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Learning many languages | ||
Tags: Polyglottery | Number of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6049 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 17 of 30 04 August 2010 at 6:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that being a polyglot is less about the ends and more about the means. It is like saying, "I want to be a great artist, is this possible?" Yet a great artist would never ask this question, he/she would be too busy doing art, living the life.
Being a polyglot means to me, that you have a lifestyle, not a goal. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| deej Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5337 days ago 31 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Hindi, English*, Italian, French | Message 18 of 30 06 August 2010 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Iversen, surely you are proof that it is possible to speak 20 or so languages? So I'm
surprised that your post seemed to suggest that it was near-impossible, unless I misinterpreted? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5343 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 19 of 30 07 August 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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How many languages is it possible to be near fluent in? I'm aiming at maybe 2-3 (not
including my native language) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5671 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian | Message 20 of 30 07 August 2010 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seven. Seven is the official number.
Well, it most certainly is not. Neither is four, five, or six. I would recommend a tactic as wild as starting to learn languages today, continue every day and then when you're on your deathbed you look at how many languages you can speak like a native. That's the number :-) s_allard put it very well in the first paragraph of his last post. Learning a language to something of a native-like level is a task that consumes enormous amounts of time and willpower, and even then it is quite unlikely that you will ever be precisely as good as a native is. I mean to say that a (well-educated) native has almost (but not necessarily!) 100% knowledge of the language, he or she knows it completely and utterly inside out, nothing can take them by surprise. By the time somebody has almost reached a level like this in a foreign language (something like 95%-97% knowledge) it's likely that they'll go "Well I know more than enough already" anyway and move on to another. Well, I suppose the number would be something around ten or so if you start studying at twenty. I'm sure somebody has learned way more. Surely somebody has learned way less. In general, it's probably better to just be very fluent in two or three foreign languages than to be able to say something very limited in fifteen (but it's not an absolute truth, if being able to say things in fifteen languages is your thing then you should do it). Edited by Thatzright on 07 August 2010 at 1:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 30 07 August 2010 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't speak 20 or more languages. I can speak maybe a dozen well enough to have conversations in them when I travel, and most of these also well enough to have a chat at home if I happen to meet a suitable foreigner. But I can write in maybe twenty languages because I have time to look up words and grammar, and because I can go back to correct the most blatant of my errors. And I can read in even more languages and dialects by using related ones to guide me. So speaking is the most difficult task for me and the one I should use to evaluate my languages . It is precisely because I know how much my own skills are tied to the amount of input I get that I know how much trouble it takes for a person wíth a normal brain and a sedentary lifestyle to learn a lot of languages to perfection. and my answer is: learn those to perfection that you have a lot of access to, and be content with somewhat less for those where it is a problem to get enough relevant materials. Edited by Iversen on 07 August 2010 at 2:22pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ponape Pentaglot Groupie Spain Joined 5961 days ago 42 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Greek, Basque, Swahili, Tagalog, Arabic (classical), Quechua, Vietnamese, Turkish, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Hindi | Message 22 of 30 07 August 2010 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I'm currently trying to speak 16 languages: Spanish (my mother tongue), and then Basque, French, Italian, English, German, Croatian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean and Quechua. There was a moment some years ago when I wanted to be a fluent speaker of many, many languages, and I had to stop and pick the ones I most liked. This helped a lot. And 16 seemed a good number to me. For that, I devised a personal plan consisting of three stages: 1. Compiling the basic vocabulary (I do this in a single Excel worksheet) and reading good grammars of all the languages. 2. Learning the basic vocabulary I compiled by using Excel flashcards (I created them by using VBA programming in Excel), and by reading / writing in these languages. Refreshing vocabulary can be done in an easy way with Google translator (except for Quechua). 3. Trying to use all the languages by thinking every day in each one of them (I even make up imaginary countries where they are spoken), and whenever it is possible and I save some money I will try to have some immersion in them. If I have to go to lessons with other international students, then it is essential to live with a host family of that country. Bad news is that I'm currently in stage 1 for most languages... Right now, I could only have fluent conversations in English, French and Italian and, to some extent, in German. For me the lack of time is desperating... But I am optimistic, and I will be just happy to have an intermediate level in the most difficult ones for me. Of course you need to sacrifice some personal life, but for those who really like this, it is not a big problem. Edited by Ponape on 07 August 2010 at 3:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5326 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 23 of 30 08 August 2010 at 7:57am | IP Logged | ||
overkill? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 30 08 August 2010 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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You may not use more than 3000 words actively, but to read ordinary books og magazines you need a much larger vocabulary. I did a passive vocabulary survey last year for all my languages, and for those languages I claim to speak I counted typically 20.000 words or more - including loanwords and derivations insofar they were listed as headwords. And there is a clear connection between known (passive) words and my ability to read comfortably without looking words up all the time. Under 10.000 = keep your dictionary within reach.
I have no idea how so many words are stored in the brain, but they apparently have lodged themselves there in some way, and it has taken a lot of time, dedication and wordlists to learn them. Did I mention the word 'dictionary'? Well even such a thing may not be enough. Take a dictionary with, say, 20000 words and read a typical book for native grown-ups, where you look up all unknown or doubtful words. Did you find them all in the dictionary? Probably not - which just proves that even a vocabulary of 20.000 isn't enough - it wasn't enough for your dictionary, so it isn't enough for you. Quod erat demonstrandum.. Edited by Iversen on 09 August 2010 at 9:10am 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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