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Benny the Irish polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5448 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes  Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 13 17 June 2010 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone! :) I haven't introduced myself on this polyglot thread yet... (I started a different thread about St. Patrick's day of all things in a different topic-thread that was moved here a few months back for some reason! :-P ).
So, I'm Benny from Ireland and started learning languages when I was 21. I started a blog a year ago to attempt to explain my social-focused learning approach, while I travel and attempt to learn new languages quickly (link on the left). My advice has caused quite the controversy (I imagine some people who dislike me will reply to this to remind me of that...), but whether you like my tips or not I am attempting to inspire more monoglots to take on the language learning adventure :) I'm currently learning German (see language logs thread for story) and in a month I'll start a brand new 3-month mission. I've seen some incredible impressive youtube videos from polyglots. Here is my attempt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCylqlYNRTg I tried to make it more interesting than the typical polyglot video though - it's a tour of my flat in Berlin :D It's in 8 languages and I tried to do it through 6 dialects too for the hell of it. My challenge to other polyglots making multilingual videos: Talk about something other than languages!! :) It's quite unnatural and distracting to flick between languages in succession so quickly, but hopefully I'm speaking them OK! My German has improved a lot since then. I've got another video of me sitting down talking to the camera in 8 languages that you can see on my youtube channel or blog, and almost 100 videos in total where most of them are actually entirely in one language, rather than being multilingual. Obviously this is just me speaking by myself though. You can listen to an interview I did live on the radio in Spanish if you google irishpolylgot Aragón interview. I feel dwarfed by the amazing language talent in this forum, but hopefully I can contribute to the language learning community in my own way :) Edited by irishpolyglot on 17 June 2010 at 1:49am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6131 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 2 of 13 17 June 2010 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Nice to have you here. I enjoyed your eBook you wrote and especially the interviews with various polyglots. Thanks a lot for making those!
It's really cool that you speak Irish. I'd love to learn a Celtic language one day and I'd have to fight to choose between it or Welsh. How difficult is it to find native speakers in Ireland? Do you hear it every day (when you're living there of course)? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5448 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 13 17 June 2010 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Christopher!! Glad you liked my e-book and interviews :D I had the best time talking with the other polyglots. With Moses and Khatz for example, I actually spent an hour or two before the interview catching up. It's amazing how similar our approaches and stories really are!
Unfortunately, I don't know any Welsh. I'm sure if you start another thread someone familiar with both languages can tell you which one may be more suited to you based on your own preferences. :) Finding native speakers in Ireland is quite hard in the east. However, there are plenty of opportunities to speak it. Every town usually has a weekly Irish speaking get-together (ask in the local library) and people of all levels are welcome. The best thing you can do by far is to go to the Gaeltacht regions where the majority of people living there are actually native speakers. This short video depicts the situation very well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0a62wmd1A It's about a Chinese (I think) man who wants to learn Irish and has trouble finding people speaking it, but wins in the end. Despite the fact that you see bilingual signs all over the country, a place like Dublin is not good at all for hearing or speaking Irish. Galway is another city, technically outside of the Gaeltacht, and yet I heard quite a lot of Irish spoken in the streets and there are pubs in the centre where most non-tourists do indeed speak Irish. I was also amazed to see that the supermarket aisles are labelled bilingually too (to show fruits, cereals, bathroom items etc.) since this isn't common in the rest of the country. Edited by irishpolyglot on 17 June 2010 at 10:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5142 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 13 21 June 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Benny
I think pretty much everyone knows you here, but it's nice to see you posting threads, you give a really cool (and different aspect) on language learning. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Liface Triglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Lif Joined 5673 days ago 150 posts - 237 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Dutch, French | Message 5 of 13 21 June 2010 at 5:32am | IP Logged | ||
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This is cool stuff. You're actually sort of doing the idea I had. After college, I had planned to stay in every EU country for 3 months, speed-learning the languages and blogging about it. Alas, I found a job I love, so I'm staying in the US for now.
I've subscribed on youtube, so I can live vicariously through you! Edited by Liface on 21 June 2010 at 5:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5448 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 13 28 June 2010 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha, see - I knew someone would chime in with some nonsense :) All is right with the Internet!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6194 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 13 28 June 2010 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
I've deleted the message Benny is referring to after he posted his response. Edited by newyorkeric on 28 June 2010 at 4:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5448 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 13 28 June 2010 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for that NYEric! :)
@Liface - To speak a language with natives without travelling, I highly recommend joining Couchsurfing.org and hosting travellers. Have every EU country come stay with you if you can't go to them :) You can also learn a lot online and "immerse" yourself somewhat digitally via Skype video conferencing. It's not quite the same, but you don't have to give up your language learning dream!! I think exposing yourself to natives in any way will get you out of the book-learning mode and stop living through others! You should get to have all the fun too :D I won't be travelling the world forever - whenever I do stop, that does NOT mean that my language learning missions necessarily have to stop ;) @John Thanks! Not sure "everyone" would know me here, but I do want to be active in the forum. I have an important message about language learning I'd like to share, but I'm actually in this forum because of all the amazing minds giving me some useful feedback and helping me! Edited by irishpolyglot on 28 June 2010 at 4:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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