Jorge Fernandez Gates (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

Jorge Fernandez Gates
Tags: Young polyglot \| Biography \| Polyglot
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Language Learning Forum : Polyglots

31 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6241 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 25 of 31

22 December 2007 at 12:16pm | IP Logged

Athena wrote:

What's the difference between advanced and conversational?

Conversational <= basic fluency < advanced fluency.

Conversational implies that you can hold conversations.
Basic fluency implies that you can hold conversations while speaking 'flowingly' (as opposed to haltingly, slowly, with lots of pauses, etc).
Advanced fluency implies speaking flowingly and almost entirely correctly.

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lloydkirk
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6215 days ago
429 posts - 452 votes

Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Russian

Message 26 of 31

22 December 2007 at 3:06pm | IP Logged

Luismiguelagain wrote:

lloydkirk wrote:

He claims to speak French and apparently you do too. Did you speak to him in French? In which case, you would have noticed how bad his pronunciation is. It's not a matter of not being perfect, it's simply bad. It sounds like Frenish to me.

Well, yesterday I talked to him in french. We spoke in italian and afterwards in french. It's true that he has a very peruvian accent; nevertheless, what matters the most as I said, is communication. I understood him very well. There were some mistakes in his speech but there's also another thing to be analysed. When that interview was done, he was very nervous; I think it was his first time on tv. I noticed some -r at the end of the verbs like "parler", "aller", etc. Besides this, what he has done is noteworthy, he almost learnt all those languages by himself, and in this country....that is really weird. It's true that he is not perfect; however, he does speak 12 languages.

I just don't know he can claim to speak French with a straight face. I only claim intermediate proficiency and my pronunciation and accent is much better. I can upload a sound clip if you like...
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6241 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 27 of 31

22 December 2007 at 3:16pm | IP Logged

lloydkirk wrote:

I just don't know he can claim to speak French with a straight face. I only claim intermediate proficiency and my pronunciation and accent is much better. I can upload a sound clip if you like...

If you can hold a conversation, non-haltingly, on a wide range of topics, you're fluent, no matter how bad your accent and pronunciation are (if they're incomprehensible, you can't hold a conversation; short of that, while it may not be ideal, it does not change how fluent you are).

You can pronounce something perfectly while speaking none of a language (Julie has given examples of speaking to people who have done this). Clearly, this doesn't make you more fluent than an author who writes in the language but has a tiny accent...

My German accent is much better than my Italian accent, but I'm fluent in Italian, and not in German. Etc. I could give examples of this sort all day, but my first paragraph said everything, really.
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lloydkirk
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6215 days ago
429 posts - 452 votes

Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Russian

Message 28 of 31

22 December 2007 at 3:21pm | IP Logged

Yes, I realize this, but he spoke quite haltingly too, to say nothing of his poor vocabulary.
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6241 days ago
4474 posts - 6726 votes

Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 29 of 31

22 December 2007 at 3:32pm | IP Logged

lloydkirk wrote:

Yes, I realize this, but he spoke quite haltingly too, to say nothing of his poor vocabulary.

Ah, ok. I currently cannot view movies online (an upgrade broke my ability to do so, and I have not gotten around to fixing this yet), so I was unaware of that.

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Walshy
Triglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6744 days ago
335 posts - 365 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, German

Message 30 of 31

23 December 2007 at 9:30pm | IP Logged

Volte wrote:

Athena wrote:

What's the difference between advanced and conversational?

Thanks Volte, you nailed it.
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CaitO'Ceallaigh
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
katiekelly.wordpress
Joined 6659 days ago
795 posts - 829 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian
Studies: Czech, German

Message 31 of 31

04 January 2008 at 2:54pm | IP Logged

I don't understand why people are so harsh on this kid. Jealousy, perhaps? Not over speaking 12 languages, but that you're not on the news, too?

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