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More than 6 anyone? | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 17 of 53 14 October 2007 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
The simple answer is that any language you mark as basic or advanced fluency will end up in the column to the left as a language you speak. Other languages end up under languages you study if you indicate some level of studying under the detailed language profile. The many questions you are asked to answer when you fill out your profile are accessible through the profile, and there you can also see a simple calculation on 'skills', but they don't in any way dictate whether a language should be accepted as a language you speak. In fact you could mark no skills at all and still claim advanced fluency. All this still doesn't you give any precise guidelines as to where to put the dividing line between speaking and not (yet) speaking a language. Personally I wouldn't put the basic fluency tag on language if I wasn't ready to jump into an airplane and spend a week or two somewhere speaking only that language, or if I couldn't at the turn of a hat get into a discussion on this forum using only that language (which in fact happened recently for me with Catalan, which isn't one of my stronger languages). However some members have in their contributions proposed that every utterance should be virtually flawless even at the basic fluency level, and that's not what I mean by basic fluency. As for the rule of seven it is pure nonsense. If you live in an environment where you hear 3 or 4 languages every day, and you keep the same number of languages alive by searching actively for material, you have already hit the ceiling. The truth of the matter is that every language requires some time for upkeep, but the number seven is not special in any way. Edited by Iversen on 11 November 2007 at 11:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6942 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch | Message 18 of 53 16 October 2007 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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igrm, I speak 6 languages (not counting Russian), which are listed on my profile. Having passed through the first half of Assimil's Russian course, I actually can speak that language. However, I currently rank my knowledge of Russian as "intermediate", and if I keep progressing like I've been doing so far, I'm going to reach at least the "basic fluency" level by the end of the course.
As I'm only a student, I do not work yet. Edited by Gamma on 16 October 2007 at 6:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bojan Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 6223 days ago 35 posts - 35 votes Speaks: Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian*, German*, English | Message 19 of 53 10 November 2007 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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My father is fluent in Slovenian, Serbo-Croat, German, English, Hungarian, Russian and Italian which are 7 languages.
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| aberfitch1892 Newbie United States Joined 6282 days ago 15 posts - 15 votes Speaks: German Studies: French Studies: Haitian Creole | Message 20 of 53 10 November 2007 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, I don't speak fluently, only to an extent ....but I can understand six....and read some of it....German, french, italian, portuguese, english, and some lithuanian....
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| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6286 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 21 of 53 13 November 2007 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am fluent in four languages at native-level. English, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu. I am studying French, Arabic and German. I have a pretty high bar set for the term "Fluent." My expectations are near-native fluency to count as fluency. This will take years. However, getting the base of the language, conversating, reading etc, are all skills that come within months. Fluency is something that is perfected over time and experience after you have a sufficient base as well. You will never be fluent after doing any particular program. And you will definitely not be fluent until you have actually spoken to native speakers. It's amazing how many people will assume fluency after they complete Pimsleur. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 53 13 November 2007 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Those 'four' native languages could essentially be reduced to two. Hindu and Urdu are the same language, just written in a different script. Urdu speakers can read Punjabi easily and though Punjabi phonology is different, the spoken form is largely intelligible too.
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| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6649 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 23 of 53 13 November 2007 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's not get into another "are they distinct languages?" discussion yet again... :-) Edited by apparition on 13 November 2007 at 6:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6412 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 53 13 November 2007 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry apparition...I've just been noticing this stuff a lot lately. I've got a friend who claims to speak: croatian, serbian, montenegrin, bosnian and herzegovinan and of course english all at native proficiency.:)
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