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Tim from the US (PolyglotPal) on YouTube | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6709 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 81 of 204 13 April 2012 at 2:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Great video! This guy makes a lot of sense. Thanks for posting it.
This one is good too: http://fivearrows.ca/wp/2012/04/04/do-you-speak-another-lang uage-fluently-and-what-does-that-mean/ Edited by translator2 on 13 April 2012 at 2:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 4890 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai | Message 82 of 204 13 April 2012 at 3:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm looking forward to more videos from polyglotpal in the future, all I can say is he's
certainly filled me back up with a lot more drive to learn languages! Such an epic, amazing talent :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4461 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 83 of 204 13 April 2012 at 5:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Personally, I don't feel comfortable saying I can "speak" a language unless I'm at B1 or better in conversation. From the evaluation above, it looks like he doesn't necessarily need to be able to converse well in order to considers himself at a high level. So this might explain why he feels comfortable saying he can speak 22 languages. From his self evaluation, he might only speak 4 languages at B1 or better (English, French, Farsi and Hebrew). That's no minor accomplishment, especially for a 16 yo. But if that's the case, there are going to be a lot of "haters" out there that won't appreciate his claim. So he and his fans are going to have to get used to it. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4747 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 84 of 204 13 April 2012 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Wulfgar, that was my thought as well.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6709 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 85 of 204 13 April 2012 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The difference is not in the sum total of how many languages one "speaks". The difference is total time spent learning and humility in how you present yourself (not that there is anything wrong with being proud and enthusiastic about your achievements).
After thinking about it, just like the super kids who went to college at age 12, it all evens out in the end and just because you achieve more earlier on in your life, this is no guarantee that you will necessarily achieve more than someone who is older. In other words, someone may study only Russian for two years, study Chinese for three, Spanish for two more years, etc. in a linear fashion and end up speaking 10 languages at the end of 20 years. Or someone may start studying all 10 languages simultaneously right at the start and in 20 years speak them equally as well as the first person. Unfortunately, because of the way languages work where you learn the most common and most used vocabulary and structures first, you get the false sense that because you have achieved a lot in such a short time, you have learned 80% of the language and can pick up the remainder in at least the same amount of time or less. You have really only learned 20% of the language (it's just that the 20% you learned is used 80% of the time). Understanding 80% of a text may sound like a lot, but the missing 20% includes a lot of essential information (and in many cases the key point of the text or utterance - "I need you to go to the QQQQQ store and buy a QQQQQ, but whatever you do, don't XXXXX with the XXXXXX!"). The people who study languages more sequentially (one or two at a time for a long period of time) or who have achieved proficiency in at least one language understand this. Those who have not can do a miraculous thing by speaking lots of languages, but their sense of what remains to be completed (and consequently their pride) may perhaps be a little skewed and the media loves to take advantage of that kind of thing. Edited by translator2 on 13 April 2012 at 6:00pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4412 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 86 of 204 13 April 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Learning languages is an enriching and useful activity. But some rare people become somehow so enraptured by the process of learning new languages that this takes away from what they can do with the languages they already have studied, or from their lives in general. Language learning is an addictive activity. I'm saying this with a certain person I know personally in mind (no one anyone else has heard of).
I think Tim's achievements are very impressive. But I do wonder a bit what his exact reason for wanting to study so many languages so quickly is, unless he thinks that he should learn the basics of many languages while he is still young. But I think someone like him does have a challenge in figuring out what role languages would best have in his life. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6699 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 87 of 204 13 April 2012 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know music teachers who during their education got crash courses in other instruments than their main one(s) just to get a broad knowledge. When I studied interlinguistics, we studied texts in Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Interlingue, Novial etc. I'm not the right one to say that Tim should quit this or that language, to stop learning new languages before he's has mastered at least [insert number of your choice here] of his current ones. Language learning is (among other things) a hobby, just like music, sports, painting, writing poetry... Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 14 April 2012 at 12:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4412 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 88 of 204 13 April 2012 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Of course I'm not telling anyone what they should do. I'm just saying that in my opinion there's a certain risk involved in becoming enamoured with the idea of knowing a lot of languages, just for the sake of the number. And yes, language learning is a good hobby, but it has the potential to develop into something pretty dry.
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