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Do polygots learn languages themselves? | ||
Tags: School Education | Language School | Self-Study | College/University | Polyglot | Learning Strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| shadowzoid Groupie United States Joined 5686 days ago 76 posts - 85 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 19 05 May 2009 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
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To polygots, how did you learn your languages? Did you have to take a class? did you do it yourself? If you did it yourself, how'd you get so much time? it takes like 5 years to learn a language, and some people know like 10 and are only 30. how is that possible?
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| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6189 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 19 05 May 2009 at 2:47am | IP Logged |
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They put in a lot of time every day and study hard, usually on their own, but some may have supplemented their studies by taking classes on the side. It would be very unusual, maybe even exceptional, for a polyglot to have learned most of his or her languages in the classroom exclusively. And one shouldn't throw around numbers like 5 years. It depends on what language(s) one knows, which language(s) one is studying, how much time is spent studying every day or every week, and how well and how fast you understand the grammar and memorize vocabulary. It could take anywhere between 1 and 50 years for an English speaker to learn Spanish to a near-native level, and even that range is likely inaccurate.
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| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5747 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 3 of 19 05 May 2009 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
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I thinks that polyglots like to learn a language by thereselfs, with a bit of academic studies in college or private schools, and I also think that they are lucky to find people to contact with in there ~8 or more languages ;)
I also reckon that they are extremely psyched about the language they learn, so they put massive amount of time and brain sweat to achieve their goal, and that's why I admire them ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6098 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 4 of 19 05 May 2009 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
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There are a lot of factors to consider when talking about polyglots and language learning. Each language, situation, motivation, person and method of learning is different. All of these things influence the learning process.
The difference I have noticed between polyglots and people who just want to learn a language or have an interest in languages is that polyglots live and breathe languages all the time, not just for a couple of weeks, months or years. I have friends who have studied languages over years. They enjoyed those languages and studied them well but they have not gone on to become polyglots. In some cases they do wish to learn more, but it is simply that, a wish. In the cases I have seen they are just not that passionate about languages to make their life’s work, but rather keen on a specific language or languages. They see additional languages as desirable but not necessarily crucial for daily life I suppose. They also have other subjects they are passionate about too. The same goes for other spheres of interest. A simple desire to be able to speak a language or be a polyglot is often not enough. Generally it has to be a desire to want to have a language under your skin and to live it every day. Personally I learn languages best when I have a connection to them personally because I have a practical use for them. Learning multiple languages is one thing, but keeping them up is a different ball game. That also requires a lot of the individual. You have to make the most of any opportunities you have to use as many of the languages you speak as often as possible or they will become rusty. This can be quite an imaginative process at times and it does take real effort to do it. In a polyglot's mind, languages tend to be ticking over all the time. From my own personal experience I think about languages throughout the day, every day of the week. They are my main intellectual focus - I simply love them. When you love something that much, you don't necessarily think of all the hours you put into it, unless you are learning for something specific. As for how a polyglot learns languages; that also varies. I can tell you that I have just done 6 weeks of fairly intensive Albanian study, 3 hours a week with a tutor and countless hours of self-study. For Dutch I taught myself, watched TV a lot (read subtitles) and went on a Greek course in Dutch to practice the (Dutch) language (Beginner's level language courses are a great way to mix with native speakers of the country in which you are living and practice the language). I did courses at Charles University in Prague to learn Czech and Catalan. But other languages, like German and Macedonian are self-taught. Romanian and Russian I have never really studied seriously but I can still converse enough in them to live in-country quite happily. In fact many of the languages I speak are a result of time spent in-country. For pretty much all of them I listen to their rhythms in music, radio, film and television emissions to get a real feel for them at all stages of learning. I also go through situations in my head constantly by imaging how I would explain thing in a particular language. As for a time-frame for learning a language, there is certainly no real time in which one fully learns any language. You may however choose to stop actively studying a language if you are happy with your level at any stage. You can get to different levels in varying periods of time to be able to use the language for a multitude of reasons. These timescales of learning depend very much on the learner. That said for most committed language learners the learning process never really stops. There is always something new to learn. I have yet to meet anyone who knows everything in any language. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| laoshu505000 Senior Member United States Joined 5819 days ago 121 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 19 05 May 2009 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone,
I've made a video in response to this thread. Thanks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-eDcxZRVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJijO7uOgT0 Edited by laoshu505000 on 05 May 2009 at 9:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5850 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 19 05 May 2009 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
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MY REPLY TO TOBYRNE:
TOBYRNE: "There are a lot of factors to consider when talking about polyglots and language learning. Each language, situation, motivation, person and method of learning is different. All of these things influence the learning process. The difference I have noticed between polyglots and people who just want to learn a language or have an interest in languages is that polyglots live and breathe languages all the time, not just for a couple of weeks, months or years. I have friends who have studied languages over years. They enjoyed those languages and studied them well but they have not gone on to become polyglots. In some cases they do wish to learn more, but it is simply that, a wish. In the cases I have seen they are just not that passionate about languages to make their life’s work, but rather keen on a specific language or languages." FASULYE: "Yes, this matches my own distinction. I always say that polyglottery is a way of life and polyglots deliberately chose for this way of life. My personal experience about this is that average people often cannot understand such a way of life. They rather expect that someone rather - sooner of later - will get fed up with so much language learning or language usage, but a real polyglot can go on and on, because of the fun-factor behind it." TOBYRNE: "They see additional languages as desirable but not necessarily crucial for daily life I suppose. They also have other subjects they are passionate about too. The same goes for other spheres of interest. A simple desire to be able to speak a language or be a polyglot is often not enough. Generally it has to be a desire to want to have a language under your skin and to live it every day. Personally I learn languages best when I have a connection to them personally because I have a practical use for them. Learning multiple languages is one thing, but keeping them up is a different ball game. That also requires a lot of the individual. You have to make the most of any opportunities you have to use as many of the languages you speak as often as possible or they will become rusty." FASULYE: "All the languages have to be - ideally - in constant usage and the more languages a person speaks the more work it becomes. If I had the financial means, I would invest a lot of money into my languages for activities in foreign countries, because my amount of language usage (= speaking actively) is far below my own expectations. I find it sometimes difficult to accept these unfavourable cirumstances. Yes, also polylgots have to deal with languages becoming rusty, but they are always eager not to accept this and to work on such languages." TOBYRNE: "This can be quite an imaginative process at times and it does take real effort to do it. In a polyglot's mind, languages tend to be ticking over all the time. From my own personal experience I think about languages throughout the day, every day of the week. They are my main intellectual focus - I simply love them. When you love something that much, you don't necessarily think of all the hours you put into it, unless you are learning for something specific. As for how a polyglot learns languages; that also varies. I can tell you that I have just done 6 weeks of fairly intensive Albanian study, 3 hours a week with a tutor and countless hours of self-study. For Dutch I taught myself, watched TV a lot (read subtitles) and went on a Greek course in Dutch to practice the (Dutch) language (Beginner's level language courses are a great way to mix with native speakers of the country in which you are living and practice the language). I did courses at Charles University in Prague to learn Czech and Catalan. But other languages, like German and Macedonian are self-taught. Romanian and Russian I have never really studied seriously but I can still converse enough in them to live in-country quite happily. In fact many of the languages I speak are a result of time spent in-country. For pretty much all of them I listen to their rhythms in music, radio, film and television emissions to get a real feel for them at all stages of learning. I also go through situations in my head constantly by imaging how I would explain thing in a particular language. As for a time-frame for learning a language, there is certainly no real time in which one fully learns any language. You may however choose to stop actively studying a language if you are happy with your level at any stage. You can get to different levels in varying periods of time to be able to use the language for a multitude of reasons. These timescales of learning depend very much on the learner. That said for most committed language learners the learning process never really stops. There is always something new to learn. I have yet to meet anyone who knows everything in any language." Edited by Fasulye on 05 May 2009 at 10:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 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 7 of 19 05 May 2009 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
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I won't try to compete with Torbyrne's long and eloquent answer above or laoshu505000's videos, so I'll just leave a short comment here. I had of course teachers to teach me English and German and Latin and French in a class room setting as a child, and later I studied French and some other languages at the university, and of course I had teachers there too.
But I have always preferred to learn things by myself, at most with a distant and non-interferring teacher to consult once in a while. Right now I'm in my third language learning craze (after a long pause), and I have no intention of enrolling in any courses or getting tutors or whatever. I just wish that I had discovered my current study methods already during my study years or before. Edited by Iversen on 06 May 2009 at 9:50pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shadowzoid Groupie United States Joined 5686 days ago 76 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 8 of 19 06 May 2009 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
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laoshu505000 wow. thanks you sooo much.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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