|
 |
Do you consider yourself a polyglot? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4365 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes  Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 57 of 89 24 March 2013 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Haha, you're right. I wonder if it really leads to a solid C1 level... that would be good, indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leroc Senior Member United States Joined 4309 days ago 114 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 58 of 89 24 March 2013 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
To me, being able to speak 4 languages at a C1 level or 5 languages at a B2 would be the benchmark for polyglottry. So my English (1) + Dutch(.2) + Spanish(.4)= about 1.6 languages
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tiger Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4313 days ago 15 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 59 of 89 24 March 2013 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
There's this website called sprachenlernen24.de and I wonder how good their programs are. For certain languages you can get Basiskurs, Aufbaukurs and Fachwortschatz-Vokabeltrainer and it claims to lift you up to the C2 level with 5000 words. Well I can imagine an advanced speaker of language XY on a C1/C2 level with 15000 words not being enough for them. However you can reach a B2 level in terms of grammar lacking a lot of vocab. Has anybody here used this course? I'm curious about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4365 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 60 of 89 24 March 2013 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I don't think that 5000 words are enough for C2. There is no textbook series that lifts you up to C2. My guess would be that you need about 20 000 to 30 000 words in order to attain C2 level. But of course, it depends on what you count as a word.
Is mépriser, méprisable, mépris one word or three words? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 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 61 of 89 24 March 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
When I have done my own word counts I have followed rules that defined mépriser, méprisable, mépris as three words. Otherwise I would have said I counted word roots. If a certain derivation is stable and omnipresent it is tempting to include it in the morphological paradigm for one type of words, but on the other hand we accept that some forms don't exist for all words of that kind. So basically you can formulate some rules of thumbs, but it is impossible to lay down principles that unequivocally can define across language what a word really is. And then there is the problem with compound words versus juxtaposed, but separate words (read German versus English(.
The case is rather that you formulate criteria that give sensible results across the languages you want to test. I can however say with complete confidence that with my counting rules I have not felt myself totally at ease reading scientific articles, newspapers and ordinary literature in languages where I had less than 10.000 words according to my counts, and in those languages I claim to speak I have always had at least 20.000 passive words in my vocabulary. My best foreign language is (of course) English, and my counts for that language have consistently settled around 35.000 words. I have no idea about the percentage of these which form my active vocabulary, only that this elusive number must be higher than the number I actually have used. It is also clear that simply knowing some words doesn't give you speaking or writing skills, but on the other hand it is clear that my vocabulary size is a fairly good indicator for my subjective evaluation of my active level in different languages. OK, enough about the relation betweeen vocabulary size and general level. I have long ago declared in this thread that I see myself as a polyglot. If I refused to be one, then you could just as well scrap the word due to lack of application possibilities. But I refuse to accept that you need to be nearnative (or C2) in all of your languages. If I can discuss the qualities of levadas, the difference between the fish in a pizza napoletana and a pizza sardenhas and my reasons for running around with texts in Esperanto (and losing them somewhere in my hotel) in Portuguese, then that's enough for me. Edited by Iversen on 25 March 2013 at 2:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4666 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 62 of 89 24 March 2013 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
C2 English means you know words like snarky or internecine.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 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 63 of 89 24 March 2013 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Do all native Anglophones know them? I knew snarky and could guess that internecine must be something like moribund*, but you need to go through a LOT of words to know which proportion of the words in a typical dictionary is permanently stored in your scull. And that's why I base my estimates on random pages from a real dictionary and not a list of words put together by someone.
* actually it seems to be related to murderous internal warfare and other ghastly things, but I was not far off, I think Edited by Iversen on 24 March 2013 at 12:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4365 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 64 of 89 24 March 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
There is no "C2 word list" or something like that you have to work your way through. It's nonsense to say this word or that grammar point is "C2". You can know "snarky" at b2 level as well. You can pass a C2 level test without knowing "snarky". C2 means that you a) understand everything effortlessly (reading and listening comprehension), b) you can express yourself near-native like (although not exactly like a native-speaker) and c) you can write like an educated person in the language.
But actually, at C2 you can still make many mistakes. And C2 doesn't mean "C1 but without accent" as many people think. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
