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Why not Spanish as essential? | ||
Tags: Polyglot Academy | Language Importance | L3 via L2 | Polyglottery | Alexander Arguelles | Choosing a Language | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes  Speaks: Spanish | Message 25 of 115 08 March 2014 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm experienced at learning a foreign language to an ok level so...yeah I would think that my opinion would be somewhat valid. Being a native English speaker, don't know why that matters. My first language is not English too, by the way. Edit: I said this in the previous post. "If I were in Europe I would probably learn French over Spanish.But in the Western Hemisphere, Portuguese and Spanish are much better languages to pick if you want to talk to people in person." Edited by culebrilla on 08 March 2014 at 12:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 26 of 115 08 March 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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So? Some of us speak several to a good level.
And this is particularly about Arguelles's recommendation. Maybe less self-absorption? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 27 of 115 08 March 2014 at 12:55am | IP Logged | ||
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And in what language were your Spanish resources? The one that shall not be named or English?
The point was just that people from the USA and UK are accustomed to having everything in English, whether it's technically their first language or just the main one they use. But for many people using French or German-based Assimil is just as (un)natural as using English-based materials. Also, Volte did specifically mention learning French to B2 prior to using Assimil. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 28 of 115 08 March 2014 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Why would I learn French to indirectly learn another language?
I would have to learn French first and then learn it in a language that I don't know as well as my first language. Even B2 isn't high enough to efficiently learn it well, I would imagine. It's like going to a university lecture in France while having an intermediate level and trying to keep up with native speakers. Not a good idea. Can you learn? Sure. Will it be pretty slow? I would imagine so. In fact, I would say that it may be better just sticking in your first language when learning any foreign language. You may not capture all the salient points of Assimil in French/German. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 29 of 115 08 March 2014 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
"Good" is not "good" is not "good." Let's take the humble, college entrance test called the SAT. One guy says that he got a 60 percentile score and he calls that good. Another guy calls his 80 percentile good. Another guy gets a 98 percentile score and calls it good. Your "good" may not be my definition of "good." Just as my definition is probably not as good as somebody else's definition. What are your definitions of "good"? For example, my High School 5k time, which I think is pretty crappy, was relatively close to getting a college athletic scholarship. And it is apparently better than 99.7% (1 in 740 or so) of all young men according to what I've researched. Is that good? Well I don't think so because I compare that to people that are better than me. Or my sucky ACT/SAT scores. I don't think that 85 percentile/92 percentile is that good since the people in my classes are smarter than I am. One of my friends is a Rhodes scholar, for example, which is widely considered to be the world's most prestigious scholarship. One thing is arrogance and another thing is stating an objective score and not being happy with it. Do I think I'm that smart. No. Athletic? Not really. We all have our definitions of what "good" is. Edit: Not all of us are easily impressed is what I'm saying. It takes a LOT to impress me. One of my friends was given an award for outstanding achievement in academics (Youth science award) by the President of Mexico. Personally. In a big ceremony in Mexico City. Now by "youth science award" I'm referring to his work as a PhD researcher in electrical engineering, I believe. Now that, to me, is impressive. Same with the Rhodes scholar friend I have. But getting a B1, B2, C1 level in a few languages? No, not to me based on my value system. Edited by culebrilla on 08 March 2014 at 1:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4521 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 30 of 115 08 March 2014 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
The latter IS a good idea. Have you tried it? I'm not the only one who has done this (not in French though), I'm not the only one who enjoyed it and learned a lot from it, both language and topic wise. However, I agree that learning L3 through L2 is quite inefficient, but sometimes you don't have another choice or have to make trade-offs (good material in L2 vs. bad material in L1). Edited by daegga on 08 March 2014 at 1:20am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 31 of 115 08 March 2014 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Nobody is forcing you to. As far as I can tell, you're not a would-be polyglot, which is what the thread is about. And even those wishing to be polyglots can safely avoid anything but English.
We got that you don't need it, thanks. But look at it from our point of view and see why it's almost insulting. Why would we learn English to indirectly learn another language? Hahaha, yes, why? Our English will never be as good as yours anyway. But it's not as difficult or slow as it sounds, and it's not comparable to attending lectures AT ALL. In fact, only bad books hint at things without properly explaining them. Not to mention that anyone aiming to achieve what Prof Arguelles did should know a lot more about linguistics than the average Assimil user. Actually, I consider most language textbooks to be one of the easiest kinds of native materials, after "airplane books" and how-to stuff. Erik Gunnemark also pointed out how the non-fiction from one's own area of expertise is easier than fiction. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 32 of 115 08 March 2014 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't think that the premise of the thread was to be a polyglot; I thought it was just asking for Dr. Arguelles didn't recommend Spanish as one of the first three languages. Also, I didn't ever say that it was a good idea to just learn English to get learning resources for other languages. My point is that it *may* be the best idea to learn the foreign language in YOUR native tongue, whether it be French, Bulgarian, or what not. There may be not as many resources available but there are usually some in the market. To be clear, I'm not saying that polyglottery is better than just knowing one or two languages. That is up to the individual of course. Edit: The descriptions for how to produce certain sounds may say, "to make sound X in this language, you have to say the first three letters of CATERPILLAR just like in your native language." Well, you could get it if your second language level is high enough but you could also get learn it incorrectly. What is most worrying is that a lot of people seem to be in love with the posts of some members that hint at the idea that you can get a high level in several languages with minimal effort or "pick up" languages. And a lot of posters that have never gotten a truly high level in any language will believe it, try to learn five languages in short time, or get frustrated when they can't reach a Luca level. Well, it takes time. And novices may not appreciate that. Edited by culebrilla on 08 March 2014 at 1:33am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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