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You are not a real polyglot if... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 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 49 of 299 12 October 2013 at 2:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Anyway, imo Scandinavians are basically "natural polyglots" like those in India and many African countries... just to a lesser extent of course :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4154 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 50 of 299 12 October 2013 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
May I ask why Finnish gets so much love on HTLAL? I have no doubt that Finnish is an absolutely lovely language, but I'm surprised at how many people seem to be learning it... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 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 51 of 299 12 October 2013 at 3:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For me it's just special because I love the language, the country and the culture. It's the same kind of enormous love that Cristina has for Spanish :-)
In Europe, Finnish music seems to be a very common reason to study the language. And here on HTLAL people of course are attracted to how it's different from the Indo-European languages, but not as intimidating as Japanese, Arabic or even some IE ones like Russian and Hindi, maybe? It's also a great choice if you are more keen on the linguistic differences than on getting acquainted with an overwhelmingly different culture. As for why Finnish affects my opinion on polyglots... I just hate when it's dismissed as useless. And also when people set lower standards "just because it's such a difficult language". Barry Farber wrote that no matter how many languages you speak, you'll be judged by your French. I don't speak (or like) French so I'll judge you by your Finnish :p Edited by Serpent on 12 October 2013 at 3:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7166 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 52 of 299 12 October 2013 at 4:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I suspect that it has a handy combination of speakers who are culturally European (hence their habits and history do not seem so exotic to those of us who grew up in a broadly "Western European" mindset), a core of high-quality learning material, association with a country that is easy to travel to and has a generally positive reputation with outsiders (something like the "goodwill" (to use an accounting term) inherent in most aspects of life in Scandinavia). At the same time, Finnish is sometimes presented with the factoid about its high difficulty which could entice prospective learners and its rarity is underlined by counting Hungarian as a related language (you don't know how many times I've heard friends and acquaintances say that it's no surprise that I'm learning Finnish given that I already speak some Hungarian - it seems as if everyone lumps Finnish and Hungarian together in small talk whenever either language comes up in a conversation. It's a bit of a pet peeve since it's about as meaningful to me as lumping together and restating the connection between Bengali and Kurdish in a conversation about either language all because they ultimately belong to the same language family but aren't often learned by foreigners on their own.
As for myself, I love Finnish because it sounds and looks fascinating, it expresses grammatical concepts in ways that are unfathomable in Romance or Germanic languages, it's part of the Uralic family which as you probably know from some of my posts here interests me intellectually, and I've gone to Finland several times in the past few years such that I have only a happy association of the language with its native speakers. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6135 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 53 of 299 12 October 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yeah, my friends came in when I had some Finnish playing on the TV, and they said that it was the weirdest sounding language. My Finnish-side grandmother told me that compared to English, Finnish was soooo easy. She was thinking only of the orthography though. For me, I went to Finland as a child and saw relatives and trapped around with cousins and things. I have emotional ties to Finnish -- though this doesn't come with any instinctive feel for grammar rules.
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| futurianus Senior Member Korea, South starlightonclou Joined 5019 days ago 125 posts - 234 votes Speaks: Korean* | Message 54 of 299 12 October 2013 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Agree totally.
Indeed, it would take much effort to learn any language properly.
Exactly.
Indeed.
I will not listen to anyone who makes that sort of statements, even "if they have those skills themselves - and can prove it" with all the proper credentials and honest and sincere approval by educated natives as have attained a level which they will accept as comparable to their level. Nonsense is nonsense, regardless of from which horse's mouth it comes out.
I have great respect for monoglots who have matured their capacity in their native language to a high level. I also have much respect for anyone who can speak any foreign language well. I will listen to them all, if what they are saying is informative and helpful. However, that someone who is not a polyglot at all would make such a statement as you have described above, sounds a bit odd indeed, doesn't it? Please give us the link for the post which the above person has posted, which states " that you are not a "real" polyglot if your languages come from the same language family." I want to go over there and teach him a lesson. Do not worry. I will not strip him naked, nail him on the cross up high for all to see and revile him, whip and strike him, and torch him alive. I will just reason with him gently without taking recourse to any provocative emotionally charged 'slanders' or lashing outs. I will try to delineate the reasons why his statement does not have a good sense and patiently bring him back to his senses. After regretting having once shared my new found enthusiasm for language learning with some people close to me and having received unexpected and disappointing unsupportive response from them, I have stopped ever again to share my language project with anyone else, except at this language forum. I have been secretly and quietly spending time with languages, as if I am committing something which is unlawful and shady. I can fully understand the concern over my activity, that I am wasting my precious time and resource for something which is not worthy, which might detract me from completing more worthwhile projects. One successful multi-millionaire businessman has been quite concerned about my revelation, that he had tenaciously tried to dissuade me from my language activity for about a month or two. I finally got fed up and politely, but decisively dissuaded him from bringing up this matter ever again with me. I can almost see his smirking grin, overlooking at what kind of situation I have gotten myself into in a language forum stuck in one of the remotest and most obscure corner of the Internet Ocean and can almost hear him singing, "I tooold you sooo~~~~~". I can understand his mindset, as I used to have exactly the same attitude towards learning languages, any language. Thus for me, to come here from time to time and read some of the posts in which people are heatedly arguing over some matters related to languages or persons in the so called polyglot community, turning arguments into personal attacks, with vile accusations and shoutings shooting out in all direction, was something that was to me extraordinarily luxurious and otherworldly, and also something from which I had wanted to get away as if from a deadly contagious virus. When explicating the concept of panglottism, which was my attempt to reorganize my past cultural and language experiences and bring a system into my future language learning endeavor to maximize my effort and time put into accomplishing my new found objective within the timeframe I had set for myself, I tried to be very careful not to step on other people's toes and repeatedly expressed my respect for all the polyglots here. When I had encountered the comment by Spanky
I was taken aback momentarily at first by it as a cynical criticism, because he was putting words into my mouth which I had never intended to say, "the suggestion that one might look down on the learning achievements and abilities of mere hyperglots..." and was burdened down by a sense of gloomy and heavy ill-foreboding. Maybe I should not have posted my thoughts here.... Did I take a foolish step.... Then I looked at Spanky's picture of sesame street's Bernie, which he has taken down now, and have decided that someone who would use the picture of naughty, but innocent and angelic Bernie as his alter ego cannot be someone who is cynical or who has a chip on his shoulder, that it was just a joke without any ill intention. Thus I have decided to take it and his other comments simply as jokes and to laugh away my initial negative reaction to them. Spanky later privately contacted me and offered his apology for any inconvenience his jokes might have caused me and I was confirmed to have been right in my decision to view him as someone who had a good and gentle nature, who was mainly cracking a joke. Then, you also jumped on the bandwagon and said Panglot and Panglotism: new type of polyg
I had explained to you that I had never described anyone as "inferior learners"
I had thought that you had understood my position on such matters:
I am writing this just in case some might think that the person described in your post is me and that I have said such a nonsensical thing. I am not a coward. .... At least, I do not want to be a coward. If I had said certain thing and believe in what I have said, I will confirm in no uncertain terms that it was I who had said that, even if it means having all the people rise up in arms against me, not only with pitchforks, but with swords and spears. I, however, have never said that "that you are not a "real" polyglot if your languages come from the same language family." I have a great respect for any polyglot here, regardless of what languages he or she has mastered. I have only shared my understanding of what 'foreign language learning' is and our need to become more aware of vaster and multifaceted dimension of foreign language learning. To me it is utterly senseless and disrespectful to tell someone else what language they should learn or not learn, as it is something which is very private and personal and we should respect other people's choices, whether they be from his or her native language family or an entirely different language family. I respect all so called 'monolinguals' trying to learn a new language, even as I am also a learner of a new language and think it has much value in it to do so. I also reject with all my might to get dragged into the argument over who is better or more praiseworthy in their language abilities, as if it was something fatally poisonous and defiling of my soul. I carry disdain for none, but only respect for anyone and everyone as co-learners, co-sojourners of the same journey, with whom we can all share our experiences and insights and learn from each other. The greatest heresy towards which a language community should be vehemently against is "why in the world would you waste your time and energy with a vain and worthless activity such as learning a foreign language?!?!" As long as someone does not commit this heresy, we should be lenient to people who are different from us in experiences, ideas, perspectives and approaches. It could be a necessary stage in the growth of community's understanding of certain issues to become polarized and go through the process of fierce debate or even a 'fight' over differing views. Even if that person had indeed said such a senseless and haughty statement, we should try to embrace him as long as he also deems it is valuable to learn a foreign language. Perhaps, even to the greatest language heretics or no language enthusiasts who deny and deride us language learners for wasting our time and energy to learn a language, we should be magnanimous to make a room for them, should they ever visit a language forum, as we need to receive input from those who are outside of our sphere to help us to have a more balanced perspective on our enthusiastic endeavors. The ultimate direction of the forum in regards to this issue of learning languages from same family or from different families is that both parties come to respect each other and affirm the value and validity of each other's learning attempts and accomplishments. In the meanwhile, due to certain changes within our world, I would think that there will be more and more people who would learn languages both from their own family and also from other families, and would bridge the gap between these two groupings, bringing about a better understanding and maturity within the language community, represented in a small tiny way within a forum like this. I would like to say that I want to and will only hold on to a goodwill and best wishes to all other language learners, including any and all who differs in their opinion from me and even those who might incidentally twist and misrepresent my views in a negative way, and even any and all who would personally attack me as a person and belittle my motives, language capacity and background. Solfrid Cristin, I hope that you will forgive me if I had crossed you or rubbed you in any wrongful or insensitive way, that you will also be magnanimous enough to tolerate my views regardless of how distasteful or unacceptable they may sound to you. I was surprised to find that you are 51. You look in your twenties or at most in mid thirties. I am also in my early fifties. As more mature members in a forum full of younger people, I hope we would show more exemplary way of how people might have different opinions and orientations, but still can respect each other and carry on a discussion in a more mature way. I put my hand out to you for a handshake of conciliation and online friendship. Btw, I am right handed and it's my right hand that is out.... Hope you will give me a good vibrant pumping handshake. Goodwill and Peace.... Edited by futurianus on 12 October 2013 at 12:53pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 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 55 of 299 12 October 2013 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This view has been expressed many times and there's no need to single out any post or member. Edited by Serpent on 12 October 2013 at 3:12pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5344 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 56 of 299 12 October 2013 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dear Futurianus,
Right now I have one birthday party where my cooking failed miserably, a cat that has gone missing, and one extremely annoying ex-husband on my hands, so I am afraid my understanding is even lower than yesterday, where it was already at a historically low point. I get the impression that you think I was referring to you when I expressed my irritation, so I hasten to assure you that this was not at all the case. Your views are well known to me, and although they sometimes diverge from mine, I have nothing but respect for you. I started the thread based on some comments in another recent thread, but please do not ask me to find it again, it is beyond my capability right now. Also - flattery will get you everywhere - so I am all for vibrant handshakes :-) Kind regards Cristina 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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