Polygots - a gift or just hard work? (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

Polygots - a gift or just hard work?
Tags: IQ \| Polyglottery \| Learning Difficulty
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Language Learning Forum : Polyglots

27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Eidolio
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 6864 days ago
159 posts - 164 votes

2 sounds
Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek

Message 25 of 27

20 April 2006 at 3:04pm | IP Logged

CaitO'Ceallaigh wrote:

I forgot to mention that when she speaks English, she uses all the pet peeves mentioned in another thread. She says, "Her and I were walking down the street, and then I was all... and then she was all...and so I was like... and then she goes..." That's how fluent she is. You'd think she grew up in the San Fernando Valley.

My experience is that you start using this kind of slang without noticing it when you're living in a foreign country or if you often speak another language.
I don't think you have to have a special gift to do this, it's just natural because you're in fact always imitating other people's way of speaking.
1 person has voted this message useful

vilas
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6963 days ago
531 posts - 722 votes

Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese

Message 26 of 27

21 April 2006 at 2:26am | IP Logged

It is true! In Italy now we have a lot of immigrants from Morocco, Albania and Africa and they speak italian with the accent of the city where they live and often they speak Roman, Neapoliatan or Milano dialects because they usually live in suburbs ,where slangs are more used, and they think they speak "plain" italian .....sometimes it's funny !!
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CaitO'Ceallaigh
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
katiekelly.wordpress
Joined 6860 days ago
795 posts - 829 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian
Studies: Czech, German

Message 27 of 27

26 April 2006 at 12:50pm | IP Logged

Eidolio wrote:

My experience is that you start using this kind of slang without noticing it when you're living in a foreign country or if you often speak another language. I don't think you have to have a special gift to do this, it's just natural because you're in fact always imitating other people's way of speaking.

It is a gift, because she has no detectable Belgian or Portuguese or German (the languages she had spoken before moving to the U.S.) accent whatsoever. She sounds like whatever region she lives in.

Let's say, I know quite a few people who speak two or more languages but she's the only person I know who doesn't have to try. I've met other people who moved to the U.S. at an even younger age, and you can still tell that English isn't their first language, regardless of how beautifully they speak. I'm NOT saying she speaks English better. She speaks like a native speaker. Big difference! :)

At our university, she was placed in a Spanish class for native speakers, and she had never studied nor spoken the language in her life.

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