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Do you consider yourself a polyglot? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 81 of 89 11 October 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can't agree with that. As it happens, I do know what internecine means, it is the opposite of a symbiotic relationship. Snarky I have heard of, but never used. Sounds like an American term to me. But nobody knows every word in the dictionary. Even "less educated" native speakers may well use words that are specific to their hobby or profession that the wider public might struggle with. For example, any bricklayer will be able to tell you that the finishing stone placed on top of a brick wall is called the cope. So can I say that if you don't know that definition, you aint C2? Edited by beano on 11 October 2013 at 7:34pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 82 of 89 11 October 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Good shout. Apparently in Luxembourg, it's totally normal for people to grow up speaking Luxembourgish, French, German and English. If a Luxembourger then decides to learn, say, Russian of his own accord, he would then speak 5 languages - a polyglot by many people's standards but it could be argued that he only really had to work independently for one. Now consider someone from a staunchly monolingual society. If they labour away at two foreign languages, they "only" speak three tongues, but they have put in twice the effort. Edited by beano on 11 October 2013 at 7:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jheavner724 Decaglot Newbie United States Joined 4049 days ago 5 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Old English Studies: Vietnamese, Sign Language, Hindi, Sanskrit, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Russian, Arabic (Written) Studies: Macedonian, Mongolian, Tagalog | Message 83 of 89 29 October 2013 at 7:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I do. Sometimes I feel like people consider the term to be arrogant, but I don't
mean it in that sense, after all it's just a term. I considered myself a polyglot after I learned two modern foreign languages (this added to my three ancient ones: Latin, Greek and Hebrew). However, I do not consider myself a linguist, even though I'm one of the few who actually enjoys reading linguistic papers and learning about linguistics as a discipline. I realize that the word "linguist" can mean many things, but I don't use it to avoid confusion about whether or not I have a degree in linguistics or something. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 4010 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 84 of 89 09 December 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Reviving a dead thread.
No, I am in no way shape form or fashion a polyglot. I'm not sure if being a polyglot is a goal of mine since I really only have two languages I REALLY want to be fluent in and any other after that would really just be a "oh let's try this ONE!" type of deal. I figure that polyglots have serious and concrete reasons to know they languages they do. Mine are just because I like German and Finnish language rock music. I don't know how many languages you have to speak in order to considered a polyglot. I've never heard of any set bar for it but for me I would say someone who speaks four languages or more. Reason being is because I think the definitions go as the following: One language = monolingual Two languages = bilingual Three languages = Trilingual Four languages or more = Polyglot 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 85 of 89 09 December 2013 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
(i listed some great Finnish bands here :))) feel free to write in my log if you want more recs!) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 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 86 of 89 10 December 2013 at 10:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you learn Finnish and German in order to understand rock lyrics from Finnish and German bands then that's a perfectly valid reason, but if that's your only reason then maybe you don't go on also to learn to speak and write Finnish and German. And the question is whether purely passive languages count.
Personally I wouldn't count languages which I only to some extent can read because I know a related language or two -like Frisian or Sardic. Those I can read because I actually have studied them deserve a honourable mention - like Ancient French and Ancient Occitan, which I can read fairly fluently, but not speak or write. And if there are enough of those or they are very exotic I would certainly be impressed - and I'm certainly impressed when people can read Egyptian hieroglyphs off the wall or understand what Finnish rock bands sing (especially if they sing or growl in Finnish). But the consensus is probably that you need to be able to speak your languages at some hard-to-define level in order to put the poly- prefix on -glot. Edited by Iversen on 10 December 2013 at 10:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4654 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 87 of 89 10 December 2013 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Spotted this beautiful description and can't resist quoting it!
Yeah, it seems so, but then, tell me why I should care? (the only thing I got of my so-called "polyglottery" so far is random people telling me "omg you are great with languages" "omg you've got a brilliant brain" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 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 88 of 89 10 December 2013 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You don't need to care, and in most cases you can't earn money on learning more than few languages.
As for the 'consensus' I just summarized what I can see most in most posts in this thread, and in spite of my respect for scholars who can read weird old languages and other passive language learners I also support that 'glots should be able to speak their languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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