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Polyglots - sinners or saints? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5132 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 9 of 19 17 August 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think I've ever commented on a single polyglot youtube video. I'm in
iguanamon's camp, really. It's great that people can accomplish so much with languages and I respect them for it (especially the more humble ones), but it doesn't affect my learning either way. Maybe it's because I learned my first foreign language outside of the internet realm and I've tended to take the same approach with other languages. I don't know, honestly. I'll say that I do enjoy watching a couple of the youtube polyglots out there, but it usually doesn't have much to do with their own polyglottery. I'd much rather listen to someone talk about some of the obstacles they've come up against or what they've been able to do with their languages in their daily lives than hear "I learned XX language because XX when I was XX" in however many languages, which has been done to death and often coincides with a product being sold. R. == 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 10 of 19 18 August 2012 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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To answer the question: no one is a sinner or a saint, polyglots neither, they're just
humans that happen to speak a language more. So my advice would be to treat them like any other human being, except if they speak another language, you can talk to them in that :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Never Newbie Australia Joined 4483 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Afrikaans | Message 11 of 19 19 August 2012 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think we have an obligation to treat others with the respect we would expect in
return, and I try to replicate this notion in daily life. Constructive criticism should be welcome, regardless of your field of expertise; snide criticisms should also be noted, despite the lacking credibility in most cases. However, I do believe that the internet is governed by a different set of pseudo-laws, and I don't expect these laws to change in the near future. It's a different world on here. The best you can do is set an example and hope others follow closely. I'm not a polyglot, nor am I fluent in a language other than English. One day, maybe. I consider myself passionate. Despite this, I hope people can still find my opinion of some value. I'm definitely impressed by polyglots who have spent an immense amount of time studying various languages to the point where they can confidently claim an advanced fluency or a near-native fluency. Funnily enough, these people are often the most humbled and modest about their skills. I find it less impressive, when there are those who jump around 20 different languages, having spent less than half a year on most, and then proceed to make a YouTube video that screams "Hey everyone! Look at me, look at me!". It is not at all impressive when they don't appear at all humble or modest. If you are studying 20 languages and aren't at a near-native level in at least half (or even one) of them, apart from your native language, I find it very difficult to award you any respect as a student of languages. The novelty wears of when one's own inefficiency in the specific languages becomes apparent. There is a very well marked difference between polyglots who are passionate about language, modest about their skills and dedicated to quality over quantity and the quasi-polyglots who are starved for attention and will jump around 20 to 50 languages so that they can entertain the possible idea of becoming the next Mezzofanti. Congratulate those who study their respective languages well, and while you're at it, congratulate (or wish luck to) those who jump around more languages than they have fingers and toes. I'm sure they've spent quite a lot of time on their endeavours. But let them know that not everything is a race, and not everything should be treated as an opportunity to grab at media attention. As individuals, this is the best we can do. As individuals, those who classify as polyglots, despite their legitimacy, should expect a certain amount of harsh criticism and should make peace with the fact that putting one's own face out there on the internet will inevitably lead to this. Sorry for the long post. In keeping with Cristina's wishes, I have left out the names of the several individuals I was talking about. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 12 of 19 19 August 2012 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
You make some quite legitimate points, but I think you overvalue near-native fluency. I wouldn't call myself near-native in any language, and I'm native only in English. Despite that, I converse freely in a couple more languages, and read several more to a level where books written in those languages are engaging, entertaining, and/or informative. Most of the multilingual people I know don't have a near-native level in most of their languages, but do have one adequate for studying and/or working in at least several of them - and don't receive any media attention. Personally, I find being able to interact professionally in 5 languages to be somewhat worthy of respect even if the person doing so is not at a "near-native" level in any of them. I also see nothing wrong with sampling dozens of languages, whether it's learning to say "my hovercraft is made of eels" in as many languages as one can, or to gain the ability to identify a few hundred when spoken out of general curiosity. Like Solfrid Cristin, though, I find this much more palatable if the individuals involved do not overstate their knowledge and abilities. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6540 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 19 19 August 2012 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Isn't it possible that the polyglot exaggerators are simply being ironic, or espousing to some snarky internet personality? Usually, subtle comedy passes over one's head, especially so when done in foreign languages, spanning many types of cultures.
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| Never Newbie Australia Joined 4483 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Afrikaans | Message 14 of 19 19 August 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
I definitely see your point. Considering it's quite hard to reach near-native fluency in one foreign language, let alone many, it's certainly an impressive feat to master a/many language/s to the point where you can converse freely about a range of topics with few mistakes. I think rather than overvalue native-fluency, I haven't defined it appropriately in my own head. I don't disagree with you here.
Generally, I don't take issue with people who want to learn tiny bits of various languages, though if they take on 20 languages at once as though there exists some goal to reach fluency in each, it seems naive and unrealistic. Of course, if such people didn't broadcast their linguistic activities to tens of thousands, I wouldn't have a problem with their methods at all. I just find it hard to afford any respect to those who practice quantity over quality and then use their age/time spent studying to gain popularity. It turns the learning of foreign languages into a race when it shouldn't be one. I definitely don't disagree with you. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5695 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 15 of 19 20 August 2012 at 1:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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Another great thread – thanks, Cristina!
Personally, I see no need to make negative comments on any other person's linguistic accomplishments. I like complimenting people when they're good at stuff, because it's just nice to spread some positivity around, but if they're bad at it, I don't feel the need to let them know. The way I see it, doing "negative things" with one's polyglot status – e.g. teaching incorrectly, being annoying on the internet, etc. – is not a serious enough problem for me to get involved. People who are deluded about their own linguistic skills will very quickly find out the limit of their ability, even without my assistance. And if anyone chooses to learn from a random YouTube polyglot without doing some research into that person's abilities and reputation first, that's that person's own problem. I guess my main philosophy is "live and let live". There are better things in life to get worked up about, and I don't really feel that the reputation of a polyglot is becoming tarnished by these folks to the extent that we need to get up in arms to defend it. At least, not yet. :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 16 of 19 20 August 2012 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In the spirit of Jinx's "live and let live", I don't want to say anything about
polyglots, but to lighten the thread in a hopefully amusing way I'll recount an old story about sinners. Like every story there are various versions, but this is a short one I could find quickly: (It helps if you can conjure up the voice of actor John Laurie - Private Frazer in "Dad's Army)
Edited by montmorency on 20 August 2012 at 3:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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