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How Fluent Are Polyglots?

  Tags: Fluency | Polyglot
 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5270 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 17 of 19
10 February 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged 
OK, I'm going to mention this only once because I've been down this road many times here. When we talk about fluency, most of the time we are really talking about proficiency, i.e. a broad measure of ability in the target language. Fluency, on the other hand, as used by all people in the field of language teaching (including the CEFR folks), refers solely to ease of speaking with a good level of grammatical accuracy. It doesn't refer to vocabulary or even accent. It's more about lack of stuttering, searching for words, hesitating, etc.

Now that this is off my chest, if we are really talking about polyglot fluency, I don't see why people cannot achieve high levels of fluency in many languages. Many people here are quite fluent in a wide variety of languages. On the other hand, how many people can say that they are equally proficient--I stress the word equally here--in all those languages? This is what is quite rare. I think that I speak Spanish quite fluently, at least so I have been told, but I certainly wouldn't say that in terms of proficiency my Spanish is on par with my French or English.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6422 days ago

2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 18 of 19
10 February 2012 at 5:23pm | IP Logged 
mrwarper wrote:
Maybe languages are so different from other disciplines that rules are different somehow. If that's the case, I'd really love to learn how exactly.

Actually, I don't think it's that different. You can study music theory without being very good at playing any instruments. You can be a great physiologist without being very fit. I'm a mechanical engineer and I don't know how to weld. Sure, you might say that I'd be a better engineer if I learned how to weld, or the physiologist would be better if she spent some time lifting weights, but practical experience isn't strictly necessary for theoretical studies. I hardly think it should be a requisite.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Torbyrne
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Macedonia
SpeakingFluently.com
Joined 5935 days ago

126 posts - 721 votes 
Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian
Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian

 
 Message 19 of 19
10 February 2012 at 10:49pm | IP Logged 
tanya b wrote:
Happy Valentines Everyone!

I'm having trouble trying to wrap my mind around the idea of someone speaking 6-12 languages fluently (OK,
I'm jealous). What exactly is the skill level of a true polyglot? Can they tell jokes in some obscure dialect in all
of their languages? Can they understand a documentary on quantum physics or electric eels in these
languages? If they can do this, even imperfectly, more power to them. But for me this would be difficult in
any language, way over my head.

When I hear that someone can play a lot of musical instruments, I wonder how they can find the time to learn
to play all of them well. Would it be better to devote yourself fully to 3 or 4?

Maybe a more realistic goal for me would be to be like Ivetta, an immigrant to Western Europe who speaks
Kurdish, Armenian, Georgian and Russian fluently without any trace of an accent. She's not even a linguist or
translator. I also admire the Iranian woman who speaks perfect Farsi, Arabic and Turkish and works as a
translator. They are my role models. I wish I was like those of you out there who seem to collect languages
like seashells. But that's not me. No way.


Happy Valentine's Day to you for 14th too! :)

Interesting link in there because for serial language learners, such as myself, languages are our valentine for
the whole year, every year.

Telling jokes and making the language your own for me is a sign of a near-native speaker. Speaking about
eels or the like in depth is beyond many natives in my experience, unless they have a particular penchant for
the subject. Speaking at this advanced level in 5+ languages takes dedication (even if some are first
languages). That said, it is possible. I have yet to speak to someone with that level of command in 10
languages though.

Iversen is right about the thrill of learning a new language. I get the same thing. It is exciting for a langoholic!
I would not tackle three or four at one from scratch though. You'll find you get nowhere fast that way. A
maximum of two at a time, in my experience, is plenty.

The Kurdish woman you mention would usually have areas of language where she feels less comfortable.
We have many examples of her here. People who speak Maceonian, Albanian, Turkish and Serbian. They
tend to switch amongst the languages (even mid-sentence sometimes) with others in their community and it
becomes one language almost. Many find it tough (or lack confidence/experience) to speak them all to a
level that a native monolingual would find acceptable for a first language, educated speaker, able to hold their
own on a wide range of subjects. :)

I have to say that I do enjoy conversations that mix languages because it gives me a real buzz. I used to do
it in Switzerland with an Italian friend, who grew up in Zurich. It can get quite addictive because you have
such a choice to express how you feel. Sometimes the German words seems to carry more weight than the
Italian one and vice versa. :)

Edited by Torbyrne on 10 February 2012 at 11:40pm



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