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How many languages to be a polyglot? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 5914 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 81 of 123 21 August 2009 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||
wow same here(U.S.A). It must be this way in the entire English speaking world. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 5873 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 82 of 123 21 August 2009 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's decently rare here in Norway as well. In fact I can't think of anyone I've ever met here who speaks another language fluent without a "good reason" such as immigrated from the country, family from the country or married to someone from the country.
I would consider a person who has an advanced fluency in four languages to be a polyglot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5703 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 83 of 123 21 August 2009 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Not the same thing as someone in an English-speaking country who speaks nothing but English - the majority of people in Norway are at the very least functional in English, so we're not a monolingual country. You're right though, the people who speak a third language well are few and far between. (The school system is essentially to blame for this - if languages were taught well in school it's likely that the majority of people would be functionally fluent in one of German, French or Spanish, by the time they graduate high school. But that's not the case, is it...) Liz Edited by Lizzern on 21 August 2009 at 7:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6577 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 84 of 123 21 August 2009 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||
The level of language literacy can be gauged to some extent by watching the media I think. How often do you find any language besides English used in, say, television programs? At most you'll find some off the cuff phrase in German that probably reflects the general level of German comprehension of junior high graduates (I took French which I suspect is taught at a far worse level still). And some people in the audience will get it and laugh, others will not. Better yet, how often do you find full length tv programs in a foreign language? Besides filler programming like "Helene et les garcons", I don't count that stuff. NRK broadcasts the occasional intellectual program, but besides that they have a lot of filler. They could easily have a slot for a foreign program if there were an audience for it. On the plus side, English literacy is on the rise in Norway and I'm pleased about that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 5914 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 85 of 123 22 August 2009 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
really? I was under the impression that nearly all Scandinavians spoke English fluently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 5873 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 86 of 123 22 August 2009 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Hum. That's me sleeping to little last night. I think of English like Norwegian almost - yes all Norwegians speak quite good English. Not fluently though - I'd say - and with a heavy accent.
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| habadzi Super Polyglot Senior Member Greece Joined 5368 days ago 70 posts - 106 votes Speaks: Greek*, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Indonesian, Bengali, Albanian, Nepali | Message 87 of 123 22 August 2009 at 1:11am | IP Logged | ||
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In 1990, the Polyglot of Europe contest held in Belgium had a minimum requirement of 9 languages in decent shape. Since then, the level of general education has gone up, so expectations are probably increasing. 10 languages are not a very rare event any longer.
It's also arguable what is a language, since some are really closely related and in the absence of politics would be dialects. So someone speaking speaking several unrelated language families with different scripts would have worked harder than someone speaking a set of romance, Germanic or slavic languages (e.g. Catalan, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French; russian, bulgarian, serbian, 'macedonian', polish, ukranian etc.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5698 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 88 of 123 22 August 2009 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||
Hmmm growing up in Belgium I've never met someone who could speak 10 languages decently (decently being basic fluency). 4-5 languages however is quite common from my experience. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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