tomasus Pentaglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 7035 days ago 54 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, EnglishC1, German, Russian
| Message 1 of 4 14 March 2006 at 1:16pm | IP Logged |
I have been reviewing books to put on Ebay today, and accidentally stumbled upon Dynamic Learning, which contains a section about Powell Janulus.
He could speak 42 different languages, and was certified court translator for 28 of those. At the time the author of the book modeled him (the book is a NLP modeling book, going into learning strategies), Janulus was 38.
Quick search reveals Janulus shall be around 66 years old.
Edited by tomasus on 14 March 2006 at 1:17pm
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patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7018 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 4 14 March 2006 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
Any other info you can give us?
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tomasus Pentaglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 7035 days ago 54 posts - 56 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, EnglishC1, German, Russian
| Message 3 of 4 14 March 2006 at 5:50pm | IP Logged |
I'm sorry I don't have much time now but I have found some more info that I have written somewhere else, three years ago, all passages about the book not relevant to Powell Janulus were deleted:
He didn't know any other language besides English until he was 18 or 19, when he acquired Pakistani while living with a Pakistani family in Canada.
Here i summarize, very freely, the strategy of Powell Janulus:
- he didn't learn grammar first, he wasn't doing it the way of translating from the language to English, instead, he would attach the words or sound sequences in that language to living moving actions, objects, etc. - he was going directly between language and experience
(like children do when learning to speak)
- he didn't practice pronounciation, instead he would watch the native speaker carefully and put himself into that person's skin, reproducing facial expressions, gestures, movements
- he had his own special code in mind for pronunciation based on sound, and he was accessing this info looking as if he had it mentally written
- he would not mix-up words, because he had different internal state and identity for each language, that he would change (see watching native speaker etc. above)
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6922 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 4 of 4 14 March 2006 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
Found this short article about him (in Portuguese), but there is little else on the Internet about him:
http://www.possibilidades.com.br/aprendizagem/janulus.asp
Everytime I learn about a new polyglot (especially one as accomplished as this person), I am truly astonished at how little has been written about them.
Edited by translator2 on 14 March 2006 at 8:07pm
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