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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Cesare M
Decaglot
Newbie
Canada
youtube.com/user/CheRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4869 days ago

18 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Afrikaans, Arabic (Egyptian), Albanian, Azerbaijani, Cherokee, Croatian, Catalan

 
 Message 1 of 20
20 December 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged 
Hey guys I am back. I want to say a lot of things. This is my new account on this forum, and I promise the
following:

- I will not hurt anyone's feelings and say rude things to anybody
- I will not act so defensive anymore
- I will talk about my language abilities in a more nicer, calmer, and honest way

I read somewhere recently that I am "history" on this forum, because of my language claims. Now,
adressing my language claims, this is an update:

I have knowledge in 50 languages, but so far, I am fluent in 13:

Bulgarian
Bosnian
Urdu
Ukrainian
Arabic (pronounciation to some extent)
Thai(just need improvement on tones)
Russian
Kyrgyz
Hindi
Kazakh
Kurdish
Tatar
Afrikaans



Languages I need good improvement on:

Persian (Farsi)(grammar)
Macedonian
German (pronounciation especially)
Georgian (more knowledge)
Indonesian
Turkish (pronounciation and grammar)
Polish (pronunciation and grammar)
Estonian (more knowledge)
Italian
French
Spanish (grammar)
Galician
Malay
Albanian (pronounciation)
Tajik
Serbian (grammar)
Croatian (grammar)
Dari
Azerbaijani
Danish (pronounciation)
Latin (pronounciation and grammar at some points)
Polish (pronounciation and grammar at some points)
Czech (pronounciation)


Languages that I am conversational in:

Portuguese
Galician
Romanian
Albanian
Serbian
Croatian
Danish
Greek
Pashto
Czech
Somali
Osseitan
Hausa
Malagasy (Basic)
Cherokee
Swahili (Basic)


Languages I am planning on learning:

Shona (have very basic knowledge as of now)
Mongolian (have very basic knowledge as of now)
Uzbek
Uyghur
Welsh
Yoruba
Zulu
Xhosa
Igbo
Luganda
Burmese
Navajo


*The languages that I claim I am fluent in were also claimed and opinionated fluency by a large number of
natives of these languages, which makes me fluent in those languages. Also once I am fluent in a language,
I will update this description.

Update:

I learned basic conversational Swahili from Pimsleur! :)


Disclaimers:

- My German pronounciation sucks
- I need improvement on my pronounciation in Polish, Czech, and a few other languages
- My claims may be very very hard to believe but they are true
- The only thing I need improvement on in Thai is tones, in which I am working on
- My past videos on YouTube in some of my "fluent" languages had poor pronunciation, so please ignore
them. The only new video of me speaking Arabic is my "41 Language Video"

Also I will try my hardest to not sound boastfull. I know that my language claims are very hard to believe.
From reading this, you are probably thinking that "this guy is crazy", "yeah right", or "that's bull***", but it's
true, and I am trying my hardest to be as honest as I can ever be. I know I have made other outrageous
claims in the past but the last claim I made was honest too, but I sounded boastful, and the "39 languages
claim" was not true at all, because I know better now than to claim fluency in all my languages. Some
things are extremely difficult to believe but they are true, but I guess from my experiences, it's how you
present them. I, myself, became popular for seeming boastful and mean on this forum, and I am going to
try my hardest to change that. I am not a slacker (just to throw that in there :D). Also if anybody doesn't
believe through a lot of proof that I am not fluent in those 13 languages, that's fine as they might have a
different definition than I do.

Anyways sorry to those that I have upsetted, and I am going to make other posts, and I will try my hardest
to change the way I post things. I know I may still be known as "the 9 year old guy in a grown man's body",
"stubborn" or whatever. I hope everyone forgives me, because I believe that there is still hope no matter
what.   

*I don't want anybody closing this thread because this will be the only thread I post about my fluency claims
and what not.

Edited by Cesare M on 21 December 2010 at 12:27am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5162 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 2 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:01pm | IP Logged 
Cesare M wrote:
I have knowledge in 50 languages, but so far, I am fluent in 13:

[...]
Arabic
[...]

*The languages that I claim I am fluent in were also claimed and opinionated fluency by a large number of natives of these languages, which makes me fluent in those languages.


A friend who's a native speaker of Arabic said he hardly understood anything you said on one of your videos. That's not a really a comment you should be hearing if you are a fluent speaker. I also heard your French and, although you don't claim to be fluent, I wouldn't say you speak/know it either.

When you say you speak a language and you film yourself speaking it, there shouldn't be anyone disputing your claim. Right?

Why do you think some people do?

How about recording significant interviews in each of your fluent languages and letting us determine which you are actually fluent in? Start a log, and ask for another native speaker on the site here to interview you and film it or record it. Wouldn't it save you a lot of hassle to have the community back your fluency instead of having to argue about it?

As for you being history, I personally came to this forum after any kerfuffle that might have occured. So no animosity from here, anyway.

Edited by Arekkusu on 20 December 2010 at 10:08pm

4 persons have voted this message useful



Cesare M
Decaglot
Newbie
Canada
youtube.com/user/CheRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4869 days ago

18 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Afrikaans, Arabic (Egyptian), Albanian, Azerbaijani, Cherokee, Croatian, Catalan

 
 Message 3 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Cesare M wrote:
I have knowledge in 50 languages, but so far, I am fluent in 13:

[...]
Arabic
[...]

*The languages that I claim I am fluent in were also claimed and opinionated fluency by a large number of natives of these languages, which makes me fluent in those languages.


A friend who's a native speaker of Arabic said he hardly understood anything you said on one of your videos. That's not a really a comment you should be hearing if you are a fluent speaker. I also heard your French and, although you don't claim to be fluent, I wouldn't say you speak/know it either.

When you say you speak a language and you film yourself speaking it, there shouldn't be anyone disputing your claim. Right?

Why do you think some people do?

How about recording significant interviews in each of your fluent languages and letting us determine which you are actually fluent in? Start a log, and ask for another native speaker on the site here to interview you and film it or record it. Wouldn't it save you a lot of hassle to have the community back your fluency instead of having to argue about it?

As for you being history, I personally came to this forum after any kerfuffle that might have occured. So no animosity from here, anyway.
All my past videos in Arabic sucked in terms of pronunciation, which made him unable to understand my Arabic. I forgot to add that disclaimer, but now I added it. Sorry about that.
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5162 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 4 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged 
How about making claims that don't require disclaimers?
10 persons have voted this message useful



Cesare M
Decaglot
Newbie
Canada
youtube.com/user/CheRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4869 days ago

18 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Afrikaans, Arabic (Egyptian), Albanian, Azerbaijani, Cherokee, Croatian, Catalan

 
 Message 5 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:37pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
How about making claims that don't require disclaimers?

Well I believe that everything is needed to be shown, this way people will be more understanding.
4 persons have voted this message useful



translator2
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6700 days ago

848 posts - 1862 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 6 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:50pm | IP Logged 
Cesare,

Would you accept a language challenge? I think that this would be a very educational experiment both for you and for the readers of this forum:

Pick any one of your languages (even an easy one like Spanish, or one you already claim to be fluent in like Arabic or Thai) or even a language that you have never studied before. If you do not have the required resources, the members of this site will provide them to you or give you links.

Put aside all of your other language studies for two months. Study only that ONE language for two months (even if you think you already know everything). Continue to read other grammars about that language, learn new vocabulary, watch youtube videos in and about that language, but only that language. Chat, skype, make youtube vidoes, but only in that language - just for two months. Resist the temptation to study other languages for just two months.

Report back here in two months to say what you have learned (not only about the language you studied, but about language-learning in general). I think you will learn something in the process and we will also get to see how much you can really accomplish if you concentrate on just one language for an extended period of time.

Can you do it?





Edited by translator2 on 20 December 2010 at 10:55pm

5 persons have voted this message useful



Cesare M
Decaglot
Newbie
Canada
youtube.com/user/CheRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4869 days ago

18 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English*, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Afrikaans, Arabic (Egyptian), Albanian, Azerbaijani, Cherokee, Croatian, Catalan

 
 Message 7 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged 
translator2 wrote:
Ceasare,

Would you accept a language challenge? I think that this would be a very educational experiment both for you and for the readers of this forum:

Pick any one of your languages (even an easy one like Spanish, or one you already claim to be fluent in like Arabic or Thai) or even a language that you have not ever studied before. If you do not have the required resources, the members of this site will provide them to you or give you links.

Put aside all of your other language studies for two months. Study only that ONE language for two months (even if you think you already know everything). Continue to read other grammars about that language, learn new vocabulary, watch youtube videos in and about that language, but only that language. Chat, skype, make youtube vidoes, but only in that language - just for two months. Resist the temptation to study other languages for just two months.

Report back here in two months to say what you have learned (not only about the language you studied, but about language-learning in general). I think you will learn something in the process and we will also get to see how much you can really accomplish if you concentrate on just one language.

Can you do it?





Well first of all my name was spelt wrong. It's "Cesare", but that's okay. :D. Second, I could consider that, but the thing is I really like learning more than one language at the same time. But what I can do is maybe I can pick a language and then make my future YouTube videos only in that ONE language, and post blogs on this forum and elsewhere in that ONE language. That can be a good idea, what do you think?
1 person has voted this message useful



translator2
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6700 days ago

848 posts - 1862 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 8 of 20
20 December 2010 at 10:59pm | IP Logged 
Sorry about your name - that was a typo - I corrected it.

The point is that if you slow down and try to learn one language at a time and spend more than a week learning a language, you might just learn something you did not know and you might (who knows?) decide to change your definition of fluency.

Like I said before, if you would just remove the word "fluent" from your channel (even if you are based on your definition) and just said "Here is a list of the languages I have studied/languages I am studying" you really would find people to be much more supportive of you and you would have a much better time.

Edited by translator2 on 20 December 2010 at 11:03pm



4 persons have voted this message useful



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