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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 9 of 36 06 June 2012 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Some of the regular contributors to this forum have a master's degree (or something equivalent) in linguistics or philology. Others have already mentioned some valid reasons why many professionals don't participate. I'd like to add that not all professors and experts are actually interested in learning new languages at all. I can't actually remember that a single one of my own professors at university ever expressed a burning desire to learn a lot of languages. Edited by tractor on 06 June 2012 at 5:45pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4688 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 10 of 36 06 June 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This. I think there is definitely a difference between a linguist and a language learner. In fact, I think the two are as different as a mathematician and a poker player. Whether he realizes it or not, the poker player is using math on several different levels (sometimes instinctively) whereas the mathematician has all of the theory but very little practical use for it in its own right. I think this is a very logical analogy because one does not have to be a linguist to learn languages. In fact, I would say that a very small percentage of language learners and polyglots have any real knowledge or education in linguistic theory. By the same token, many accomplished linguistic scholars have very little experience with the actual learning of a foreign language. I understand that there are many discussions on this forum that absolutely fall into the "theory" category but to me this forum is about the ins and outs of actually learning (and reading and speaking) foreign languages. Therefore, it is not surprising to me that there are not dozens of linguistic professors and the like crowding the boards. 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 11 of 36 06 June 2012 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Is not true in Germany, and not in Europe, as far as I know. What specific area of the world are you talking about? 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 36 06 June 2012 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Indeed. Many accomplished scholars in the field have a lot of experience with learning foreign languages with a few examples given here. However, one may say that many linguists are not specialists in second language acquistion or language pedagogy which largely cover or complement best what we learners think about or experience. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4688 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 13 of 36 06 June 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This is not an all or nothing. In every part of the world there are College professors and similar scholars in the fields of linguistics ,anthropology, etc who are not necessarily accomplished polyglots. That isn't to say they do not have particular aspects of language that they study extensively, just that they may not necessarily be the language learning authorities that it would seem like they could be. I would think you would be surprised if you took a survey of University Professors and PhD scholars in the field of Anthropology and linguistics to see how many of them were C1 or C2 level fluent in very many (if any) languages outside of their native tongue. Maybe it was the wording I used.Hopefully this helps to clarify what I intended to say. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 14 of 36 06 June 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You have changed the wording from "experienced language learners" to "accomplished polyglots with a level of C2 fluency in very many languages". Maybe we should add native pitch accent. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4688 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 15 of 36 06 June 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I apologize for not being able to properly contribute to the conversation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 16 of 36 06 June 2012 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Maybe they're not participating because they don't feel like giving their advice free of charge. You know, in this capitalistic word, every advice has its price (be it the lawyer's advice, medical advice or linguistic advice).
Many people have their own site where they hang out with ''fans'', for example J.C. Wells (The author of the ''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary): http://www.phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/ Edited by Medulin on 06 June 2012 at 10:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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