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How did Pope John Paul learn languages? | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| cooljoe Newbie United States Joined 6137 days ago 18 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 10 25 June 2011 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Many of us know the story of Cardinal Mezzofanti. But I was wondering if anyone knew how the late Pope John Paul II learned so many languages?
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| Maralol Nonaglot Newbie France Joined 4814 days ago 35 posts - 75 votes  Speaks: Spanish, French*, English, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Polish, Danish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 10 25 June 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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He was a priest, so he had a lot of free time...
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 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6175 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 10 25 June 2011 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
I seriously doubt that this is true particularly for someone who became Pope. Edited by newyorkeric on 26 June 2011 at 3:37am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5465 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 10 25 June 2011 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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He studied languages at university, and was later a playwright and actor - during which
time he learn additional languages. His academic and theater career was interrupted by Nazi occupation of poland, during which he was forced to do menial manual labour. It was during this time that he started learing, in secret, about being a priest. After the war he joined the priesthood. In short, he became a polyglot long before he became a priest. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5807 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 10 25 June 2011 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I don't know about before he joined the priesthood, but the catholic church has a lot of language teaching.
In their local seminaries, priests are taught Latin and Ancient Greek (for obvious reasons), and (I think) every trainee priest will live in Rome for part of their studies, and they will be taught Italian by one of the colleges of the Vatican to make their stay easier. The various missionary organisations teach languages to priests taking missions, and that means that there's a lot of teachers of all languages based in the Vatican City to start off with, or otherwise available to be flown in if the Pope is preparing a visit to another country. As to their methodology, I've no idea. You'd have to ask a priest. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5465 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 10 25 June 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
I know two Italian priests, both sent by the Vatican to try to get a stronger catholic foothold here in the Czech republic. They told me that they have a large budget for private language tutoring. Both had one-on-one lessons for two hours a day with personal tutors for many months before arriving here, followed by several months full time language tutoring upon arrival. One of them had done the same with German before and after moving to Austria. They tell me that this heavy emphasis on languages is important to the church - hence their large budget for such things. I have been told that priests are often among the most successful language students, because they are very motivated. Learning the local language helps them "infiltrate" the local community, and hence their motivation is very high. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6811 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 10 26 June 2011 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||
Sounds like it would be quite beneficial, from a purely linguistic point of view, to become a priest. I wouldn't like the rest of it, though!
Interesting turn of phrase. Edited by patuco on 26 June 2011 at 12:58am 1 person has 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 8 of 10 28 June 2011 at 1:30am | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure priests really have a lot of spare time. I don't know how it compares to a 9-5 job but think of doing Mass everyday, multiple times a day, preparing sermons for that, attending to confession, meeting with couples, going to hospitals, preparing for weddings and being on call for funerals, attending the sick, community functions, teaching classes, and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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