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How Fluent Are Polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 17 of 19 10 February 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK, I'm going to mention this only once because I've been down this road many times here. When we talk about fluency, most of the time we are really talking about proficiency, i.e. a broad measure of ability in the target language. Fluency, on the other hand, as used by all people in the field of language teaching (including the CEFR folks), refers solely to ease of speaking with a good level of grammatical accuracy. It doesn't refer to vocabulary or even accent. It's more about lack of stuttering, searching for words, hesitating, etc.
Now that this is off my chest, if we are really talking about polyglot fluency, I don't see why people cannot achieve high levels of fluency in many languages. Many people here are quite fluent in a wide variety of languages. On the other hand, how many people can say that they are equally proficient--I stress the word equally here--in all those languages? This is what is quite rare. I think that I speak Spanish quite fluently, at least so I have been told, but I certainly wouldn't say that in terms of proficiency my Spanish is on par with my French or English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 18 of 19 10 February 2012 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually, I don't think it's that different. You can study music theory without being very good at playing any instruments. You can be a great physiologist without being very fit. I'm a mechanical engineer and I don't know how to weld. Sure, you might say that I'd be a better engineer if I learned how to weld, or the physiologist would be better if she spent some time lifting weights, but practical experience isn't strictly necessary for theoretical studies. I hardly think it should be a requisite. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6094 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 19 of 19 10 February 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Happy Valentine's Day to you for 14th too! :) Interesting link in there because for serial language learners, such as myself, languages are our valentine for the whole year, every year. Telling jokes and making the language your own for me is a sign of a near-native speaker. Speaking about eels or the like in depth is beyond many natives in my experience, unless they have a particular penchant for the subject. Speaking at this advanced level in 5+ languages takes dedication (even if some are first languages). That said, it is possible. I have yet to speak to someone with that level of command in 10 languages though. Iversen is right about the thrill of learning a new language. I get the same thing. It is exciting for a langoholic! I would not tackle three or four at one from scratch though. You'll find you get nowhere fast that way. A maximum of two at a time, in my experience, is plenty. The Kurdish woman you mention would usually have areas of language where she feels less comfortable. We have many examples of her here. People who speak Maceonian, Albanian, Turkish and Serbian. They tend to switch amongst the languages (even mid-sentence sometimes) with others in their community and it becomes one language almost. Many find it tough (or lack confidence/experience) to speak them all to a level that a native monolingual would find acceptable for a first language, educated speaker, able to hold their own on a wide range of subjects. :) I have to say that I do enjoy conversations that mix languages because it gives me a real buzz. I used to do it in Switzerland with an Italian friend, who grew up in Zurich. It can get quite addictive because you have such a choice to express how you feel. Sometimes the German words seems to carry more weight than the Italian one and vice versa. :) Edited by Torbyrne on 10 February 2012 at 11:40pm 9 persons have voted this message useful |
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