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Living through languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| alena sunavska Octoglot Newbie United Kingdom londonlang Joined 5553 days ago 5 posts - 26 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, Greek, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, German Studies: Hindi | Message 1 of 9 01 October 2009 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Individuals who can be “diagnosed” as polyglots do indeed live through their languages their entire life. When people ask me where and how I learned “all those languages” and whether I get them confused, I hesitate to find a concrete answer. I don't get them confused; but how did I learn them?
I did certainly study some of them with external help and guidance, but the level achieved under these circumstances was never anywhere near to the level of language fluency I have achieved by self study. At school I studied Russian for 8 years and German for 5, age 6 to 15, but not much is left. I can understand both quite well and could speak if I had to, but it would not feel effortless. I learned Italian and English on my own whilst living in those countries and I studied Spanish and Greek at university; but again, I only achieved a high level of fluency once I had completely immersed myself into these languages, regardless on any particular course or guidance. I also started understanding French without much effort (a couple of lessons), just by being exposed to French speakers. I don’t really know how and when I became fluent or how long it took; all I know is when I was learning a language I was always completely immersed. Learning it all the time, day and night, non stop. I put all my efforts into it, and all my free time. Eventually I would dream about it or in it. I would look around me and try to describe everything I could see, or talk in the language to myself. I was projecting having dialogues with particular people and was translating those dialogues. I had a little dictionary on me wherever I went or whatever I did, and was always trying to put together sentences as I would do during the day in my own language. I noticed the more languages I knew the easier it was to understand and learn another one, and the less time it took; I plan to go to India in a month’s time, and am confident I can learn to read and speak some basic Hindi before I go, so that people can understand me and I can get by. I want to try and avoid English completely. To summarise - in my opinion what most matters and what helps in achieving a rapid progress is definitely an intense immersion; trying to think in the language at all times, no matter what I do during the day. I try to translate everything I see around me (this builds my vocabulary), I try to describe it, or explain it (practice my ability to use the vocab in sentences) and I generally expose myself to the language as much as I can, by listening to news, music, people. It is not important to understand it immediately; but to listen, and then, slowly, to hear… 17 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6245 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes  14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 2 of 9 01 October 2009 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Very interesting post that I enjoyed reading a lot. Thanks!
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 3 of 9 01 October 2009 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting reading about your methods. Alena, you are a typical immersion language learner. I theoretically know that creating immersion all the time works in this way, but I am more the study type of person. I like doing language excercises, audio-training, watching TV, writing letters and e-mails, listening to the radio and podcasts, reading foreign language texts and - thinking in foreign languages while I sit at home or walk through the streets. Both type of learners can develop polyglottery and I would equalize the value and the efficiency of both methods. People should analize which type is more suitable to one's own personality.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 05 October 2009 at 6:57am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lingua Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5579 days ago 186 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 4 of 9 01 October 2009 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
The key to language learning: exposure to the language. Edited by Lingua on 02 October 2009 at 12:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6442 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 9 01 October 2009 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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This post mirrors my experience learning Esperanto. A few weeks in an immersion environment (in my room), combined with some grammatical exercises, gave me the ability to understand the language well and produce it somewhat haltingly; actually speaking it a few times was enough for my speech to become fluid.
I'm glad to see someone else who learns similarly on this forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6871 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 6 of 9 04 October 2009 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've learned best through immersion by living in the Germany and Mexico, and now I'm
trying French via a more "study" method by reading and doing textbook work. Unfortunately where I live there is no internet so I have very few chances to hear French radio, etc. But there are always ways around that with podcasts and DVDs. I think I understand the gist, but for clarification, how does one create a homemade immersion method? What's the difference between that and studying? 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 7 of 9 05 October 2009 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I also find it useful to create my own type of immersion in a language. I will try to explain how I think by running through some examples.
With any new languages I would also run through scenarios in my head that I might need with a native speaker. This helps to gain fluency in basic concepts. In addition I also go through my day thinking how I would say things in other languages. This might take the form of seeing an object or a word written in one language and translating it into another. On a daily basis I consider words/objects/thoughts/feelings, think about where the word to describe it comes from and then think about how that same word is used in other languages I know. For example if I see a bird in Macedonia, let's say it's a nightingale, I would think of the Slavic word in Macedonian for that, which is славеј. I then think about the Turkish word used in Macedonia for the same bird, билбил. That in turn reminds me that the word bilbil is used in Albanian for the same bird. From there I will think of how many birds I can name in a given language. I might start off thinking of what I know in English, jay from the French geai, peacock which has the adjectival form of pavine, from the Latin root (Spanish pavo real - royal turkey). The fact that peacock is royal turkey in Spanish then makes me think of funny translations of those words in other languages. The Spanish word for bird, pájaro makes me think of sparrow in Italian, passero. The bird might fly into a tree, so I turn my thoughts to the type of trees I know or the word "tree" in other languages; tree is strom in Czech but the same word means electricity in German. Trees provide cover, a tent is another type of cover used in nature by people camping, шатор is tent in Macedonian and stan is a flat, but in Czech stan is tent. Another time I might be in a restaurant and describe how I want my order. For example, I may need something to be brought out separately from something else that I order. I use the work башк/башка from the colloquial Turkish used in Macedonian. I remember that it means the opposite in Albanian (together) and think of the original Turkish meaning of başka too (other). These two paragraphs are just a small window into my everyday thinking patterns. This is a way of life for me and it helps me to keep words alive as I continually make connections between languages. Personally I find adding new languages that are related to the ones I know already easiest. Those languages tend to stay fresher for longer and without as much effort. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6871 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 8 of 9 05 October 2009 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Does making those connections count as immersion though? I guess I've always understood
immersion to be either going to the place where the language is spoken, or immersion via watching TV, listening to radio, reading, listening to music, surfing internet pages, etc, in your target language. But is this immersion, or just merely a kind of exposure that doesn't quite count as exposure? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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