of looks like a snake and generates electric shocks". But damn is it tough getting to, and maintaining basic fluency... 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 13 of 19 09 February 2012 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
The levels achieved and reasons really vary from polyglot to polyglot. Some read and translate from dozens of languages. Some speak well over a dozen languages fluently - it's hard to cast many stones at Professor Argüelles' Dutch, although it's near the bottom of his top 20 languages, if memory serves. Interest in dialects seems to largely be a matter of personal taste. So is whether one enjoys videos on quantum physics - I was watching some physics videos for the general public in German yesterday, and found them enjoyable. Musical instruments are somewhat different from languages. They too have specialists, and people who can become passable on a wide range of instruments, but I'd agree with those who claim they take even more time. One key bit of your post is "a more realistic goal for me". It's perfectly legitimate to choose to focus on only a few languages; I've met some very talented people who have given up some languages to focus exclusively on a core set. For most other polyglots, well, approaches and thoughts vary, but I don't think collecting languages like seashells is common among them. 3 persons have 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 14 of 19 10 February 2012 at 9:34am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
I studied Comparative and Modern literature at an institute named like that, followed by French at the Institute for Romance languages at the University of Århus during the 70s (both institute names have disappeared since then). At the first institute it was a condition for both teachers and students that they could read in the 'continental' Nordic languages, English, German and French, and in practice they could also speak in at least Danish, English and German - French, may, maybe not. However nobody could apparently read Russian, even though a lot of them were ardent communists. I escaped to the Romance institute, where at least two, maybe three or four of the teachers were true polyglots, who spoke at least the main Romance languages plus German, English and Danish. One of them even spoke Ancient French. So all in all the situation was fairly good - at least among the teachers. I had only a few and brief contacts with our collegues at the institute for Linguistics - in one instance due to the visit of professor Martinet from France, who was a hyperpolyglot by any standard. My impression is that they spent a lot of time and effort on Finnish and Hungarian, and at least the leader of that institute could speak those languages (plus German, English, Danish as usual). I have no contact with the university world right now so I don't know whether the standards have fallen. But because Danish is a small language both teachers and students at any language institute will at least be able to speak at least Danish, English and German, and from there they will surely have added a few more within their chosen area. I can't imagine a Danish teacher in linguistics being a monoglot - but it is not impossible that those who study exotic and/or dead languages can't speak them - I simply don't know. Maybe some of those who study languages/linguistics right now can tell about the current state of affairs. At least we have avoided having basically monolingual 'language experts' running around. Edited by Iversen on 10 February 2012 at 9:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 19 10 February 2012 at 9:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I divide languages into languages I know more or less well or try to learn properly, and languages I just play with.
Languages I know well or fairly well would be English, French, Spanish, German and Italian, and languages I am trying seriously to learn are Russian, and some time during this year Greek. These are the ones I have any sort of ambitions in. And then there is playtime :-) And I see no reason why I should not play with as many languages as possible - I have touched upon Mandarin, Icelandic and Ukrainian this year, and Zwahili and Turkish last year. In previous years I have looked at Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Old Spanish,Dutch, Polish and Portuguese. Can I say anything useful in any of them? No, I cannot, but who cares. I might as well spend my time on that as on playing domino. As long as I do not go around pretending that I am fluent in 20 languages, I see no harm in it. Knowing 5 words of Arabic is worth a lot more, when you meet an Arab, than knowing 500 words more in French if you meet a Frenchman. I know of only a handful of people who can speak more than 6 languages well, and even fewer who can do it with a native accent. In any event every language learner has my full respect, regardless of his approach. I am equally impressed by the ones who know two languages to C2 as by those who can do 20 languages to A1, or any combination thereof. What does not impress me are people who know 20 languages to A2 and claim to know them to C2 or monolinguals who claim that they will learn three languages to advanced fluency within 6 months. And who then say people are haters, when they try to give them a bit of realism. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5225 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 16 of 19 10 February 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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An important part of my me is trying to do things well, so even if I only speak one foreign language to C2 level currently (and even that is kind of unofficial, as you can see in my profile) I plan to eventually reach well beyond that level* in (maybe) all the ones I study. Just because that's what being serious about it means, and I think I am -- that doesn't impede that I play with some other languages on the side, but then I'd only claim to speak 'a bit' of them. I admit my pronunciation may not be the best, mainly due to lack of interaction with live speakers, but other than that and because I'm a bit obsessed with efficiency, I think I get pretty good after I sit down to work on a language for a while -- as 'flow' goes, I usually have little problems to keep speaking within my limits (that may or may not be a lot; we may leave these two separate issues for other threads) in any language.
So I'm up for concentrating in just a few and get them to a good level instead of spreading too thin, but I don't resign to toying with a few. Since I can't really foresee more-than-casual use (the pivoting point) I may regroup my languages any time. This would imply some effort has gone to waste when a language is demoted from 'real target' to 'toy', but that's part of life -- it was probably fun anyway.
Only if those stubborn monoglots devote insane quantities of effort to that language, judging from what existing polyglots have demonstrated possible. Even so, I think such monoglots could only be proved to be marginally better by any imaginably means (just how much hair splitting can be tolerable? who would qualify as target audience / judge?). Too little investment return, in my opinion.
How good can a joke be if it depends on the language to work? ;)
"True polyglots"? Isn't that a bit harsh on the guys at the first institute? If they could read at least 4 languages and speak 3 of them, I'd say that qualifies as polyglottery. OTOH....
...I don't think a 'too harsh' exists at all for this kind of people. I have always wondered how much or what sort of an 'expert on languages' one can be without being able to speak (or write, whatever really -- just produce some coherent output) any other than your own. No physicist or mathematician could have or maintain any degree of credibility if he couldn't get past some basic operations. Languages are successfully used even by the less educated speakers, which makes the comparison only more poignant. Can you claim to be knowledgeable about screwdrivers and yet not be able to use one (assuming your hands weren't cut off or something equally dramatic)? Maybe languages are so different from other disciplines that rules are different somehow. If that's the case, I'd really love to learn how exactly. *For the newer members. As we've discussed several times, the minimum level granted to award you a C2 label is pretty much set by Cambridge with everyone else closely emulating them. That level is not all that impressive to me: any native with some serious degree of education should be hovering over that. For example, anyone meeting the local HTLAL 'advanced fluency' definition is probably ready to pass any C2 tests without breaking sweat. Then again most C2 levels are probably biased towards technicalities. But I'm not sure I want to discuss that yet again in this thread. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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