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Wendy Vo - 8 years old / 11 languages

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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Alois M.
Heptaglot
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 5212 days ago

10 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Dutch
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Hindi, Greek, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Arabic (classical), Swedish, Turkish

 
 Message 1 of 9
27 March 2011 at 4:32am | IP Logged 
This is Wendy Vo, a music prodigy who's being taught to speak in 11 languages - English, Vietnamese (her parents' native), Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Arabic (Egyptian) and Japanese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZOPI7DzfUY
3 persons have voted this message useful



ChiaBrain
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5806 days ago

402 posts - 512 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish*
Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 2 of 9
27 March 2011 at 7:14am | IP Logged 
Not only is it many languages to have some level of mastery at at any age, let alone 8
but her knowledge spans across the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic and Sino-Tibetan
major families.


Man, I feel dumb, lol
1 person has voted this message useful



apparition
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6648 days ago

600 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Pashto

 
 Message 3 of 9
27 March 2011 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
I wonder how much more skilled she's become in the three years since we saw her last.


The thread about her from 2008.

1 person has voted this message useful



futurianus
Senior Member
Korea, South
starlightonclou
Joined 5007 days ago

125 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: Korean*

 
 Message 4 of 9
27 March 2011 at 11:49pm | IP Logged 
Wendy Vo is truly amazing in that her abilities in 11 languages are concretely shown and 'proven' through video footages, rather than just self-claimed.

--I think her musical talents had helped her much in picking up and digesting the accents, rhythms, speeds and tones of the those languages.
--Also the choice of the languages she studied were quite superbly balanced, setting her up to be truely a great super polyglot. It would have been better, however, if she dropped Brazilian Portuguese and replaced it with German. She could easily pick up Portuguese later as she is learning Spanish now. Learning German now would give her a good foundation for picking up Germanic or North European languages easily later on.

Her parents have done a really superb job in nurturing her talents.

A couple weeks ago, I had seen her videos and had tried for several days to find informations on the educational and professional background of her parents and on whether she is home schooled with tutors or is attending a formal school, but could not find any. Does anyone have any information or any lead on this? If you do, sharing of it will be much appreciated.

1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5379 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 5 of 9
28 March 2011 at 2:13am | IP Logged 
futurianus wrote:
Her parents have done a really superb job in nurturing her talents.

Though one may wonder if they did an equally superb job of allowing her to be a kid and
developing her social skills.
2 persons have voted this message useful



futurianus
Senior Member
Korea, South
starlightonclou
Joined 5007 days ago

125 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: Korean*

 
 Message 6 of 9
28 March 2011 at 4:08am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
futurianus wrote:
Her parents have done a really superb job in nurturing her talents.

Though one may wonder if they did an equally superb job of allowing her to be a kid and
developing her social skills.


She seemed to have a bright personality and to be quite enjoying the experience of conversing in different languages and playing the piano. But indeed what you said was something that I was also curious and would like to get more information on that too.


1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5379 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 7 of 9
28 March 2011 at 4:13pm | IP Logged 
futurianus wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
futurianus wrote:
Her parents have done a really superb job in nurturing her talents.

Though one may wonder if they did an equally superb job of allowing her to be a kid and
developing her social skills.


She seemed to have a bright personality and to be quite enjoying the experience of conversing in different languages and playing the piano. But indeed what you said was something that I was also curious and would like to get more information on that too.


Little girls can be quite good at pretending to enjoy whatever it is that pleases people around them -- it doesn't mean it's what's best for her. Kids are not robots.
1 person has voted this message useful



futurianus
Senior Member
Korea, South
starlightonclou
Joined 5007 days ago

125 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: Korean*

 
 Message 8 of 9
28 March 2011 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
futurianus wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
futurianus wrote:
Her parents have done a really superb job in nurturing her talents.

Though one may wonder if they did an equally superb job of allowing her to be a kid and
developing her social skills.


She seemed to have a bright personality and to be quite enjoying the experience of conversing in different languages and playing the piano. But indeed what you said was something that I was also curious and would like to get more information on that too.


Little girls can be quite good at pretending to enjoy whatever it is that pleases people around them -- it doesn't mean it's what's best for her. Kids are not robots.




Yes, it is indeed something that needs to be paid careful attention to in raising young polyglots, along with issues such as

-What are the negative side effects of raising a child polyglot?
-What are the proper approaches in doing it?
-At what age should they start to learn new languages?
-how many languages should they learn(any limitation to numbers)?
-etc.


I think she could provide us with an extremely rare and precious study case for a research that could yield valuable new informations and insights related to the mechanisms involved in the process of acquisition of new languages and to the right approaches in training young polyglots.

The communities in linguistics, education and media should have already done a thorough research of her case and have published some detailed informations, analyses and evaluations by now, but I could not find any.

   



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