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Polyglots mimic talking parrots | ||
Tags: Youtube Polyglot | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5122 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 17 of 65 03 June 2010 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
In the OP's own words: When surprised or placed in a situation that requires them to actually use the language. Not mimic what they have heard before... but actually construct a sentence out of thin air... they stumble... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6517 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 18 of 65 04 June 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||
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As I read John Smith's first message in this thread he does praise certain unnamed youtube polyglots for being expert at mimicking things they have heard, but immediately afterwards he suggests that they can't really speak their languages once they are outside their stock of prelearned sentences. It is difficult not to see this as a criticism, but I could in principle imagine persons that deserve such a desciption. But when I think of the string of polyglots who have made multilingual videos on Youtube I can't really see who he's referring to.
Take for instance the recent video where Torbyrne poses questions about language learning to Luca. Each new question comes in a new language, and Luca answers in that language with machine gun speed. It would take a more than a good memory to pull that trick off. In this specific case I understood all the languages they spoke (though with some reservations in the case of Russian), and I didn't hear the predicted degradation after a few seconds of each answer. So this video didn't fit the description. If people 'cheat' by prelearning a ten minut multilingual lecture then it neither proves nor disproves that they can speak the languages they claim - though it would obviously be very difficult to 'parrot' sentences for ten minutes in languages you don't understand. The kind of memory this would require is really the one ascribed to a small number of savants. I have seen the famous clip from Tammett's interview on Icelandic television, and I'm sure he had prepared some of his formulations, but not the whole interview - and again it was his pattern of insecurities and missing words etc. that didn't fit the picture of a completely memorized interview. Let's turn our attention to a related case, namely native speakers - for instance teachers who teach a subject they know in and out. Even these people often rely on a number of prelearned explanations or even notes on paper, but still we don't doubt that they do know their own native language. OK, then youtube polyglots should also be allowed to make a plan for their 10 minutes, and the stiffness in the presentation this may entail can't be interpreted as a sign of lacking active skills. Edited by Iversen on 04 June 2010 at 9:59am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5856 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 19 of 65 04 June 2010 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
yeah.. basically... good summary... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5856 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 20 of 65 04 June 2010 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||
Speaking really quickly is also a trick polyglots use to appear more fluent than they are. When you speak quickly the other person picks up fewer mistakes because the listener's brain "corrects" what that person said. Also people that don't know the language are more likely to believe you are fluent if you speak quickly. One of the polyglots who claims to speak Czech made a pretty basic mistake in his videos. I din't pick it up the first time because he speaks fairly quickly. He said me se libi cesky instead of me se libi cestina (I like Czech) me se libi cesky jazyk Also. The only time you can really judge how good a polyglot is is when he or she is speaking your native language. So if someone says they speak 12 languages unless you are a native speaker of those 12 you can't be certain he would pass for a native speaker of those languages. Edited by John Smith on 04 June 2010 at 3:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6517 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 65 04 June 2010 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
I don't have to judge exactly how good anybody is in twelwe languages. I don't accept your claim that only native speakers can judge the level of somebody who speaks (or tries to speak) their language. Of course you will be a better judge if you are an expert in a certain language, but I don't have to be a native speaker of for instance English or German or French to notice that some native speakers also commit errors .. and that some native speakers make a mess of it when they speak or write anything. Actually these Youtube polyglots don't have to be native or nearnative speakers of all their 12 or so languages, - your own requirement in your first message in this thread was just that they could speak those languages. And that leaves room for a number of errors, including the error in a Czech sentence you quote in the preceding message. I don't know Czech, but it is clear that this error is due to influence from another language, so presumably it would be a rare error to make for a native speaker. But a L2 learner has the right to make an error now or then. Basically the whole discussion amounts to the following question: how can you make a video and still hope that you can cheat competent viewers to believe that you are better than you really are? And now we have two strategies on the table: 1)being really good at learning things by heart, 2) speaking so fast that nobody can hear your errors. And in this last case it certainly pays to have a native speaker at hand to try to make sense out of the avalanche of words - but if you hear somebody trying to hide errors in this way then that would in itself be a very suspicious behaviour. With Luca I trust that he just is a fast talker, because he was consistently fast in all his languages. And I do believe that I'm competent enough to hear whether he spoke pure nonsense or not. Which leaves the original problem: how do you spot someone who just learns things by heart and survives on his/her good memory? The best method is the one used by Fasulye and Splog: talk to these polyglots. If they can't participate in a fluent conversion with you then that's evidence enough. And I don't buy the excuse about having to be native to perform this test - the task is not to compare them to members of the local Academy, but just to find out whether they can speak a certain language roughly at the level they claim. If you have to judge alone from a video, then this task is more difficult - among other things because even native speakers sometimes prepare the things they say. In principle it would be possible to learn such a 10 minutes multilingual demonstration video completely by heart. But my guess is that anybody who could do this convincingly also would have at least some skills in all the languages - plus the skills of an accomplished actor. Edited by Iversen on 04 June 2010 at 9:55am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5661 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 22 of 65 04 June 2010 at 7:05am | IP Logged | ||
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"Passing for a native speaker in all of their languages" that's what polyglots never claim.
This is not the idea of polyglottery either. Of course, polyglots make language mistakes, but why aren't they allowed to make any? As I said, they have different language levels in different languages. If I make language mistakes in my You Tube videos I don't really care because when I speak my foreign languages in reality I also make language mistakes. But I would never claim not to make language mistakes in my foreign languages. This would be a very strange vision about polyglottery. By the way, they don't put up videos on You Tube to claim something, but if you listen to what polyglots have to say, they want to inspire other language learners, share some ideas and methods, get inspiration for their own language learning, do some networking, interact with their channel subscribers and they want to have fun with their projects. First you have to understand, WHY polyglots make You Tube videos! Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 04 June 2010 at 4:44pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5483 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 23 of 65 04 June 2010 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
I have three comments on this: The first is that you obviously mean Torbyrne. He is currently in Prague, and I can say that his fluency with Czech is far more advanced than mine. By any measure he would be classed as fluent. If it helps convince you, he also studied Czech history and language (taught in Czech!!) full time for a year at Charles University. I would be overjoyed if I had his level of ability. Secondly, you criticise him for not saying: me se libi cestina (I like Czech) me se libi cesky jazyk Yet these are incorrect Czech. They both have a trivial error of the type for which you are criticising Torbyrne, which is surprising since I see from your own profile that you claim Czech fluency. The correct form would be to use the dative case for the first person pronoun: mi se líbí ... The third point is that making videos is not easy. It can be stressful and tiring. In my own videos I make lots of mistakes I would never make in real life and notice them instantly yet carry on. Imagine now having to switch between 16 languages, and trying to do it without errors. A large part of fluency is making mistakes, noticing them, shrugging them off, and moving on. It is not a concert performance. And even if it were, musicians in concert performances do make mistakes, but are rarely criticised for having merely parroted a piece of music. Edited by Splog on 04 June 2010 at 7:58am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5661 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 24 of 65 04 June 2010 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
I can't say anything about Czech because I have never learned this language. I don't find it stressful to make videos but I'm very relaxed and I have fun making them. Only when we recorded my guitar video, I was terribly nervous, but luckily you can't see this on the video. Speaking about myself I make as many language mistakes in my videos as I make in reality, so the language level and the rate of mistakes of my videos is realistic. But it's possible that other people make MORE mistakes in their videos than they would make in reality. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 04 June 2010 at 8:28am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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