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A Gift for Learning Languages | ||
Tags: Talent | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 2 of 42 29 March 2010 at 3:30am | IP Logged |
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I think learning another language is possible for anyone, it just takes dedication and some will power :) It is easier growing up in a multilingual environment, where languages can easily be put to work :) I believe some polyglots are gifted, I think knowing more than a few languages is quite a feat :)
Being exposed to a language (like living in a multilingual environment) will make learning MUCH easier :D WELCOME TO THE FORUM! :D -Jordan 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 3 of 42 29 March 2010 at 3:58am | IP Logged |
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There are many reasons why language classes are in general very ineffective at actually teaching people languages. These include: insufficient time to get enough exposure to the language, the fact that the teacher has to divide up his/her attention among many students, the fact that the whole class is held back to the level of the students who are struggling the most, the tendency for schoolwork to turn otherwise fun subjects into tedious chores, and the lack of personalized study methods.
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| dolly Senior Member United States Joined 5790 days ago 191 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 4 of 42 29 March 2010 at 4:12am | IP Logged |
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There are more multilingual speakers than monolingual speakers in the world, and multilingual speakers are common in India and Africa. So it's not a question of giftedness.
People learn languages either out of sheer necessity or just fascination with the language. In either case the language is more interesting to them than introspective concerns about having a knack. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 5 of 42 29 March 2010 at 5:07am | IP Logged |
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The hardest language you'll ever learn is your second one. After that it is so much easier to learn languages. Not so much giftedness as perseverence I think.
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| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 42 29 March 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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Some people are gifted, some aren't, they are just determined. Growing up multilingual helps, but it doesn't mean someone who grew up monolingual can't learn. People don't get to fluency from classes because classes suck, and teach it wrong (at least 99.99999% of them).
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 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5967 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 42 29 March 2010 at 6:23am | IP Logged |
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The capacity to learn a language relatively easily and to use it well may be, in part, a kind of talent.
The actual, practical real-world learning and use of a new language requires intentional long-term work and practice. The second statement is more important by far. A biological comparison could be made to the presence of a certain gene vs. the manner in which this gene is actively expressed or is suppressed. I'm not referring to any known genes specifically related to language ability. The genotype/phenotype analogy is used to say that both a person's internal workings and external surroundings work together to allow a range of possible fluency results. Experiences, such as good and/or bad classroom instruction, residence in multilingual/monolingual surroundings, and the level of sustainable motivation a learner has all contribute, in some sense, to a language learner's success. They don't, however, necessarily determine the person's ultimate accomplishments in language studies. All neurologically normal humans have language ability and can learn. But for the most part, learning a foreign language is a deliberate, methodical action and not a gift. Even those with the most natural ability, the highest motivation and the most favorable environment must invest much effort into developing particular skills. It's another version of the nature/nurture debate, which is an issue remaining unsolved, as far as I know. We all encounter people who seem simply to be better at language learning than we are, while we struggle with it; we also meet those who struggle with language learning far more than we do. Maybe, as fellow learners, we would do well to accept that not everyone learns language in the same way, nor to the same level of proficiency, and that it's not easy to know how much of the difference can be attributed to an individual's advantages or disadvantages. Sorry if that sounded a bit overbearing! The question is an excellent one and I think many of us here probably wonder about it. *I realize that much of what I wrote here is contestable! Edited by meramarina on 29 March 2010 at 5:52pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 42 29 March 2010 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
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"Gift" is a bit of a loaded term.
I always argue that in a teaching environment where some people do well and others don't, it isn't that some people are naturally inclined to learn the way the teacher is teaching, but that they have a strategy for learning that isn't what the teacher's doing but takes the information the teacher provides and approaches it from a different angle. Meanwhilthe people who fail are often actually doing what the teacher says. Case in point: I did better at hisgh school French than anyone else in my class. I can categorically state that the teachers weren't teaching in a way that matched "my learning style". They taught all persons of a particular French tense conjugation at one time. Most of my classmates tried to learn them all simultaneously. I didn't. I learned them one at a time. You could argue that I am "gifted", that my ability to ignore the teachers is a "gift", but then if the teachers had taught the way I learned it, I'm sure my classmates would have done much better. As Meramarina alludes to -- inate gifts or genetic advantages can be made irrelevant in an appropriate environment. People with the "fat gene" don't all get fat; people with the "dylsexic gene" don't all get dyslexic; people with a "cancer gene" don't all get cancer. Once you accept this you get to the conclusion that when gifted students succeed, the teacher can't accept credit; but when an average student fails, the teacher has to accept the blame. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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