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More than 6 anyone? | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 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 9 of 53 20 September 2007 at 8:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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We have had endless discussions on this forum about how much it takes to be fluent. Some people demand something that is close to native skills, while others are ready just to accept that you can produce comprehensible output in most relevant situations. If you just ask for people who are 'fluent' nobody can be sure that they are good enough to meet the undefined criteria. Edited by Iversen on 11 November 2007 at 11:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 10 of 53 13 October 2007 at 8:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have heard the theory expressed that it is impossible to be fluent in more than seven languages at the same time.
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| HTale Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6190 days ago 164 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French | Message 11 of 53 13 October 2007 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Given the profile states how many languages one 'speaks', what is the Administrators definition? Is it basic fluency? Advanced fluency? The ability to survive in a city that speaks predominantly in the target language? This isn't to say that everyone here is embellishing the truth (although some may). Rather, that when one puts down they 'speak' 8-9 languages, s/he may have a different idea of what it is to 'speak' that language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 53 13 October 2007 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's all very subjective. I remember the film Reds where Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) is in a Russian factory just before the October Revolution, during a mass meeting. She knows no Russian and asks a young man there if he speaks English. He says "Yes" in English and then launches into a torrent of Russian. It is clear that "yes" is the only English word he knows. I am working on my Russian (and Polish) but I have not listed them as languages I speak, as although I had four years of Russian from scratch at university and have had some classroom time with Polish, I have no recent experience of using Russian in conversation, I have reason to believe it has become rusty, and I have never been fluent in Polish. With German, French and Turkish, I feel I can lay claim to basic fluency, though not advanced. I have some knowledge to various degrees of Spanish (studied at school), Italian (self-taught), Arabic (self-taught) and Latin (self-taught) but these are all well short of anything I would call fluency. When I joined this forum there was some extensive questioning sent automatically by the Administrators about my level of knowledge in various languages. I answered many of them, based on what I think I can do or not do in various languages, but it is all subjective. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6680 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 13 of 53 13 October 2007 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hmm...Interesting, but how did they support that? It depends one what counts as fluency, but in my opinion I don't see why one cannot be, and other people here no doubt probably have more personal experience than I do about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 53 14 October 2007 at 7:56am | IP Logged | |||||
It was cited as a "rule of seven" in some paper I read years ago about polyglots. The idea was that above seven or so, your fluency suffers from language attrition in some of the languages. I don't really remember the details of the paper, though, or who published it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6721 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 53 14 October 2007 at 8:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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Two threads on this forum:
Maximum limit and The rule of seven "rule of seven" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 16 of 53 14 October 2007 at 9:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think the "rule of seven" is either totally true or totally false. I think there are limits to the verbal concepts you can use actively, and some languages will become dormant past a certain point, for lack of practice. There is a certain point beyond which you simply do not use some of the languages, and they become rusty.
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