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Are we being too hard on the polyglots? | ||
Tags: Polyglot bashing | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6280 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 57 of 72 05 January 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, the point is that if you can do complicated business in a language, or write poetry in it, you're fluent, no matter if you have the exact same abilities as an adult native speaker (who might not be able to do business or write poetry in his native language) or not. An adult native speaker is probably more likely to know what a "nip slip" is, or dozens of such culturally-influenced details, but they are not essential to claiming fluency even by a very demanding definition. The most fluent non-native speakers have abilities that many native speakers lack (e. g. knowing scientific vocabulary, or being able to write a thesis paper) and they lack other abilities that native speakers tend to have (e. g. knowing baby talk). Neither is better or worse, nor more or less perfect, more or less fluent, just different, and that difference is called native vs. non-native. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5263 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 58 of 72 05 January 2012 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Oh, no! This has turned into yet another of our fluency debates.
While I agree with most of what Nway said in his long post, I'd say you are fluent long before you reach "native fluency" or even "near native fluency". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6249 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 59 of 72 05 January 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And everyone except self-proclaimed monolinguals from the USA seem to agree with you. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5770 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 60 of 72 05 January 2012 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just when I thought I had heard every possible definition of "fluency"...
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 61 of 72 05 January 2012 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Edited by mick33 on 05 January 2012 at 9:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6249 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 62 of 72 05 January 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly. Similarly, does a native speaker lose 'native fluency' as soon as another native speaker from the same region mistakes them for a non-native speaker? Or brings up a song only one of them has heard, or a film only one has watched? Is someone who really doesn't like films and hasn't watched any as an adult not a native speaker? I don't think so... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6407 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 63 of 72 05 January 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5225 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 64 of 72 05 January 2012 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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All of you who are getting your panties in a bunch (proverbially, hopefully) about the semantics of my interpretation of the term "fluency" are missing the forest for the trees (again, probably proverbially).
The point of my original post was the conceptual framework that I outlined over the following paragraphs. The standard that I established in the first paragraph was merely a contextual basis from which to progress into the main point. All of you ought to be far enough along in your language studies to know that words can be elusive things. They change across time and space, as a consequence of both historical cultural development and individual personal connotation. I wasn't trying to define a word; I was trying to explicate a concept.
A native speaker's status as a native speaker doesn't depend on the opinions of another native speaker. It's a factual matter of whether or not the individual is a native speaker. Let's try to maintain integrity in our rhetorical allegations, shall we?
Good point, and probably the most valid feedback I've read over the past page. Still, I'd note that the actual process of learning a concept through a language will establish a richer and much more memorable linguistic connotation than merely reading the translation from a book or hearing it on an audiotape. After all, mastering languages isn't just about learning them, but internalizing them into the fundamental thought process. Edited by nway on 05 January 2012 at 11:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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