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Why not Spanish as essential? | ||
Tags: Polyglot Academy | Language Importance | L3 via L2 | Polyglottery | Alexander Arguelles | Choosing a Language | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 41 of 115 08 March 2014 at 2:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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With 99.9%, I was referring to Professor Arguelles. He counts, and makes the information about his levels available - http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/about.html . I believe it to be accurate; both I and other people I know, with a variety of native and highly proficient languages, have talked to him. This forum is also full of people like Sprachprofi, Iversen, and Serpent, who genuinely do write English better than the majority of native speakers. Some, like Iversen, rigorously estimate their vocabulary - he has a technique involving very large dictionaries, and interpolating from the number of words he knows and doesn't know on arbitrary pages.
Are there people that vastly overestimate their levels? Absolutely. But they're only weakly represented among regulars on this forum. Everyone here knows that 'good' can mean a lot of things. You can redefine 'good', and 'western hemisphere', but it hardly helps conversation or understanding to do so. It does polyglots a disservice if you claim they're necessarily awesome at their weakest language. Equally, it does them a disservice if you claim their best ones must suck and they could never learn or teach in it, simply because American high school students learn Spanish poorly. And all of us are aware that many school systems teach languages poorly, there have been large threads about how accurately (or not) the general public, forum members, etc, evaluate their skills, etc. And, as Chung points out, people here are generally interested in actually learning, including learning a bridge language if it's necessary for their goals. The focus isn't impressing you, as Serpent says. Now would you stop derailing threads? There's not a shortage, and you can start a new one if you want to discuss, say, what 'good' means. Can this thread return to the original question now? 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 42 of 115 08 March 2014 at 2:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Don't really see how any of my comments are that controversial.
1. If you take two identical twins, who use the same "methods" and are equally talented for languages (whether it be with memorization or grasping grammar or accent or whatever), one person will progress much farther in language X than the twin that divides their time amongst languages X, Y, and Z. Let's say that they are all close to their native language. 1a. If the person that works on three languages devotes the same amount of time to EACH language as their twin that focuses on one language, he will most likely be equally good--but at three languages. Both are equally amazing, as long as equal time was spent on both. 3. Beginners and intermediate learners tend to rate their ability higher than advanced learners or the most proficient/experienced speakers. 4. Spanish is spoken a lot more in the Americas than French in terms of number of speakers in general terms. If you live in Montreal, obviously, things would be different. But I'm talking about general terms. If you were at a random spot in Europe you'd want to know French/German over Spanish if you wanted to speak to a lot of people. 5. People have different interpretations of what "beginning", "intermediate", or "advanced" are depending on their own abilities or cultural perspective. 6. To be Luca level good at a language requires many thousands of hours of work, even if the foreign language is similar to your starting language. And the controversial, potentially, assertions. 1. It is probably better to learn a language, or any topic, in your native language rather than a second/foreign language. Roger Federer speaks Swiss German, English, and French well. He could learn very well in his best language, Swiss German. And also very well in English (his mom is South Africa). How about French? He learned it as an adult and you can judge his French level for yourselves on youtube. But compare it to his German or English. I suspect that you'll find a difference. Something I didn't say was that if you wanted to have a better "overall" level in your second and third language, it may be a good idea, if you are competent in the second language, to study the third language in your second language. But if your goal is to be good at the third language, exclusively,I would argue that you should just do it in your first language. Edit: I'll do you one better. I won't waste any of my time nor that of anybody else's by frequenting these threads. I guess I didn't realize that amazing people like Timothy Doner and other polyglots that study 16 hours a day and learn 20 languages in 3 years better than people that take college courses while abroad surrounded by 100% native speakers. Also, I didn't know until relatively recently that there seems to be a hate towards quality in all walks of life; everybody gets a medal and quantity>>quality. You see this in things like marathons. I ran a marathon or I "ran" 70 minutes. "How fast did you do it?" "What? Why does that matter? I'm just as good as you." "But I train twice as many miles, do hard workouts, and am 30% faster than you and am a Division 1 scholarship runner at one of the largest universities in the US." But people don't know what is good until they meet people that are better. In the OR I recently talked with a midlevel (who typically have an inflated opinion of their medical knowledge) provider who didn't know a basic type of vasculitis. This was a disease that any dumb first or second year medical student knows. Not to mention, residency or fellowship trained docs or attendings. Just a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. To the language newbies: you aren't going to be as good as a native in a year. Nor 5 years. Maybe not 10. Enjoy the ride and work hard at it. If progress isn't satisfactory, try other things. You may be a more visual vs audio learner. But the more time you spend on it, the better you will get. Edited by culebrilla on 08 March 2014 at 2:29am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 43 of 115 08 March 2014 at 2:26am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Translation: I'm only showing you a glimpse of how amazing I am. Well, thanks for that :-) Consider the possibility that other people also avoid making controversial claims. BTW I don't think anyone claims they know 99% of the words in a language other than toki pona. They just say they understand 99% of the words in most texts. And people can easily miss nuances even in their native language, not to mention that many books contain cross-language allusions. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 44 of 115 08 March 2014 at 2:45am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
The time when you learn a language through something else (whether L1 or L2) is just a small part of the process. In the long run it matters as little as whether you learn "hola" from FSI, Assimil or Michael Thomas. Also, the maths of spending time on languages is not linear. And there's no need to compare identical twins in a vacuum. If you're against the idea that "everybody gets a medal", you also need to accept the one that learning your first foreign language is much harder than your fifth. No, I won't tell you what you want to hear. Edited by Serpent on 08 March 2014 at 2:47am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 45 of 115 08 March 2014 at 2:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
No. Once you understand, say, the subjunctive, aspect, or topic markers, learning another language's take on them is a lot easier. If X, Y, and Z are at all related (or have historically influenced each other), there's also a discount on vocabulary; the twin putting in three times the time in 1a would likely be better at all three languages.
Varies, but sometimes true; it's usually obvious quickly when it happens. If you're consistently demonstrating high ability, though, that clearly doesn't magically mark you as a novice simply because novices claim high ability...
Absolutely.
As a first foreign language, yes. As, say, your 6th in a set of closely related languages, probably not.
You can argue whatever you want. Personally, I appreciate the insight that comparing, say, French and Spanish gives me into both; studying them via English for the same amount of time can't provide that. Can you slow down or hurt your results by using a weak enough language as a bridge for material too difficult for your level of it? Sure. That doesn't make any use of an L2 counterproductive, though...
Do some cultures frequently have issues with quality? Sure. Are some people incompetent? Sure. Are you going to usefully contribute to conversations if you rant about that while dragging people like Serpent, who *are* highly competent, into it, and then throwing in phrases like "to the language newbies"? Well... To any language newbie who's misguidedly read this far: read "The Art and Science of Learning Languages" and "The Art of Learning". Edit: culebrilla - you probably have valuable things to contribute to this forum. But assuming incompetence (or ranting about it in the middle of other threads) is an anti-pattern that has led to several people leaving the forum - both those doing the ranting, and some of the more accomplished polyglots who get sick of their time being wasted by it. There's nothing wrong with being new to the forum; there's nothing wrong with high standards. It is, however, frustrating when you derail a thread, without even realizing that it was specifically in the context of polyglottery. To use your analogies, you're being the guy who knows a bit about running, and insists to everyone that they have to use your brand of athletic shoes. No one here denies that time is important. Deliberate practice also is; so is previous relevant experience, for reaching any given level quicker. Edited by Volte on 08 March 2014 at 2:54am 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4711 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 46 of 115 08 March 2014 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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It only took two years, and I finally started a thread that got some good conversation
going. Hooray. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 47 of 115 08 March 2014 at 3:08am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Languages are not medicine or running. As Barry Farber put it, knowing a little is much more useful in languages than in neurosurgery. He also said that no matter how many languages you know, you'll be judged by your French. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 48 of 115 08 March 2014 at 3:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Well put. May I add that being gratuitously tendentious and appealing to the same imperfect analogies is wearing down even my thick-skinned persona. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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