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Jorge Fernandez Gates | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6817 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 31 28 September 2007 at 6:38am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't mean to belittle Jorge's achievements. I was commenting on the author of the article (I've amended my post above to reflect this). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6089 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 10 of 31 03 October 2007 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Amazing!
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| Henryk Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 6151 days ago 34 posts - 35 votes Speaks: German, English Studies: French, Spanish, Swedish | Message 11 of 31 22 November 2007 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Depends on what you understand by speaking a language. If he's fluent in those languages, then so am I in all I stated on my profile. His German is broken and riddled with various mistakes even though it is just a simple sentence. His other languages are everything but fluent, as well. No admiration from me, sorry. Edited by Henryk on 22 November 2007 at 2:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6505 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 12 of 31 22 November 2007 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have now listened to the two clips several times. The big problem with them is that we never hear more than a couple of sentences in a row, then it's back to Spanish.
It is true that he has varying degrees of accent, and his German pronunciation was definitely one of the least convincing (not worth 4½ on a 5 point scale). I also had a slightly queasy feeling about his French pronunciation, and his Swedish lacked the characteristic lilt. I fairly sure I heard him say "ele fos la prima persona" in 'Romainian' (yes! he said a diphtong in the middle af the word "româna"). There are other errors here and there... but frankly, those errors didn't seriously hinder the comprehension, and at least he generally didn't speak haltingly or in an unsecure way - on the contrary. It is also true that only one of his languages is really exotic (Chinese), which makes the number 12 less impressive, but even with those reservations I do find his accomplishments quite noteworthy. And the most funny thing was that his father didn't even notice what junior was doing right under his nose! Edited by Iversen on 22 November 2007 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Scott Horne Newbie Canada Joined 6027 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes | Message 13 of 31 22 November 2007 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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You've identified a pervasive problem: what it means to "know" a language is not defined. Some people claim proficiency in a language even though they can't handle a basic exchange of greetings; others deny proficiency even though they would pass an exam at the European C2 level.
In Chinese we say "实磨无声空磨响，满瓶不动半瓶摇": a solid millstone is silent, whereas a hollow one makes noise; full bottles stay still while half-filled ones rattle about. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6711 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 31 22 November 2007 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
(Quote ripped from this thread):
The sound quality was not that good in the Swedish interview (03:59-04:22). I mostly heard his teacher (and the speaker), and only a sentence or two from himself (very foreign accent). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6452 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 15 of 31 22 November 2007 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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As far as fluency in languages on THIS website, I use the criteria set-up by the Admin on the profile pages (reading a newspaper, conversing, etc.), because I figure we all are.
If you only select what you think you're fluent in based on your own criteria (whether they be to higher or lower standards than the Admin), you're doing everyone a disservice. For the purposes of this website, I hope we'll all use Francois' criteria, or else those profiles are almost meaningless. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6161 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 16 of 31 06 December 2007 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Can someone post the actual youtube link?
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