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A linguistic biography | ||
Tags: Biography | Introduction | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4630 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 1 of 4 28 March 2012 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been on this forum for a couple of weeks now, and posted a few comments, so I thought the time has come to introduce myself. This is my short linguistic biography:
I am a close to 50 years old European born and brought up in Norway. According to my mother, I first showed my interest for languages when I was four years old. At that time, the one and only TV channel in Norway showed educational programmes in the morning, and one day I happened to watch a German lesson while playing. When it finished, I went to my mother and said "Wie geht's heute?". Unfortunately, I did not follow the lessons regularly.... Seriously, as all Norwegians I started with English in school when I was nine, followed by German at 12 and French at 15. By then I knew that I wanted to know many other languages. I started to study Spanish when I was 17, and decided to continue my Spanish studies at university, mostly because I fell in love with Spain (and later on with a Spanish girl). At university I discovered a Masters degree called Romance philology, and during six years I dived into a linguistic pool of Spanish, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Romontsch, Catalan and French. In addition, I flirted with Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Czech, Japanese and Sanskrit. What a great time it was! I have never given up on learning languages, but after university time became more precious, so I dedicated more time to maintaining my best languages rather than working on the weaker ones. Since I started working I have lived in Belgium, the UK and Spain and now I am based in France, 10 minutes from the German border. For the last 15 years I have used English and French as working languages. At home I speak Spanish. In Belgium I picked up a fair amount of Dutch. One great satisfaction in my life is to live and work in a multicultural and multilingual environment, regularly using at least four languages actively each day. So what are my ambitions today? With regard to language learning I have become pragmatic. I do not aspire to be a polyglot, and would never label myself that way. You will not see me on Youtube ;=) I now dedicate my time to Russian, because it is a language I love and it would even be useful for my work. I am progressing slowly, but steadily. My aim is to reach a decent level within a year or so (that is being able to read with ease and lead a meaningful conversation). Unfortunately my time for studying is limited. As regards all the other languages I have flirted with, I return to some of them from time to time, for old times' sake. They are like hidden treasures in the back of my drawer. If one day I have enough time (if not before, then maybe when I retire), I will return in a serious way to Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi. They interest me a lot because I find the history and culture relating to them enormously fascinating. And the only thing I regret is not to have learned a non-European language to an advanced level. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 4 29 March 2012 at 7:33am | IP Logged | ||
Welcome!
Dude, you speak six languages. In another thread I saw a definition of hyperglot as "Knows more than six languages". So at six, you're certainly a polyglot in my book. You don't have to be on YouTube to earn that moniker. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4630 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 3 of 4 29 March 2012 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Ari. I am just a bit wary of labels, that is all.
As for YouTube, I do not have anything against the true polyglots who post their videos, quite the contrary. I enjoy watching them myself. However, it is not something I personally want to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Melissaki Diglot Newbie Greece Joined 4609 days ago 19 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Greek*, English Studies: Swedish, Turkish, Finnish | Message 4 of 4 03 April 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome, from another newbie :) I've found Scandinavians to be very cultivated and prone to learning foreign languages. I admire your perseverance.Good luck with your language endeavors!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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