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Significance of being multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Saint1633 Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5081 days ago 3 posts - 8 votes | Message 1 of 12 01 January 2011 at 6:23pm | IP Logged |
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In our daily life , there are lot of problems we have to solve, the best way nowadays is to look for the answers on the internet. However,the information related to our question may not be in English , it maybe in Japanese, Chinese or French . In fact, when we search data /answers on Youtube or Baidu, the answers we get from imputing an English word is different from imputing Japanese or Chinese. For example,a cure for a cancer disease provided by the Chinese medicine can be totally from the western one. So, we can see that if we only know English ,we only can get information from those English websites or database; if we know more languages such as Chinese ,Japanese or Spanish, we get two or three more groups of information for our purpose. We therefore can say that the grasp of more foreign languages is the key which makes us outsmart others in the epoch of internet. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5252 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 2 of 12 01 January 2011 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
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Outsmarting, as it seems to me, may be the wrong word here. The faculties of critical thought are in my opinion more vital to an intelligent individual than that of language. I think that outsmarting your previous beliefs, even your resources, is far more important than outsmarting other people and their resources. However, multilingualism is absolutely a signal of intelligence. Even a good command of prose in a single language is a somewhat rare asset in this day in age. Just my two cents. Edited by BobbyE on 01 January 2011 at 9:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6377 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 12 02 January 2011 at 10:02am | IP Logged |
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Yeah. I love that I can find totally new content in another language on something I'm
interested in when I've exhausted it in English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| wenevy Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie China Joined 5082 days ago 28 posts - 36 votes Speaks: Spanish, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, Catalan, EnglishC1 Studies: French, Italian | Message 4 of 12 09 January 2011 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
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Absolutely agree.
When i reserch something in the internet,I always use other languages if the information in one langugae it´s not enough. Or just beacuse I want a different perspective. Por exameple,I always read the Chinese, English and Spainish versions in wikipedia of the same keyword. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5339 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 12 09 January 2011 at 2:08pm | IP Logged |
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My first thought was that I don't really need another language to search for things on the internet, because I only use English. And then it hit me that English is actually a foreign language...
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 Yashinka Diglot Pro Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5214 days ago 29 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 12 10 January 2011 at 4:51am | IP Logged |
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I agree, I don't rely so heavily on swedish information sources solely since I learned English. English has a much
more vast array of knowledge to take advantage of then the swedish equivalent so while I might first encounter something that I would like to know more about in swedish, I always take it further by reading it in English as well. Hopefully, by the end of this year, I can begin to get a new perspective thanks to my progressing japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 12 10 January 2011 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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I also agree. If we count internet as a language-related activity, I probably read and write more in English than in Swedish. I can also have a look at the occasional Wikipedia article in other languages - especially if it isn't available in Swedish.
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| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5402 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 8 of 12 10 January 2011 at 12:51pm | IP Logged |
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Along these lines, a friend of mine who is a native French speaker, teaches at an American university, wrote a textbook in English while the majority of his sources of information are written in Spanish. He is also currently working with an advisor in Germany. Multilingualism broadens all opporutnities and possiblities.
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