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Polygot under 18 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 73 of 113 29 August 2008 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I think your tone is absolutely uncalled-for, guilon. You certainly have the right to have doubts about someone's language abilities. Calling someone a phony (as you essentially did) without evidence is rather another matter. I find it rather uncivil. SlavicResistanc clearly writes English well - not perfectly, and I'd call his fluency advanced rather than native - but certainly better than a number of native English speakers nonetheless. Similarly, I doubt his Icelandic is fluent, as he started studying Icelandic a week ago. Likewise, he says his Spanish isn't fluent in that thread. Nonetheless, he's clearly enthusiastic about languages, has put some serious effort into them, and seems honest about assessing himself. I can see the point of gently suggesting that he amend his profile to match his assessment; his profile does contain errors. His level of achievement is not at all impossible for 18. I'd say that I had at least a similar level with various computer-related things at that age, despite only seriously starting at 13/14. He may well have gotten a younger start than I did. I've never been formally diagnosed with Asperger's. Given that he's indicated a willingness to be tested on any language he claims as fluent, why don't you do so rather than fling accusations blindly? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6241 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes 14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 74 of 113 29 August 2008 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
That's such nonsense. Discipline, good studying habits and ability will take you very far, believe you me. If I weren't so lazy I could surely have achieved much more. The thing is that it's probably inevitable for achievements of others to be met with something other than disbelief and envy. I wonder why. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6241 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes 14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 75 of 113 29 August 2008 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Oh, by the way:
His English and German are, while not perfect, both very good. His Dutch is also quite good. I don't know what the others have to say about this. Let's just admit that for one, this is one "Super Polyglot" (as the profile states) that actually dared posting something, and not only in English, but - and this immediately - in his respective target languages. So I fully agree with Volte. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5949 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 76 of 113 30 August 2008 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I also agree, we had proofs enough that his English, German and Dutch are excellent. On the other hand there is actually something a little cocky about his ways, so I can see where the aggressive replies are coming from, but as long as this slightly immature streak clearly gives him away as a youngster this is further proof of his veracity. So I think I'll choose to be impressed and admirative rather than not. I wish I had started that early! The guy won't surely "achieve all the languages in the world" but he might really teach us something!
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| Gilgamesh Tetraglot Senior Member England Joined 6241 days ago 452 posts - 468 votes 14 sounds Speaks: Dutch, English, German, French Studies: Polish | Message 77 of 113 30 August 2008 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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It's not so much that. I never said something about his behaviour or anything like that. The thing just seems to be that whenever someone who achieved something joins the forum, some guy will start picking on him. Such behaviour says a lot about people.
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| apatch3 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6184 days ago 80 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Pashto, English* Studies: Japanese, FrenchA2 | Message 78 of 113 30 August 2008 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Im Fluent in around 3 languages English , Pashto and Urdu ... I was born and raised in England till i was 13 years old (im 17 atm) after which my parents shifted back to northern Pakistan. Polyglots are far more common in countries that were once ruled by colonial powers, since they tend to leave behind a whole infrastructure, that cannot be gotten rid of no matter how hard the natives try. over here the higher class (middle and up) tends to use English as their medium of communication, i suppose its simply to show a degree of sophistication ...and also in order to not be understood by the common man.
ooh i forgot to add im learning japanese atm ! lol Edited by apatch3 on 30 August 2008 at 1:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| guilon Pentaglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6191 days ago 226 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Spanish*, PortugueseC2, FrenchC2, Italian, English | Message 79 of 113 30 August 2008 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I didn't mean to be mean, I come from a cultural background where things said straightforwardly are not seen as agressive but as due even if harsh, and I reckon that saying things in a roundabout way is unbearably hypocritical. I am sorry SlavicResistanc, I surely shouldn't have called you a phony. On the other hand my English is far from perfect and I don't always grasp the whole sense or the implications of English words. I apologize, seriously. I would even understand if people in this forum ask for me to be banished or muzzled, perhaps my tempers don't suit the general tone of the site.
Twelve languages at 18, I still think it is not that easily feasible, we know how hard learning a language is even for geniuses, of course you have every right to find his claims believable.
I know what hard work combined with ability debouchs into, but my disbelief doesn't make his claims any truer, not that I don't think he has worked hardly, I just believe he hasn't had the time to learn twelve languages at a satisfactory level.
Some guy, meaning me in the current thread, found Luca's achievements astonishing, and as he said:
that guy would never pick on Luca, or in other members even if the command of the languages they claim to speak is only passable. I myself as Luca am somehow deceived by the results I see in so many impressively profiled members. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Olympia Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5980 days ago 195 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Old English, French | Message 80 of 113 20 October 2008 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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My roommate is eighteen and has a pretty good command of four languages. She is fully bilingual in English and
French, is able to understand, read, and write Arabic (She says she has trouble speaking it, but I think she is just being modest.), and she gets around pretty well in Spanish (She said she could hardly form a sentence in Spanish, and I can tell you that couldn't be further from the truth which leads me to believe her Arabic is better than she lets on.). I also know a girl here at my university who speaks four languages. She speaks English and Russian natively, and has been taking German and Spanish for years at school. I'd say her German is pretty advanced (as in she knows the grammar well and can hold a conversation with little problem) because she chose that to be her "third" language and concentrates on it more than Spanish, but I've spoken to her in Spanish and her Spanish is probably at an intermediate level. And finally, my neighbor here is eighteen as well and growing up in Hong Kong he became fully trilingual in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, and studied Spanish in school and definitely has basic fluency at the very least. He's also able to to get around in French and German, but he's not as good in those because he's only been studying them independently for a short time. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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