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Cumulative benefit of mastering languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7211 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 11 07 May 2005 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the Alexander Arguelles thread in the Polyglot
forum, Ardaschir said:
This FSI paper said knowledge of other languages begins to help when the other langages are mastered to a degree like the ACTFL level 3. http://www.govtilr.org/PapersArchive/TESOL03ReadingFull.htm Ardaschir was also talking about knowing the six languages well. There is a different thread where I believe he said this cumulative effect, where subsequent languages are much easier isn't necessarily tied to the fact that you've learned several different language families. In fact, I believe he was saying it was more that you've mastered an additional language system, rather than that it is vastly different than other languages you know. I'm talking just in the context of language acquisition, not the context of being "educated". My question is, do languages like Esperanto and American Sign Language count as steps towards the "half dozen" mark where subsequent languages are much easier to learn? Another question, independent of the danger of a beginner confusing languages by trying to learn more than one at a time. Is it more beneficial to get to mastery before moving on just so you get this cumulative effect of knowing more languages? Extrapolating from the FSI paper, I took them as saying, it will be easier for a student to learn a 3rd if they have learnt the second to ACTFL level 3 or beyond. Knowing 3 languages only to ACTFL level 1 won't help second language acquisition much. (that is, not counting any of the 3 languages at ACTFL level 1 as second languages, because they aren't known to a significant level.) Edited by luke on 07 May 2005 at 12:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7382 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 11 07 May 2005 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that the more languages you teach yourself, the easier they become to learn. Outside that general rule it's hard to say if the Sign Language or Esperanto are going to benefit you as much as Portuguese of Flemish, all considerations of linguistic groups apart.
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| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7158 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 3 of 11 07 May 2005 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I am living proof that, the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn new ones. Every time I start a new language, it takes a little less for me to learn it than the language before, and I think the same happens to everybody. I assume this has to do that when you're learning a language, you're not just learning that particular language, but you're also learning the essence of language itself, the deepest roots of human verbal communication. So, when you begin a new language, you already have an idea of the linguistical structure.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7211 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 11 07 May 2005 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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For someone living in the U.S., Spanish is a natural
second language choice. For three-six, I'm thinking: 3) American Sign Language. The movements are fun, and since it's non-verbal, I don't think I'll confuse it with Spanish. 4) Esperanto. I'm imagining there will be some Esperanto speakers in my area, and I think these people might be intellectually compatible. Also, there are internet news broadcasts, etc. 5) French. Re-awaken an old college love. In the U.S., French is the 3rd most popular audio track in movies, after English and Spanish. Canada has some speakers on the continent too. 6) German. Relative of English. Probably the most difficult of my choices, so save it for sixth. Or would it make more sense to learn French before Esperanto? Edited by luke on 08 May 2005 at 10:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| randy310 Senior Member United States Joined 7071 days ago 117 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 11 23 August 2005 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think you can count two contrived languages like American Sign language and esperanto. If you do it is only a half step further to count pig latin! ;) As an American I would count Spanish as one of the major languages of the USA. Portuguese and French as the other two major languages of the western hemisphere and any three other naturally evolving languages that strike your fancy.
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7194 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 6 of 11 23 August 2005 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would count Esperanto, but not ASL. ASL doesn't really have a grammar, and as you said, it is done with movements, so your not practicing various sounds.
I don't see why Esperant wouldn't count. Now we aren't going to debate abotu the legitimacy of Esperanto as a language, but as far as learning it goes, it has been proven numerous times that people who learned Esperanto before learning another language excel. In numerous studies, there were two test groups; one group of people who started learning French right from the start, and another group which was taught Esperanto before starting French. In all these studies, the group that began with Esperanto caught up to the French group and then surpassed them. I think that this study shows that Esperanto would help learning later languages, so I believe that it would count. And even if you don't count it, you cannot deny it would help. Randy, for the referene, Pig Latin is a language game, not a language. Both Esperanto and ASL are languages, but I'm not going to get into that. If you wish to debate with me, do it via PM. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7140 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 7 of 11 24 August 2005 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Although I do not know any ASL myself I think this language does have a grammar, although it contains some elements foreign to other (spoken) languages.
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| jmlgws Senior Member Canada Joined 7108 days ago 102 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 24 August 2005 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know anything about ASL, but it was my understanding that ASL is just a word for word transcription into hand signals. Can anybody verify this for me?
For example, let's take a sentence like "The black cat is over there". Does one sign the word for "the", the word for "black", the word for "cat" etc.? If so, ASL isn't a "language" in a normal sense, rather it is just a symbolic representation of an English sentence (using hand signals instead of sounds or writing). If true, presumably one would use different hand signals to say the same thing in French. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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