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Are we being too hard on the polyglots? | ||
Tags: Polyglot bashing | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5211 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 49 of 72 05 January 2012 at 5:08am | IP Logged | |||||
Humph. >_< The intent was somewhat to be reassuring to those aspirant polyglots who beat themselves up (proverbially, hopefully) because they feel their language studies aren't progressing as well as they feel they ought to be. But hopefully you did eventually find something encouraging to read. :)
I consider "fluency" and "native fluency" to be one and the same. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't speak like a native, you're not fluent. I additionally made sure to qualify my statement with the disclaimer, "the average person"—meaning someone who hasn't dedicated his or her entire life—more or less—to studying languages (in the sense of, for example, replacing a contemporaneous career). I don't know your personal allocation of time, but considering your impressive repertoire, you may very well be in this group. ;) Edited by nway on 05 January 2012 at 5:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6499 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 50 of 72 05 January 2012 at 11:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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We have had long and complicated discussions about the meaning of the word "fluency". It is pretty clear that you can use it about ease and speed of output (in accordance with its etymology), but many or most people also use it about correctness, not only concerning grammar, but also style and pronunciation. When an important element in the discussion is whether you need to 'revive' a language before using it then the first meaning is definitely in play, but not necessarily the second one. This forum operates with the notion "basic fluency", where you can speak in a fluent way about normal subjects (and probably also about your own favorite topics), but you don't have to sound like a native, and you are allowed to make some minor errors now and then as long as they don't disrupt communication.
You can of course choose to demand more than basic fluency from potential polyglots, but that's your own choice - and the result is, as you have noticed yourself, that very few persons qualify, and if they do then with a very low number of languages. Personally I include 'basic fluency' languages in the definition, because the important thing for language collectors in my view is the ease and ever-readiness of your languages rather than an extreme level of perfection. To be sure, this shouldn't stop anybody from trying to weed out their errors and working their way towards advanced fluency, but if you really want to make prospective language learners sad then setting an unrealistically high bar from the beginning is just the way to do it. Edited by Iversen on 05 January 2012 at 11:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| anjathilina Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6400 days ago 33 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Mandarin Studies: Hindi | Message 51 of 72 05 January 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly. That is why, nway, your post sounds negative. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5211 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 52 of 72 05 January 2012 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm a realist, not an optimist. :) I suppose I'll reiterate that my point was that, as aspirant polyglots, we shouldn't get too carried away with with the expectation that languages should be easier to master than they actually are, and the positive implication of this is that everything we have achieved is therefore that much more commendable. I don't think there's anything negative in pointing out that language isn't just another subject—it's the mechanism through which all other subjects are transmitted. Mastery of a musical instrument can be a lifelong endeavor, but it's still limited to the point of self-containment—you can't transpose its functions to the infinite fields of history, science, or literature (which makes mastery of the instrument much more definable and manageable). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6235 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 53 of 72 05 January 2012 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you insist that "fluency" needs to mean "adult native fluency", the vast majority of Europe is suddenly monolingual. That Swiss banker and Dutch businessman you see in the corner who do complicated business in 6 languages each are suddenly both only 'fluent' in one. Universities are full of people (both students and professors) who have spent their whole academic life in a language and are well-regarded in their field, but suddenly can't use the word "fluent" to describe their level of ability in it any longer. Even people who live off of their language skills, such as proofreaders and authors who work in a language which is not native to them, can suddenly be stripped of use of the word 'fluency', regardless of how useful their work is even to educated native speakers of the language in question.
And, if you stretch it to include understanding regional variation, suddenly no who speaks a language with any cultural differences from place to place, such as English, can claim fluency in it any longer. Defining "fluent" and "adult (educated?) native speaker" to be equivalent terms has some drawbacks, including making the term "fluent" entirely pointless and redundant. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6664 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 54 of 72 05 January 2012 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There can be a hair-splitting difference between learning a language and using a language, in that while using it you continue to learn it.
In the same way you can say you never really truly know someone, you are always getting to know them the more time you spend with them. That said, I strongly feel that for most people, the most practical way they look at it is that they learn it and get to know enough to use the language. Spending the rest of their life is unnecessary because they've reached a comfort(able enough) level with their adopted language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5211 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 55 of 72 05 January 2012 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Just because you're not fluent in a language doesn't mean you can't speak it at all. There's no need to deal in absolutes here. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 5891 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 56 of 72 05 January 2012 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I almost get what you mean, but i am not fully on board here. Yes, knowing a language like a native is tough and a lot of work. But this is being near-native and not just fluent. I have read quite a lot of wildly differing opinions on fluency, and this is up there. By your definition there are native speakers I know, less able to discuss a variety of topics than me in their mother tongue...indeed some would fail a C2 exam...so they no longer have a fluent language...??? Nah... There is a flaw in the logic. Whilst I am all for being able to define levels to accurately describe ability, we cannot simply throw away a label on a whim and confuse the definitions for a native speaker, near-native speaker and a fluent speaker of a language. You can then discuss educated native speakers etc. until the cows come home. In the real world, being able to work or study or live in a language and have unrestricted ability in daily activites is considered fluent. This may not be perfect, but certainly fluent in so much as the person has sufficient command of the language to not have recourse to another language to completes tasks, converse and have a normal social life in the language. Just my 2 cents on the matter... :) 9 persons have voted this message useful |
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