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Professor Arguelles speaking Dutch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Liface Triglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Lif Joined 5891 days ago 150 posts - 237 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Dutch, French | Message 1 of 10 05 August 2011 at 7:21am | IP Logged | ||
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This is the first time I've ever seen the good professor speak in another language in normal conversation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GROe8h3tA3M#t=27m54s And luckily for him, he gets to speak with two cute Dutch girls who are walking by while he's doing an interview. I'm impressed. His Dutch is excellent, given the fact that he mentions in the video that he last time he with in The Netherlands was 10-15 years ago. Edited by Liface on 05 August 2011 at 7:24am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5264 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 2 of 10 05 August 2011 at 8:02am | IP Logged | ||
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This is the first video I have seen with him speaking another language. And it was an ambush:-) I like how he has a ten minute conversation with the girls then claims that Dutch is one of his weaker languages.I'd like to have some of his weaker languages.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6736 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 3 of 10 05 August 2011 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Long ago we had a thread where somebody asked for videos by profArguelles in other languages than English (i.e. not readings, but conversations). Only one example was given, namely an interview in Spanish.
The present video is excellent because it documents what a great polyglot he is. It is made in Singapore, far from the Netherlands and Belgium, and according to the video he has not been there for 10-15 years AND he says that Dutch not only is one of his weaker languages, but also that he hasn't really got any opportunities to speak it. And yet he delivers a fluent improvised conversation out of the blue. I'll leave it to the native and nearnative speakers of Dutch to comment in detail on his Dutch, but it is clear that he didn't have any problems understanding or being understood in that language. And his Dutch was way better than the English of the girls in the beginning of the clip. Edited by Iversen on 05 August 2011 at 9:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5368 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 4 of 10 05 August 2011 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I could hear some significant German influence in his accent and his vocabulary
(jetzt instead of nu, versuchen instead of proberen) and he sometimes mispronounces things, I think under influence of Spanish, in a way that could cause misunderstandings. For example, he said geel instead of heel and hoeren instead of horen (that last one is especially dangerous!) He also made some grammar mistakes but nothing too bad. Most of it seemed to be influenced by German as well. Overall, he doesn't sound very natural and he struggles a little sometimes but he gets his points across very well, which is very impressive considering that he hardly ever has the chance to practice. I would agree with those girls that he can claim to "speak" Dutch. By the way, is that a drill I hear in the background? Whatever it is, it made it really hard to hear what he was saying sometimes. He seemed to be speaking in a much softer voice than the girls. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6942 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 10 05 August 2011 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I assume German is one of his stronger languages so it's no surprise that such a close language as Dutch has some Germanisms. Bear in mind he hasn't used it for 10-15 years... How many of us can hold a conversation in one of our "weaker" languages after a decade? To my ears, his Dutch didn't sound as German as the English sounded Asian in the beginning of the clip...
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 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6412 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 10 05 August 2011 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Bugs buzzing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5207 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 10 06 August 2011 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
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It's amazing how how hard it is to truly forget a language. When I went to Europe last summer, I hadn't spoken French in about six years (I was on a break from languages), but I was able to get around. I had a terrible accent, of course. I suspect my French was worse than his Dutch at peak. It took me a couple days to be able to have conversations, though.
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| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5259 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 8 of 10 06 August 2011 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think an important point has yet to be mentioned: he never lived there or had any significant exposure to the language. In fact, I don't think he ever put much real time or effort into learning it. All he did was shadow an Assimil course and spend, maybe, a few weeks in Holland. And yet, a dozen years later and half the world away, he is able to converse intelligibly and intelligently in it at the drop of a hat!
Well, I'm just as excited as the rest of you at seeing this, but there is something else that has yet to be mentioned: the rest of the video! This is just the tail end of an interesting interview, and if you haven't watched it yet, it would certainly be worth your time to go do so. I particularly like hearing him talk about his idea for an institute. I wonder what will have to happen for him to actually do it? 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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