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How do you choose? | ||
Tags: Polyglot | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Wilco Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 160 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Russian | Message 1 of 13 11 February 2010 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm always amazed to see people speaking more than 4 or 5 languages and I've always wondered: how do polyglots choose which languages they'll learn next? Is it simply by interest, or is there a "strategy" involved in the process? (like learning all the romance languages).
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| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6319 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 2 of 13 11 February 2010 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Both, but I'd say those who learn 10+ more likely have some kind of strategy involved, such as learning the languages of a particular family. Richard Simcott, a polyglot you can find both on these forums and on YouTube has gone through the entire Germanic, Romance and Slavic families and with the addition of a few extra languages like Albanian and Welsh has brought the numbers up to around 16. Alexander Arguelles is another example, and he has written threads explaining how best to approach the languages of either of those aforementioned families in the most systematic and profitable way. Others might choose to learn one language a time, and simply pick one according to their interests at that time. Others need various languages for their jobs. It's really different for different people, but I'd say both interest and strategy can play important roles.
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| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 13 11 February 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't really learned any foreign languages to any level of fluency yet, but I have a whole list (in my head) of languages I want to learn. They mainly follow my interests or I think something about them is cool. I like Cyrillic, so I want to learn Russian. I like the Arabic alphabet, I want to learn Arabic. I think German sounds cool, I want to learn it. Same for several more languages, but how people chooses varies from person to person, I think.
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 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 4 of 13 12 February 2010 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I primarily learn languages by families.
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 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 5 of 13 12 February 2010 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't have the strategy to learn language families - like Iversen - but I have to see a multiple usefulness in a certain language to decide to learn it. So for every language I learn I must have several reasons to learn I build up a strong motivation which enables a learning project for many years. I try to avoid monocausal decisions, like for example: "I have a penfriend in the country X, so I will learn language X."Therefore my personal motivation is very strong and doesn't fall off quickly. Whether my languages are part of certain language families is not essential for me. Of course it can help the triangulation process, but in my case it's not my strategy. Before I joined this forum, I haven't thought about language families at all. I studied Romance languages because my university offered it and I had some previous knowledge in French and Italian and Spanish.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 12 February 2010 at 12:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 13 12 February 2010 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm just in the beginning of my polyglottery, but so far, the first three (Swedish, English, French), were decided not by me, but by the Swedish educational system. Mandarin was chosen because I like kung fu and it has gone far enough that I will no go to China to train, much because of studying Mandarin, as opposed to the other way around.
Having had the pleasure of studying a language like Mandarin, I've developed a taste for very different and foreign languages. Although I might learn Cantonese while in China, any strategy on my part will likely be to avoid learning closely related languages, because they're less interesting to me. Languages like Hindi, Xhosa, Swahili, Arabic, Russian and Ancient Greek all attract me, but I don't have to choose my next one for quite some time, so there's no rush. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| laya Heptaglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 5400 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: German, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1, SpanishC2, Swedish, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 13 14 February 2010 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I choose the languages I study by interest and not by language familiy. Certainly, it can be easier to learn languages from the same family, but you will not stay motivated if you are not really interested in the language. Edited by laya on 14 February 2010 at 3:54pm 2 persons have 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 8 of 13 14 February 2010 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, I fully agree with you on this point. Only a strategical motive for the choice of a new study language wouldn't be sufficient for me to keep me studying it for a long period of time. Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful |
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