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’Jack of All Trades’ or Master of a Few? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5365 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 25 of 40 14 June 2011 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think a lot of us have a general interest in language per se, and hence, in all languages. When I hear a different language, my ears perk up. Any time I have the possibility, I try to learn a couple of phrases to see how a new language works. But that hardly qualifies as learning a language.
I certainly don't have to tell anybody here that learning a new language to a high degree of proficiency is a hell of a lot of work. Most of us have other things to do besides learning languages. And many of us do not work or live in multilingual environments where we could practice and maintain our language skills. Honestly, I don't think it's a question of "master of a few" vs "jack of many". It's more a question of doing what you can and going where life takes you. You can spend a lifetime on one language and still feel unsatisfied or you can be happy working on a few. It all depends on what learning a language means for you. I always chuckle when I read posts by people (often newbies) who write something like. "I'm new to languages but I really admire all these polyglots here at HTLAL. You're my heroes. I've borrowed some courses from the library and I figure I could get to basic fluency in a language in about three months. So, after I polish off the easy ones like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German by next year, I'll attack some of the biggies like Russian, Arabic and Mandarin. At this rate, I should be fluent in 20 languages in about 10 years. What do you think? Is this doable?" All I can say is: Go for it! Edited by s_allard on 14 June 2011 at 4:56pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5161 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 27 of 40 14 June 2011 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I (and a few friends who are very like me) often get amazed looks or compliments at 'how much we know' about... everything we know anything about. Now, we may be a kind of super-geniuses, but I don't think so.
All I do is try to understand things and learn them in the right order: first, learn the basics that provide a solid foundation, and then everything else will build up on that ('basic' meaning not only 'easy' but also 'base') pretty much by itself. As Iversen said, 20% of the effort gets you 80% of the knowledge, or 80% along the way, but only if you invest that effort into the right things. Sometimes, taking some time to analyze and find out what those basics you have to learn are is a part of the process, especially if you try to learn something completely on your own. On the other hand, many people (in my sad experience, most of them) just dabble in everything they do because they are not really interested in learning or understanding things; they just want to know barely enough to get on with their lives. The problem is, they horribly misjudge what is 'barely enough', thinking that anything they learn the subject at hand will do, regardless of what it is that they learn. Well, in real life it matters, only some things will do, and learning the wrong things of course doesn't get them very far, making them effective Jacks of Few Trades. That's why in today's modern world we can have 'specialists' about nothing in itself. From the guy who sells cell phones without knowing anything about the phones, to the pedagogist who teaches others 'how to teach' all the same regardless of what they are to teach. Now put in front them any guy who simply starts with the basics and he'll run circles around them, with the same or even less effort that they put into it. Impossible? Not in a world of ever lower standards. Welcome to the planet of the apes. Edit: typos, style Edited by mrwarper on 16 June 2011 at 12:50am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6950 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 40 14 June 2011 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My outlook is as follows: I believe that I'll exist for roughly seventy-odd years*. In that time, I'd like to learn about as many things as possible (not just languages), some in more detail than others. Some languages fall in this category, some don't.
* although that might be optimistic! Before I finish, I'd like to release some steam regarding some of the points mentioned above:
Very true! I can't tell you how often I hear supposed "teaching" experts tell me how the latest theories show that I should be doing "X" to maximise my pupils' learning, or that I should try "Y" because the latest theory says it's the best thing for learning since sliced bread. I dare these theorists to come on Tuesday afternoons and cope with the unwilling bunch I've got period 6!
Don't even get me started on the lowering of standards. End of rant. Time to continue learning and defy the erosion of intelligence. Edited by patuco on 14 June 2011 at 11:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6485 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 29 of 40 15 June 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged | |||||
You cracked me up Kuikentje:) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5891 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 30 of 40 15 June 2011 at 2:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Some years wind up being more odd than the others. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5902 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 40 15 June 2011 at 2:23am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, how very true this is! And I suspect that some are really longer than others, too. But to answer the question, it's hard enough to become master of even one "trade!" I don't mean we shouldn't try, but when I think of the concept of mastery, as I so, so, often do (ha ha!) I think it means the highest possible level of achievement. Not many get there. I remember reading in a novel, I think it was Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" about a character who was unhappy because he realized that, if you described how mastery of an art or subject might occur, you could rate it on a scale from A to Z; many people would get to, say, G, a few to L, a very few to Q, and perhaps one in in a generation gets to Z. And he knew he wasn't Z quality and was pretty upset about that. (I'm summarizing - don't have the book here now) That's not what we're trying to do in our language learning, I think, but I always liked that metaphor. I'd like to get to advanced level in a few languages, but if that does not happen, I've enjoyed the learning. And I have many other interests, too, and the more I learn from varied fields of study, the more connections I can make among them and I hope be a better learner/thinker too. I aim most for a lot of knowledge in a few languages (a large enough project!) and a broader, more general knowledge of others. That has to be enough. No one can learn everything. So says this learner who wants to amass a vocabulary so big you could see it from space! Edited by meramarina on 15 June 2011 at 2:31am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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