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  Tags: Conversation | Fluency
 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery Post Reply
qklilx
Moderator
United States
Joined 5986 days ago

459 posts - 477 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean
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 Message 2 of 5
01 June 2008 at 4:59pm | IP Logged 
Professor, if I may add on to this question, would you say it is more difficult to become a conversational polyglot or a reading polyglot? Let's simply assume that one is going to study a set of pre-decided languages from an early age. Given the same person and the same study habits (of course different methods depending on the goal), do you believe it would take longer for this person to become highly conversational in all of his languages, or to become able to read a modern adult novel in them?

Thank you for your input.

- Evan McKinney
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IbanezFire
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6494 days ago

119 posts - 124 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 5
04 June 2008 at 6:09pm | IP Logged 
Here this will be of some use...

http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com/about.html
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6503 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
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 Message 5 of 5
05 June 2008 at 8:34am | IP Logged 
I agree, the new homepage of ProfArguelles is clear and well structured and brimming with interesting content which will probably be new to most people outside this forum.   

My answer to the original question: it is relatively easy to learn enough of a language to survive as a not too inquisitive tourist. But to be really conversational you have to feel the need to speak the language in question, and you have to hear a lot of it - in practice that means that you have to live in a suitable setting, preferably in a country where the language is spoken, but having just one reference person around you might do the trick. If these conditions are not met it is easier first to get a good passive knowledge of the language, with the emphasis on written sources, and then use that as a basis for getting as much out of your rare opportunities to write and speak the language as possible.



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