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False Polyglots | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7155 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes  7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 1 of 3 03 May 2005 at 12:32pm | IP Logged |
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We have all met people who say that they can speak X languages, which turns out to be a fraud. There are many of them who know just a few sentences and say they speak that tongue fluently. Unfortunately, this affects people who really want to study languages, for it either discredits them or it takes away part of their merit.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 3 03 May 2005 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
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Yes indeed. I think it is quite pretentious and also dangerous for somebody to say that he speaks X languages with no qualifications to his statement. My article about language show-offs states my point of view.
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| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7149 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 3 of 3 03 May 2005 at 10:29pm | IP Logged |
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I was living in Germany and spoke quite good German. My mother in law came to visit and asked me to go shopping with her. She asked if I could ask the shop assistant if they had dressing gowns and I had no idea what "dressing gown" was in German. I had never used the word. My mother in law then said, I thought you spoke fluent German.
There will always be gaps in your knowledge of any language. I would say I speak my mother tongue fluently, I would say I speak German quite well (I have spoken in public and taught in German schools) and the other languages to varying degrees. I try to understate my knowledge of a language which is not hard to do in my case. Also, I can understand Yiddish and Afrikaans which I got for free by learning German and Dutch. Can I really add two more languages? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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