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"Rule of Seven" | ||
Tags: Number of Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5212 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 73 of 78 06 April 2010 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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As I have said before, this debate is endless and pointless because we seem to be talking about different things. I see two solutions. The first is an objective certifiable criteria such as a test result. Most Western languages have some test that is used primarily for university admissions. We could thus say that to speak a language one has to have passed such an exam. For example, we could say that a certified CEFR:B2 is the threshold for speaker status. Don't get me wrong. This is not what I am proposing.
The other approach is basically the subjective one exemplified by Iversen's post. If I feel comfortable enough to meet my needs in a chosen language, I can declare myself a "speaker". Obviously, this can mean vastly different things for different people. But that's the whole point. Peoples' needs and desires differ. I may just want to be able to converse and listen to songs in the language. Others may want to write witty prose. Others need technical terminology because they have to work in the language. We can all be "speakers" of the language. I don't worry about people claiming any number of languages. I think they are very aware of their skills and limitations. Most polyglots will the first to admit their areas of weakness because they know how easy it is to make a fool of oneself when confronted with native speakers. Many of us have seen the infamous Chilean TV video of Ziad the (former) Guiness record holder of most languages spoken. He is shown being tested by all these native speakers of various languages. That was a recipe for the embarrassing disaster that it turned out to be. I think Ziad was foolish or naive to let himself be set up like that. I felt that some of the questions were unfair, but that's what you get when you go around claiming to speak all these languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6725 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 74 of 78 06 April 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
Spivak's style is very chatty, so much so that I might not have taken him seriously at all were it not for the fact that I could recall someone saying Gethin and Gunnemark praise his book (or maybe it was some other author or authors who wrote about language learning). Nevertheless, with the 'rule of seven' it felt like Spivak was stating something fairly widely known. As you point out, his attempt at a "natural" explanation of the known limit sounds quite silly. A forum member told me that Emil Krebs had nine "working" languages. I haven't read much about Krebs, but perhaps some information is available on his level of proficiency in those languages, in which case it would be a useful data point to peg the level of mastery that can ever be expected for a rule of this sort (5 to 7 to 9). Edited by frenkeld on 06 April 2010 at 10:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6034 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 75 of 78 09 April 2010 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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If someone has a natural talent, inclination and the lifestyle, I believe they could use more than seven languages at a professional level. Instead of wondering whether or not you are such a person, why not just go for it and see what happens? You'll end up achieving more that way.
I can be quite the perfectionist but I do see value in "just" being comfortably conversational or "just" being able to read a language well. It's better than nothing and can usually be quickly improved if you get the chance to actually start using the language regularly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5116 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 76 of 78 20 April 2010 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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The problem is often that 10 different persons will have 10 different ideas of what to be "fluent" is. A family friend once boasted that he spoke 15 languages. I have only heard him speak two. English and Spanish. His English was awful, and in Spanish he was over the moon when a Spanish guy understood him, when he asked for a glass of water. In Spain I also quite often met people wo claimed to be "bilingual", meaning that they spoke their native Spanish, and had notions of another language.
When I was interviewed for my present job, I almost lost the opportunity, because I said my French was a bit rusty. It was, because at age 15 I was fluent, at age 18 I passed my French exam at the Univerity, at which point I was still fluent, and at the time of the interview I was 27 and hadn't really used it a lot. I could still converse in French without difficulty, but I found it hard to write longer texts. When I later was put in a situation where I had to interview people who were "fluent in French", I discovered that a lot of them could not even order French fries. As for my 7 languages they would be English Spanish French Italian German Russian Polish or Ukranian. (I do not count my native language) And I do not have near native ambitions in more than English and Spanish. For the others I am satisfied if I can just communicate effeciently without having an embarrasing accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5629 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 77 of 78 20 April 2010 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am having a lot of fun skyping with other polyglots in my seven languages:
- German - Dutch - English - Esperanto - Spanish - Italian - French I am planning to make other videos for Spanish, Italian and French and upload them on You Tube. In other languages I have only passive / beginner knowledge, so I would not claim anything for them. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 20 April 2010 at 1:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6204 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 78 of 78 21 April 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I met a guy at Cambridge Uni who was in the process of learning seven languages in order to work as an interpreter at the EU - presumably he would have had to reach advanced fluency in comprehension of each.
My dad was professor of Spanish/Catalan after getting top 1st in French (Cambridge), taught Latin and Greek and was fluent in Romanian, Italian, Portuguese and Romansch. That makes nine to a very high standard. I reckon I'll hit a solid level of fluency in Polish within half a year. If I had nothing else to do with the rest of my life, there's no reason why I couldn't add two languages a year until I either die or hit particularly difficult ones. Conservatively, one a year would be easy enough to do. Edited by vb on 21 April 2010 at 12:22am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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