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Polyglots, when did you start? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Olympia Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5984 days ago 195 posts - 244 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Old English, French | Message 9 of 29 13 December 2009 at 1:49am | IP Logged |
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Well, the elementary school I went to used to be a French language school when it first open, so starting in
kindergarten all students took French classes. Then in sixth grade (age 11-12) we were able to choose to continue with French or learn Spanish instead. The French teacher was horrible, and the Spanish teacher was excellent, so I chose to learn Spanish because I felt I would get more out of the class. I was always at the top of the class, but it was really when I went on a volunteer trip to Mexico at age 17 that I really decided I wanted to be a polyglot. I started learning Portuguese soon after and I'm taking classes in it right now and I love it. Next will probably be French and then maybe German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5467 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 10 of 29 13 December 2009 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
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I started French at 11 in school, followed a year later by German. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to study Russian at my Sixth Form (UK High School) so took that up at 16. Added Polish and dropped French when I went to university at 18. Dropped Polish 2 years later, then came to Japan when I graduated and started on Japanese.
Apparently foreign languages are disappearing gradually from all but the best schools in the UK, which is utterly depressing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5473 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 11 of 29 14 December 2009 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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I started German and English at 10 when I got to middle school, but I really started getting ahead when:
- They re-released all the old FF games on the Playstation, but only in English (age 14) - I became addicted to Harry Potter and bought number 5 in English( I must have been 15) It all just happened from here. I didn't have any such incentive for German, I I really can't speak it anymore. I think I must have peaked in, like, 8th grade (13yrs old). It makes me sad, especially considering that I actually took five more years of German after that, and it was my first foreign language. It's a shame there's only such a strong incentive for English. And Japanese I suppose... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yaboimasemase Newbie United States Joined 5472 days ago 4 posts - 8 votes | Message 12 of 29 15 December 2009 at 4:52am | IP Logged |
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Arabic: Native Language (Both mother and father speak it natively)
Sicilian: Mother's father was a Berber Refugee who sought asylum in Sicily, moved my mother with him... Picked it up hearing my mother speak to sicilians in NY Spanish: I grew up in New York... Puerto Rican Babysitters... English: Learned that when my parents threw me into School at age 4... French: Learned it in HS Portuguese: Learned it in HS Maltese: Self taught due to my background in sicilian and arabic... Edited by yaboimasemase on 22 December 2009 at 5:24am 2 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 13 of 29 21 December 2009 at 6:36am | IP Logged |
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My aunt (a teacher of French in high school) got me interested in French when I was a little kid, so I remember I started learning French when I was 7 in first grade with Muzzy videos.
I became very impassioned about languages and cultures when I was in middle school though. I don't remember how old I was exactly, maybe around 12. I started with French in high school when I was 15, and also I started Esperanto at that age. I started learning Spanish in high school when I was 16, but tell people I learned it when I was 17 because that was when I went to Mexico. I started learning German when I was 18. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Halie Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6113 days ago 80 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 14 of 29 28 December 2009 at 5:45am | IP Logged |
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I was in my elementary school's French Club, and then I took French and Spanish in middle school, before seriously studying French in high school. So, I was 14 when I began really learning a language.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5556 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 15 of 29 28 December 2009 at 6:34am | IP Logged |
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My father is a native speaker of Spanish, but I never learnt to speak Spanish (even though 90% of my siblings got to). He just didn't speak it with me. I had a Spanish nanny at a young age, my father tried teaching my brother and I a bit later in life and at the age of maybe 12 I started Spanish in school for maybe 3-4 years, but still never learned.
2 years ago I began learning Finnish on a whim and now speak it at a basic level, having studied incessantly since I was 16 and having lived in eastern Finland for 4 months. It was after I began learning Finnish that I discovered my obsessive passion for languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5944 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 16 of 29 29 December 2009 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
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I guess when I started was on 5th grade, I was 10 years old then. I started having mandatory English classes then, and on 7th grade I began French classes, also mandatory (I think at this point I could choose German or French, but the family tradition was French, so I went for it, and mind you, I really like French too).
But I think before all this, I had already picked some words and sentences from my sister, who is 2 and half years older than me and was 3 years ahead in school. She was always good at English and, even though I'm saying this as "probably" as I don't remember this ever happening, I think it's quite possible that she said some things and I learned them. Or then I just learned some stuff through watching TV. I say this because when I first started English classes, people used to call me "gifted", as I learned things so fast and was on a completely different level than my classmates in just a few weeks. I do think I have a knack for languages, as I find I learn things easily and am pretty intuitive about them earlier on even. But at that point, I do think there must have been some sort of factor influencing me or so. But anyway, I started learning by myself not too long ago, I think when I was 16. I started with an interest in the culture of Japan, and then began to be fascinated by the writing system and decided I should try it. But I have always liked languages. When I passed a foreigner speaking another language I always tried to listen, even though I understood nothing of it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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