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So You Want to Learn 5... | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 113 of 580 03 July 2007 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm aware than Indo-European is a language family. I decided to write it for several reasons, despite this. One is that it allowed me to sneak a longer list of languages in. Another is that some people speak of the branches of Indo-European, such as the Germanic and Romance branches, as dialect continuums; I believe Ardaschir said that he likes to consider each of these branches as a language. Thirdly, I was somewhat inspired by people who wrote other things which are not, in any meaningful sense, languages - namely, proto-Indo-European. There is no written work whatsoever in this language, nor is it currently spoken orally; if it can be listed, why can't some of its descendants be considered together? Also, I have a somewhat odd sense of humor. The irony of listing 'Indo-European' and specifying learning at least one language from each top-level branch, combined with the list of languages outside of it which I'd definitely like to achieve a reading knowledge of being rather short, bringing in the possibility of saying "maybe I'll stop at 3", via admittedly an odd way of counting, amused me. I apologize if this was out of place.
No, though it was a motivator for the form of the list. I'm rather skeptical of language reconstruction, and all the more so for something as remote as Proto-Indo-European. I can appreciate why it would be extremely nice to know about PIE; but, at the end of the day, there are merely many inferences. If there were solid information available about PIE, I'd try to learn it in a heartbeat. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntothea Senior Member United States Joined 6626 days ago 193 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French | Message 114 of 580 03 July 2007 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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hm....this is a tough one.
1.Spanish 2.Polish 3.French 4.Italian 5.Norwegian 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| An'ka Banan'ka Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6373 days ago 46 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Swedish, Russian | Message 115 of 580 04 July 2007 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hmmm...
1. Russian 2. Swedish 3. Serbo-Croatian 4. Italian 5. French 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sergiu Diglot Senior Member Romania freewebs.com/invata_ Joined 6437 days ago 105 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Romanian*, English Studies: German | Message 116 of 580 04 July 2007 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Why do you think it's such a hard choice to make?
Mine is 1.German 2.Swedish 3.French 4.Spanish 5.Japanese 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| uman Diglot Groupie United States umanwizard.com Joined 6933 days ago 58 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 117 of 580 05 July 2007 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Volte, sorry for the mistake on your gender!
I agree that it'd be impossible, today, to learn Proto-Indo-European, but if a genie came out of a magic lamp and offered me the ability to suddenly know five languages, I'd definitely consider putting it on my list (next to Pirahã and other impossibilites) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 118 of 580 05 July 2007 at 9:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No problem, so far all 3 or so people on this forum who have guessed have made the same mistake.
Absolutely; if a genie appeared, I think it would make sense to get a perfect knowledge of 5 languages that there would be -no- other way to learn. There would be a huge number of benefits to this. That said, until you tell me you've found a genie, I'm not holding my breath. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6445 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 119 of 580 07 July 2007 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"This is a spin-off of the "10" thread - but harder. The question is, if you could learn only 5 languages to perfect (native) fluency (reading/writing/listening/speaking), in addition to any which you already have a native or advanced fluency in, which five would you choose as of today?"
No genies mentioned, I'm afraid, so your learning efforts would involve booking frequent trips to the Amazon jungle and building a time machine. You have to study the old fashioned way and give up on any ideas about learning other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LuckyNomad Groupie Korea, South Joined 6345 days ago 79 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 120 of 580 12 July 2007 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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1. Mandarin Chinese
2. Korean 3. Japanese 4. Vietnamese 5. Indonesian 1 person has voted this message useful |
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