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Who is your favourite polyglot? | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 30 18 January 2009 at 8:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Apart from the names that have already come up, cardinal Mezzofanti certainly deserves a mention. His accomplishments perhaps have all the more merit considering the lack of materials at the time and his never having travelled outside his native country.
Personally though, I don't feel the need to establish an order of greatness or pick one particular favourite from all the great and accomplished personalities on the list. Apparently there is no shortage of lodestars to follow in this business. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KennyHun Triglot Newbie HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5941 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, German Studies: French, Dutch, Portuguese | Message 10 of 30 18 January 2009 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Kató Lomb :). Her books are truly inspiring and her world view was amazing. She kept learning languages until the day of her death.
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| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5982 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 30 18 January 2009 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that Kató Lomb was one of the most fascinating. While she was clearly
extremely intelligent, she put her accomplishments down to her passion for the languages she studied. I'd love to have met her. Another one I find fascinating is Michel Thomas, although it might be difficult at times to see past the hype... It must have been incredible to study with him, especially if he tailored his teaching for the individual student. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 12 of 30 04 April 2009 at 4:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Kenneth Hale for his talents as a linguist and a polyglot who knew and cared for languages that many others wouldn't have given a second thought to, and also for the general impact of kindness and generosity he left on those around him. Not only has he inspired me from a language learning perspective, but also on trying to be just generally aware and caring of those around me.
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| Snesgamer Groupie Afghanistan Joined 6610 days ago 81 posts - 90 votes Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic | Message 13 of 30 13 May 2009 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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JRR Tolkien. Most people will find this crazy, but I actually find his personal life, as well as his love for languages and cultures that I share, to be far more interesting than his science fiction material itself.
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| sigiloso Heptaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 6778 days ago 87 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1, Galician, French, Esperanto, Italian Studies: Russian, Greek | Message 14 of 30 13 May 2009 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Achieving such a high proficiency that the chap is able to do high quality creative writing seems to ellicit more admiration from me that the chit-chaters: Nabokov, Joseph Conrad, Arthur Schopenhauer.
Nabokov is just amazing, I find it difficult to understand how it is possible such a degree of mastery. Doing some creative writing in some of your languages, even if at a humble level, is for me bigger thrill than leaving a bunch of phonology-unwise laymen burning with envy cause of my apparent miraculous gift to reproduce exactly any pronunciation system (deep inside I know that is a load of crap, I am just phonology-savvy, and I am convinced I could turn anybody into one if they would have their head open enough). Being a parrot is within reach for quite a few. Being Nabokov, no way. That is the top. Joseph Conrad apparently learned in his twenties, kept a heavy accent for life, and even so made it to become one of the luminaries of English literature. Isn't that inspiring? I didnt started so late and certainly not the heaviest accent in the area, thats encouraging to all relatively late developers or starters. About Shopenhauer, he was my secret friend when a teenager. I couldnt believed he got to know the Upanishads in Latin! For entertainment he read The Times and Calderon de la Barca everyday, but actually probably his native language was French, and then again managed to write some of the most beautiful pages ever written in German, or so some say. His constant quoting in Greek with no translation drove me crazy. The point is polyglottery for me is more to be admired when it comes in connection with general intellectual prowess. I rather be a monolingual who knows his language inside out and is able to put elaborate thought into perfectly distinctive words than a for the most part empty-headed superficial parrot. Edited by sigiloso on 13 May 2009 at 7:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cisa Super Polyglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6418 days ago 312 posts - 309 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Hungarian*, Slovak, FrenchC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin, SpanishB2, RussianB2, GermanB2, Korean, Czech, Latin Studies: Italian, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Hindi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew | Message 15 of 30 16 May 2009 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Mine as well! And I share a first name with her. ;) I also like Stu Jay Raj, he´s really inspiring with his positive approach. Then maybe Alexander Kőrösi Csoma, and a Hungarian poet Csokonai is close to my heart. But actually, I like all polyglots who are not a show-off or boasting about magic methods. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5808 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 16 of 30 16 May 2009 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm quite a fan of Stuart Jay Raj. I really like his approach to language learning and he seems to be a very nice guy.
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