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"Rule of Seven" | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5163 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 41 of 78 13 March 2010 at 5:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm a professional translator and we have a difficult time finding anyone qualified enough to translate from English into French and produce decent quality work. I know of very few people who, despite having over 10 years of experience and being near-natives in L2, admit to not being as qualified at translating into their L2. So, allow me to be skeptical when I hear of anyone translating to and from more than 2 languages. Edited by Arekkusu on 13 March 2010 at 5:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| crackpot Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6083 days ago 144 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 42 of 78 19 March 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm starting to think this rule of seven has some merit if you have a job and a family. I
don't know if I am going to be able to reach 7 or not. I'm still going to try though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5252 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 43 of 78 19 March 2010 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Me too! but I'm not aiming for native fluency and while I trust myself to learn Spanish, Russian and even Arabic easily (relatively so anyway) I'm really scared of Chinese. I'd sort of planned a seven year study plan though... Can anyone with experience tell me if it's possible without spending 4 hours a day on it? And does my native language count or not? In which case if French doesn't count I still have two languages to go... - Turkish because I could practice it at my local kebab shop. - Japanese I guess But then what about German, which I already know a little? And Italian? And Swahili? And Sanskrit (which I guess there isn't any point in learning to speak fluently, but reading would be fun) And Hebrew? And other types of Arabic? And rare languages? Personally I wouldn't really mind not always being fluent in all my languages, but if I could get them to a stable enough level so I can get fluent again pretty quickly around native speakers, I'd be happy. Edited by joanthemaid on 19 March 2010 at 11:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6154 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 44 of 78 19 March 2010 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
I would not count Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish as separate languages so you can add two more to this list. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5252 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 45 of 78 19 March 2010 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with Arekkusu. As far as I know, all professional translators, no matter how many languages they know, always translate from foreign languages into their native language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5167 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 46 of 78 20 March 2010 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
Ha! I wondered if I was the only person crazy enough to try it. It must be possible, since I know that there are a few polyglots on this site who speak all or most of them, plus a few more besides. I feel about the same way, too. Arabic scares me a little, but Mandarin is the one I have nightmares about already. French, while complex, shouldn't be too bad since I know a decent amount of Spanish, and Russian seems like a relatively 'fun' project for when I later start in earnest on Arabic and Mandarin. I have a vague fantasy about trying to assemble a network of people who want to learn all six--each being native (or near-native) speakers of one of them. That way we could give each other practice and insight, and eventually develop into a crew of polyglot superheroes (culminating, of course, in a round-the-world group trip). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5768 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 47 of 78 20 March 2010 at 1:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's funny to me (as someone who's spent a lot of time on Mandarin) that you're more scared of Mandarin than you are of Arabic. For me it's the other way around. Mandarin has such simple grammar, and so many words are made up of two logical parts. The words never change internally, so once you learn a word then you know it'll be like that in all situations. Arabic, on the other hand, has all these different dialects, and they all seem to be different from the written form. I don't even know where to start.
As for the number 7, I notice in the original post that you're not supposed to be able to hit 7 unless you're in linguistics. This is totally backwards from what I've seen. Most people with a PhD in linguistics have very little idea about how to learn another language. Many of them are monolingual and make no attempt to learn other languages. They'd rather sit around and debate obscure details that they write research papers about, and you can't really write research papers about yourself. So they spend all their time on academic research, not language learning. For me personally, I think I have the best chance of retaining 7 languages if I learn the languages that are most prevalent in my home city of Vancouver. The top 5 languages here are English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, and Spanish, although through personal interest I'd add my current projects of German, Swedish, and Esperanto. oops, I guess that puts me up to 8 now. I'm not worried about getting professional translator status in all of them though. If I can read books and talk to people with ease, then I'll be happy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5167 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 48 of 78 20 March 2010 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I guess Mandarin's reputation and tonal quality is what makes it scary--it seems, to a Western outsider, as different and alien as a language can be. Arabic has a recognizable alphabet, semi-familiar verb conjugations, feminine and masculine words, etc. etc. It has a few phenomes that are totally new and the dialect issue is challenging, but it still feels like more familiar territory.
Again, as a total outsider, Mandarin seems scary because of the sheer rote memorization of characters and the tones--the concept of the inflection with which I speak a word changing its meaning is scary, because I already struggle with pronunciation in *French*. I have heard that the grammar is not so bad at the early stages, but it gets more complex as you go on. But I have also heard from those who learn Mandarin that it isn't as scary as they fear. So in 5-8 years I'll give you my report. :) Luckily, the six languages I'm interested in are pretty well represented in my city of Boston: lots of Mandarin and Spanish speakers, a fairly large number of Russians, and a long-standing Lebanese population alongside many international students from the Arab world. French is a bit trickier, but Quebeç is only six hours away! We also have a lot of Brazilian and Haitian immigrants here, so Portuguese and Creole would be interesting languages to learn once my Spanish and French are good enough. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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