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Polyglots mimic talking parrots | ||
Tags: Youtube Polyglot | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5671 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 41 of 65 04 June 2010 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Isn't that what the "intermediate phase" of language learning is all about? Absorbing all the thousands of idioms that are used in the "real" language? I remember watching a video a few months ago where a woman was being evaluated for her C2 ability in English, and the examiner stated she was looking for ease with idiomatic use. This is why many people here advise to get away from the textbooks and onto "authentic materials" ASAP, so you can immerse yourself in a sea of idioms and (fingers crossed) absorb them. Again, this comes back to my belief that the admirable polyglots have clearly gone though this long process in order to be able to use idioms so naturally. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 42 of 65 04 June 2010 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is very true, Iversen! It makes sense to prepare the contents of an interview, before you record it on You Tube. If you are a beginner in a language without having the speaking ability yet, you can read out some sentences or a whole text from a book. I did this with Turkish and Danish saying in my videos that I'm a beginner in these languages. But you can't parrot foreign languages for 10 minutes whithout having speaking fluency in them. But of course the level of speaking fluency, which people have, can vary. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 04 June 2010 at 4:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 43 of 65 04 June 2010 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, I can confirm this. My superior in my callcenter job caught me making grammar mistakes in my native language German and said to me: "Frau XY, bitte sprechen Sie nicht so ausländisch!" I just laughed and replied to him: "Ja, vielleicht lerne ich doch zu viele Sprachen..." Quite a funny episode was this. No problem for me, though! Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 04 June 2010 at 1:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 44 of 65 04 June 2010 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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To summarize a bit this discussion here, I find it very bizarre that polyglots are not allowed to make language mistakes. I just told this statement to my Dutch friend and he was so perplex, that he couldn't believe it.
"Yes, they are seriously discussing this here," I said to him. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 04 June 2010 at 4:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6097 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 45 of 65 04 June 2010 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am officially lost on this thread or perhaps the thread starter is a little confused. Either way the topic is a little muddled, so I will return to the "translation" of the topic proposed by Derian and agreed by the topic starter. This does contrast to the more recent idea posed by the topic starter (also quoted). I had understood from the translation that we could think YouTube polyglots to be potential fakes (an opposing view to the new interpretation above I know). I will take this point on as I think it's an interesting one. This is a topic raised many times on this forum and on the videos themselves. It is completely possible that everyone is a fake. OK, now for a bit of a reality check. When people need these languages to converse with others on a daily basis then reality kicks in for everyone. If the languages don't stand up to basic fluency when that is what's claimed, the person saying they speak the language falls down. This ability is difficult to demonstrate on YouTube as everything could be read or learnt by heart if we go down that route. Personally I do not like to make claims of fluency in X number of languages. I have little to gain in doing so. I purposely took examples of languages I study to display them at various levels for my 16-language video. I find the "how many languages" question and "fluency" a little redundant as fluency is a topic on which few people can agree. I tend to let people judge for themselves. Hence the carte blanche I endorse on any comments about my language ability. It is there on YouTube and fair game as far as I am concerned. The only time I would say something different is when I have used a language in a professional environment and successfully carried out business and lived using that tongue exclusively. I feel that meets most people's idea of a fluent speaker. This was the basis for the levels I gave my languages on my profile on this forum. This is also why I don't bite when people say I speak Spanish badly for example as I know it is simply not true. Regarding my level of Czech, which seems to be the point of interest here, I can say that I am perfectly able to live in a Czech environment using Czech as a means to communicate my ideas, thoughts, feelings and business needs. I know this to be true still because recently I set up my Internet connection here and bought a SIM card in Czech, expressing my needs adequately to the salesperson. These are not phrases you find in books to repeat parrot fashion. I also have long conversations with people in Czech on a variety of commonly discussed subjects. Now for some more reality. Czech is not an easy language to learn for a native English speaker with no prior knowledge of Slavic languages: It was my first Slavic language. I make mistakes and I am pleased to have had great people around to correct me and help me improve. Having had a 6 year gap in speaking Czech daily I have found some interference from Macedonian (my home language) and Serbo-Croat, but that is now fading away again. John Smith, I would be delighted to talk to you sometime in Czech. Any advice or help you can offer to improve my level in the language further would be greatly appreciated. You will see that I am a human being, trying to study and improve my languages like most people on this forum. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5803 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 46 of 65 04 June 2010 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes! I'm so glad to see this brought up here in the forum because I've always had similar thoughts. I love watching youtube polyglots, but what would interest me more is if an international organization of polyglots got started. Due to modern technology (internet, skype), a polyglot organization could be formed on a separate website with exact criteria that could be hashed out to define polyglots. Therefore "fakes" would have to go through this group of elite polyglots. I'm currently 21 and I wouldn't count myself as a polyglot, but I believe there is enough demand for an organization such as this (plus it would be fun). This would give people goals and standards in language "fluency". This website is a kind of unofficial version of it, but it would be nice to have an official directory of "certified" polyglots. I already see the groundwork laid for it: Fasulye, Torbyrne, Luca, Iverson, plus many other polyglots are already in constant communication. Arguelles and Steve Kauffmann are two other great polyglots, but they're busy doing their own things and I'm not sure if they'd join. It'd make for good advertising grounds for their separate endeavors though.
I don't know if others share my opinion, or have issues that they would like to further discuss. But the idea is intriguing to me? Thoughts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5671 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 47 of 65 04 June 2010 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't see the point of it at all. What benefit would it bring to the polyglots themselves? For people who are interested in certification, rigorous examinations with various fluency gradings already exist for many languages. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| djc463 Heptaglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5803 days ago 51 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian Studies: Mandarin | Message 48 of 65 04 June 2010 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, if they each published a video in each of their languages on a weekly basis, it would be good practice for them and fun (obviously it's what they love to do). Furthermore, they could charge a small monthly fee to people to access and learn from it and interact on guest passes (like one euro). This could finance further language studies and maybe they could publish a language learning series. It was an idea, but if there is no interest: no matter.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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