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The joy of studying of one language. | ||
Tags: Wanderlust | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 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 27 24 October 2006 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I have concentrated on the Germanic and Romance languages and expect to be able to function on at least the basic fluency level in every major language in these families sometime next year (but not minor languages such as Frisian and Sardic). I have added modern Greek, and maybe sometime I'll add Russian in order to have at least one Slavic language in my collection, but all these are still Indoeuropean languages. It might be tempting to learn for instance Chinese, but I know that I could learn several languages within the Indoeuropean group in the time it would take me just to learn the basics of an oriental language. For the same reason I don't try to achieve native fluency in any language unless I use it so much that it almost comes automatically, - I prefer pushing two languages up to the basic level than losing one in order to perfect the other one. And Norwegian and Swedish will probably be among the last languages that I begin to use actively, - I already understand them to near native level almost without working on it, so I would personally not gain much from making them active.
The "joy" of learning one language? To me it would be like the joy of sitting chained in a medieval prison cell. Edited by Iversen on 02 November 2006 at 9:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 10 of 27 24 October 2006 at 3:29am | IP Logged | ||
So true. Every now and then I think about how if I dropped everything, 2000 hours from now I could be speaking Mandarin at a respectable level if I focused on the oral and aural parts of the language. But for the same time committment, one could reach the same levels of proficiency in anywhere from two to four languages that share more with one's native tongue. And so far, I think I'd rather try for those other languages, instead of pouring thousands of hours into a single one. The same argument can be used for the pushing of individual languages to near-native levels. It is a worthy time committment if one intends to move to (and spend a good deal of one's life in) a country where the language is the only language spoken, but unless and until I find myself in such a situation, it's more fun to try to reach a decent level in a plurality of languages than it is to attain proficiency in a level 3, or near-nativity in a level 1 or 2. It's that old depth v. breadth issue again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6629 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 11 of 27 24 October 2006 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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It does take many, many hours of contact with a language to reach very high levels of proficiency, but that doesn't mean it takes thousands of hours "studying" a language. I've spent time having conversations, watching movies and TV, listening to radio, reading, etc. - all things I would have done anyway, but I did them in a variety of languages. If the languages are closely related and related to the learner's native language, it is possible to achieve high levels of proficiency in several languages.
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| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 12 of 27 24 October 2006 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I count all time spent with a language as studying it. :^) But then again, I define studying as learning in this context. The notion of burying one's nose in a book full of declensions and vocabulary lists is not one I think of when I think of studying - at least when it comes to languages. If you can make it fun, you can (to take a page from Assimil) learn without pain...
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| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6629 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 13 of 27 24 October 2006 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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The creator of the Assimil courses had discovered language acquisition through comprehensible input long before the term comprehensible input was coined.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6954 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 14 of 27 24 October 2006 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
But at the same time, being able to think fully only in one's native language is also a form of imprisonment. Perhaps there is a compromise where you take a few, say, between one and three languages, to where they are nearly as complete an instrument for complex throught as your native language, and treating all the rest as toys in a playground. Edited by frenkeld on 24 October 2006 at 8:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 15 of 27 24 October 2006 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm...
I wouldn't call being monolingual an imprisonment, because the concepts of mono and polylingualism are completely dependent on one's environment. Someone living where only one language is spoken will have no need for more. Someone living where three are taught will have no need for four. It's a function of where you are, and what you need to survive. Being able to think in multiple languages does you no good if you never meet another person who does the same where you live. A language is a code for communication. If only one person knows the code, it is meaningful to him or her, and to him or her alone. Someone who speaks three languages is not any more free of a human being than someone who speaks two - and someone who knows two is no less imprisoned than someone who knows one - and so on. The ultimate freedom is the ability to communicate fluidly with those around you. Whether that requires one, two, three, four, five, six, or even seven languages will depend wholly on where you live, but in the end, they remain functions for communcation, no matter how many, or how few. Edited by lengua on 24 October 2006 at 5:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6954 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 16 of 27 24 October 2006 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
You are reducing it all to communication opportunities in your own community, but different people have different reasons for studying languages. Language study has been part of good education for centuries, so it has some intrinsic intellectual value as well. I meant "imprisonment" in the intellectual sense only. Edited by frenkeld on 24 October 2006 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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