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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4400 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 9 23 May 2012 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||
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It surely must be possible to find people who have acquired several languages in a more or less natural setting. For example, you could have a child growing up in Quebec with a Russian mother and a Swedish father. The child could quite feasibly learn the parental languages at home while acquiring French and English from peers. You could take this a step further by making the parents communicate with each other in a third-party language that is not native to either of them. Or you could move the whole family to another country and add another language to the mix.
What about a place like South Africa which has 11 official languages. If someone moved around a lot during childhood, they could end up speaking many languages. I guess we are talking language acquisition here as opposed to active study. But does it matter how the languages were learned? Edited by beano on 23 May 2012 at 2:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4735 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 2 of 9 23 May 2012 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Well I one time had a pen pall in Uganda who spoke 6 languages on a regular basis, learning all without formal study. I think stuff like that is common in Africa.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4466 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 3 of 9 23 May 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Luxembourg#Statist ics How about the entire country of Luxembourg, to take a European example? And yes, there are various places in Africa and India, e.g., where this is common as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4956 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 4 of 9 30 May 2012 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I saw an Indian girl saying she knows 9 languages, and that it is normal in her country!!
I wonder if it's really true ... (I doubt every Indian knows 9 languages, but I guess being polyglot is there something normal). WHat about Papua New Guinea or Nigeria? Do people in multilingual countries speak generally more languages than people in monolinguagl countries? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4690 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 9 31 May 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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A girl I know was born in Italy, moved to Germany, and then at 13 moved to the USA. needless to say she is native in
all 3, with the exception of Italian, which she has kind of a little German accent and can't spell to save her life haha 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5193 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 9 31 May 2012 at 6:09am | IP Logged | ||
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One of my parents grew up as a Chinese in the Philippines:
- English [official language of the Philippines] - Tagalog [national language of the Philippines] - Hokkien [native lingua franca of the Chinese Filipino community] - Mandarin [formally-acquired lingua franca of Chinese people worldwide] So a diasporic resident from a bilingual country is a good candidate. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4485 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 9 31 May 2012 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I knew someone who was born in Germany to Romanian Jewish parents. She later moved to Belgium and attended first a Jewish-Francophone school, then an international one.
She spoke four languages fluently, one decently, and another one she semi-understood. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4527 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 8 of 9 31 May 2012 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a friend (Tamilian from Kuala Lumpur) and he speaks
Tamil, English, Mandarin and Malay. ;) These are official languages in Singapore, but in Malaysia, the government didn't make all of them official (because it wanted to promote the dominance of the 60% Malay majority). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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