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Do you consider yourself a polyglot?

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
89 messages over 12 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 8 ... 11 12 Next >>
Sterogyl
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4126 days ago

152 posts - 263 votes 
Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Japanese, Norwegian

 
 Message 57 of 89
24 March 2013 at 12:29am | IP Logged 
tmp011007 wrote:
Sterogyl wrote:
.."Assimil with ease" level is not enough.

buy "assimil perfectionnement" then :P


Haha, you're right. I wonder if it really leads to a solid C1 level... that would be good, indeed.
1 person has voted this message useful



leroc
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4070 days ago

114 posts - 167 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 58 of 89
24 March 2013 at 2:43am | IP Logged 
To me, being able to speak 4 languages at a C1 level or 5 languages at a B2 would be the benchmark for polyglottry. So my English (1) + Dutch(.2) + Spanish(.4)= about 1.6 languages
1 person has voted this message useful



tiger
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4074 days ago

15 posts - 27 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 59 of 89
24 March 2013 at 11:08am | IP Logged 
Sterogyl wrote:
tmp011007 wrote:
Sterogyl wrote:
.."Assimil with ease" level is not enough.

buy "assimil perfectionnement" then :P


Haha, you're right. I wonder if it really leads to a solid C1 level... that would be good, indeed.


There's this website called sprachenlernen24.de and I wonder how good their programs are.
For certain languages you can get Basiskurs, Aufbaukurs and Fachwortschatz-Vokabeltrainer and it claims to lift you up to the C2 level with 5000 words.

Well I can imagine an advanced speaker of language XY on a C1/C2 level with 15000 words not being enough for them. However you can reach a B2 level in terms of grammar lacking a lot of vocab.

Has anybody here used this course? I'm curious about it.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sterogyl
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4126 days ago

152 posts - 263 votes 
Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Japanese, Norwegian

 
 Message 60 of 89
24 March 2013 at 11:22am | IP Logged 
I don't think that 5000 words are enough for C2. There is no textbook series that lifts you up to C2. My guess would be that you need about 20 000 to 30 000 words in order to attain C2 level. But of course, it depends on what you count as a word.

Is mépriser, méprisable, mépris one word or three words?
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 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 61 of 89
24 March 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged 
When I have done my own word counts I have followed rules that defined mépriser, méprisable, mépris as three words. Otherwise I would have said I counted word roots. If a certain derivation is stable and omnipresent it is tempting to include it in the morphological paradigm for one type of words, but on the other hand we accept that some forms don't exist for all words of that kind. So basically you can formulate some rules of thumbs, but it is impossible to lay down principles that unequivocally can define across language what a word really is. And then there is the problem with compound words versus juxtaposed, but separate words (read German versus English(.

The case is rather that you formulate criteria that give sensible results across the languages you want to test. I can however say with complete confidence that with my counting rules I have not felt myself totally at ease reading scientific articles, newspapers and ordinary literature in languages where I had less than 10.000 words according to my counts, and in those languages I claim to speak I have always had at least 20.000 passive words in my vocabulary. My best foreign language is (of course) English, and my counts for that language have consistently settled around 35.000 words.

I have no idea about the percentage of these which form my active vocabulary, only that this elusive number must be higher than the number I actually have used. It is also clear that simply knowing some words doesn't give you speaking or writing skills, but on the other hand it is clear that my vocabulary size is a fairly good indicator for my subjective evaluation of my active level in different languages.

OK, enough about the relation betweeen vocabulary size and general level. I have long ago declared in this thread that I see myself as a polyglot. If I refused to be one, then you could just as well scrap the word due to lack of application possibilities. But I refuse to accept that you need to be nearnative (or C2) in all of your languages. If I can discuss the qualities of levadas, the difference between the fish in a pizza napoletana and a pizza sardenhas and my reasons for running around with texts in Esperanto (and losing them somewhere in my hotel) in Portuguese, then that's enough for me.

Edited by Iversen on 25 March 2013 at 2:32pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4427 days ago

1199 posts - 2192 votes 
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali

 
 Message 62 of 89
24 March 2013 at 12:26pm | IP Logged 
C2 English means you know words like snarky or internecine.
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 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 63 of 89
24 March 2013 at 12:40pm | IP Logged 
Do all native Anglophones know them? I knew snarky and could guess that internecine must be something like moribund*, but you need to go through a LOT of words to know which proportion of the words in a typical dictionary is permanently stored in your scull. And that's why I base my estimates on random pages from a real dictionary and not a list of words put together by someone.

* actually it seems to be related to murderous internal warfare and other ghastly things, but I was not far off, I think

Edited by Iversen on 24 March 2013 at 12:43pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Sterogyl
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4126 days ago

152 posts - 263 votes 
Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2
Studies: Japanese, Norwegian

 
 Message 64 of 89
24 March 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged 
There is no "C2 word list" or something like that you have to work your way through. It's nonsense to say this word or that grammar point is "C2". You can know "snarky" at b2 level as well. You can pass a C2 level test without knowing "snarky". C2 means that you a) understand everything effortlessly (reading and listening comprehension), b) you can express yourself near-native like (although not exactly like a native-speaker) and c) you can write like an educated person in the language.

But actually, at C2 you can still make many mistakes. And C2 doesn't mean "C1 but without accent" as many people think.


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