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How many languages to be a polyglot? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5504 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes  Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 73 of 123 14 April 2009 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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A polyglot should speak 7 languages on a (very near) native level and none of the languages he speaks can be mutually intelligible with any other in the group.
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| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5829 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 74 of 123 14 April 2009 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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It seems most people agree with the Wikipedia definition.
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| Alvinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6029 days ago 828 posts - 832 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 75 of 123 20 August 2009 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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in my view, someone could be hailed as a polyglot as long as they know at least 4 languages plus the mother tongue. Edited by Alvinho on 20 August 2009 at 10:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 5915 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 77 of 123 21 August 2009 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that people who speak several very closely related languages shouldn't count.
For me, I can say that studying both Spanish and portuguese is mostly redundant, and if/when I do manage to speak both, I would feel dishonest to say that i spoke 2 foreign languages. Edited by tritone on 21 August 2009 at 8:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 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 78 of 123 21 August 2009 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||
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It is clear that it takes much less effort to learn two related languages (which may even be related to your native language). But my solution is not to say that they shouldn't count. To be active in a language you need to study it as a separate entity, i.e. learn its grammar, its idioms and not least its pronunciation. To some extent this even applies to dialects, and some dialects are so far from the 'standard' language and other dialects that it takes a real effort to learn them. So I would count both Spanish and Portuguese, and I might even consider counting Italian and Sicilian.
Furthermore there is a big difference between learning a language well enough to have ordinary conversations and becoming near-native in that language - that also should taking into account, but the only way to do this is to move the treshold upwards if each language is only learnt to basic fluency. So in my opinion one native language plus near-native Mandarin, Swahili and Russian is certainly enough to make a person a polyglot, while one native language plus mediocre Spanish, Portuguese and French doesn't make the cut. We may set a fixed lower limit, and it can be set fairly low, e.g. 4 languages. But it can only be a necessary, but not sufficient condition. And finally: who cares? You don't get more in salary because someone calls you a polyglot. Edited by Iversen on 21 August 2009 at 10:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lingua Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5371 days ago 186 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 79 of 123 21 August 2009 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
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In practice the term polyglot seems to be used most often in reference to a person with a smattering of a dozen or more languages.
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| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5699 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 80 of 123 21 August 2009 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Well in the US army you do get extra pay I've been told by GIs in Korea ^_^ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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