What do you mean? I don't know Chinese, I'm Australian and only know English. Just wondered what a 'dog' is... I've heard that word several times now but I haven't been able to find it in the dictionar.y
Judging Multilinguals Fairly
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Hello,
I would really like to become n-lingual =) . Yes, I'm jealous when I hear someone speak three or four languages but this jealousy is not mean. It only makes me myself to try harder; as for those who I am "jealous" with, I respect them.
My native language is Lithuanian. I had been learning English for more than 11 years when I joined university. I had put so much effort into my English and still was not satisfied. Now my command of English is only deteriorating (short-sightedness of Higher education in Lithuania is to be put blame on).
I consider I can speak two languages fluently: Lithuanian and English (you may argue about my knowledge of English). I had also learnt German for 6 years at school and for half a year at the university. I have recently acquired basic knowledge of Russian so that I know a few phrases and all the letters. I am also studying Ancient Greek for it has been my long-standing interest to learn Ancient Greek.
I set my future goal to improve my German and Russian as much as possible.
My thoughts on learning languages: each language learned will give you some potential knowledge of a language you might not have started learning yet - especially if those languages belong to the same language family. Therefore, the more languages you learn, the easier and the more effective your learning process will be.
I take great pleasure in learning languages. I'm always looking for people with similar interests as there are only physicists around me.
Good luck, language learners! =)
I would really like to become n-lingual =) . Yes, I'm jealous when I hear someone speak three or four languages but this jealousy is not mean. It only makes me myself to try harder; as for those who I am "jealous" with, I respect them.
My native language is Lithuanian. I had been learning English for more than 11 years when I joined university. I had put so much effort into my English and still was not satisfied. Now my command of English is only deteriorating (short-sightedness of Higher education in Lithuania is to be put blame on).
I consider I can speak two languages fluently: Lithuanian and English (you may argue about my knowledge of English). I had also learnt German for 6 years at school and for half a year at the university. I have recently acquired basic knowledge of Russian so that I know a few phrases and all the letters. I am also studying Ancient Greek for it has been my long-standing interest to learn Ancient Greek.
I set my future goal to improve my German and Russian as much as possible.
My thoughts on learning languages: each language learned will give you some potential knowledge of a language you might not have started learning yet - especially if those languages belong to the same language family. Therefore, the more languages you learn, the easier and the more effective your learning process will be.
I take great pleasure in learning languages. I'm always looking for people with similar interests as there are only physicists around me.
Good luck, language learners! =)
>>An Italian who sees "Je vois un chien." will not know immediately what that sentence means in French even though both are romance languages, but a Cantonese speaker looking at same sentence in Chinese characters would probably know that it means "I see a dog."
But as time passes, Mandarin speakers have come up with a lot of new expressions that don't exist in others. You're understood by every literate speaker with your standard speech and written language, but you won't know their colloquial stuff until you learn it. I have yet to learn using Internet slang natively.
>>Now my command of English is only deteriorating (short-sightedness of Higher education in Lithuania is to be put blame on).
As I learn more, I find that human nature is to be blamed lol. A good university is one that has a huge library for you to find any books you want for self-study. Language is knowledge and acquiring it can be costly. You also have the freedom to do virtually anything you want, and for me it's best to learn everything on your own. It's not exactly possible to BLAME when there isn't a class for Classical Greek or Russian (in my university); even if there were one, I'm afraid that wouldn't satisfy my needs, when I'm so much biased against class, any sort of class.
I'm afraid that the strategy (and possibly tactics) I think to be doable and effective has been so much discussed everywhere in the cyberspace in English; if I were to start a blog about this, I might have nothing other than "improper ways of learning" (namely using p2p networks) to write. When you don't exactly have the money to learn THAT much, in this era it's been convenient to do it improperly. I can see how tertiary institutions (or classes for adults alike) are naturally selling their courses at high prices and yet mediocre students aren't learning much. When I can write English in the way you can see here, why should I bother to attend a class, as required, to learn ENGLISH modal verbs and how to put citations when I can find loads of MLA/APA sites with google? Guess what, every person like me in my city has to pay some 5400 USD each year for university studies, and I spent a small fraction of it on this course that I didn't actually need. I could pay much less even as a foreigner in Germany (well, but much MORE in over-popular Anglophone universities).
For me, multilingualism is essentially bourgeois (even though I too like it so much as a mere mortal), when you have to raise a language like your own baby and spend so much of your precious time on it.
But as time passes, Mandarin speakers have come up with a lot of new expressions that don't exist in others. You're understood by every literate speaker with your standard speech and written language, but you won't know their colloquial stuff until you learn it. I have yet to learn using Internet slang natively.
>>Now my command of English is only deteriorating (short-sightedness of Higher education in Lithuania is to be put blame on).
As I learn more, I find that human nature is to be blamed lol. A good university is one that has a huge library for you to find any books you want for self-study. Language is knowledge and acquiring it can be costly. You also have the freedom to do virtually anything you want, and for me it's best to learn everything on your own. It's not exactly possible to BLAME when there isn't a class for Classical Greek or Russian (in my university); even if there were one, I'm afraid that wouldn't satisfy my needs, when I'm so much biased against class, any sort of class.
I'm afraid that the strategy (and possibly tactics) I think to be doable and effective has been so much discussed everywhere in the cyberspace in English; if I were to start a blog about this, I might have nothing other than "improper ways of learning" (namely using p2p networks) to write. When you don't exactly have the money to learn THAT much, in this era it's been convenient to do it improperly. I can see how tertiary institutions (or classes for adults alike) are naturally selling their courses at high prices and yet mediocre students aren't learning much. When I can write English in the way you can see here, why should I bother to attend a class, as required, to learn ENGLISH modal verbs and how to put citations when I can find loads of MLA/APA sites with google? Guess what, every person like me in my city has to pay some 5400 USD each year for university studies, and I spent a small fraction of it on this course that I didn't actually need. I could pay much less even as a foreigner in Germany (well, but much MORE in over-popular Anglophone universities).
For me, multilingualism is essentially bourgeois (even though I too like it so much as a mere mortal), when you have to raise a language like your own baby and spend so much of your precious time on it.
<<What do you think? Is he multilingual? In my book he is, but don't hire him as a translator.>>
Most would say yes. I think there is generally a very low standard of acceptable english, because most people really don't mind all the mistakes that foreigners make, and won't correct them as long as they are understood. Thats why there are lots of people who claim to speak english fluenty, that are unknowing of how poor their english actually is.
Most would say yes. I think there is generally a very low standard of acceptable english, because most people really don't mind all the mistakes that foreigners make, and won't correct them as long as they are understood. Thats why there are lots of people who claim to speak english fluenty, that are unknowing of how poor their english actually is.
<< My thoughts on learning languages: each language learned will give you some potential knowledge of a language you might not have started learning yet - especially if those languages belong to the same language family. Therefore, the more languages you learn, the easier and the more effective your learning process will be. >>
I agree, but don't you think that, unless you're a multilingual, the more languages you "learn," the less fluent you will be in each additional language? I mean, your brain can only memorize so many conjugations, so much vocab., etc...
Personally I think you should limit the number of languages you learn, and really LEARN those few languages, because, like I said, you cannot truly be fluent in more than like 3 or 4 languages.
I agree, but don't you think that, unless you're a multilingual, the more languages you "learn," the less fluent you will be in each additional language? I mean, your brain can only memorize so many conjugations, so much vocab., etc...
Personally I think you should limit the number of languages you learn, and really LEARN those few languages, because, like I said, you cannot truly be fluent in more than like 3 or 4 languages.
Three is the magic number. Native + 2 foreign languages. Optimises proficiency in each with respect to knowledgeableness.
<<but don't you think that, unless you're a multilingual, the more languages you "learn," the less fluent you will be in each additional language? I mean, your brain can only memorize so many conjugations, so much vocab., etc... >>
Not at all. It all depends on you and not only on your abilities but on how much effort you are willing to put in your learning languages. Suppose I am learning my 7th language and am fluent in only 2 of them. What could possibly stop me from picking one of the remaining 5 languages and start putting a lot more effort in learning it than before? Whatever the number of my previously learned languages is, my fluency in that one particular language will start growing. There is one very important thing about this, though. You should only learn 1-2 languages at a time! That's very important so as not to overstrain you brain.
I admit that fluency is a long way to go - it may take years of hard work.
Let's move over to discussing conjugations (and declensions). What concerns Indo-European, knowing Lithuanian, English and a little German pretty much covers the entire spectrum of flectiveness of all Indo-European languages - from a lot of case endings and few analytic forms to the opposite. Now go and look at grammatical descriptions of virtually any (but the most progressive) other Indo-European language and you will find something in between the ends of this spectrum, which means you will not come across anything new.
Sanskrit and Ancient Greek (and to a lesser extent, Latin) may broaden the spectrum at its synthetic end a little.
What I want to say is that laws of analogy and competence in indoeuropeistics may improve the rate at which you learn each successive Indo-European language, thus the limits to being multilingual are pushed backwards.
Not at all. It all depends on you and not only on your abilities but on how much effort you are willing to put in your learning languages. Suppose I am learning my 7th language and am fluent in only 2 of them. What could possibly stop me from picking one of the remaining 5 languages and start putting a lot more effort in learning it than before? Whatever the number of my previously learned languages is, my fluency in that one particular language will start growing. There is one very important thing about this, though. You should only learn 1-2 languages at a time! That's very important so as not to overstrain you brain.
I admit that fluency is a long way to go - it may take years of hard work.
Let's move over to discussing conjugations (and declensions). What concerns Indo-European, knowing Lithuanian, English and a little German pretty much covers the entire spectrum of flectiveness of all Indo-European languages - from a lot of case endings and few analytic forms to the opposite. Now go and look at grammatical descriptions of virtually any (but the most progressive) other Indo-European language and you will find something in between the ends of this spectrum, which means you will not come across anything new.
Sanskrit and Ancient Greek (and to a lesser extent, Latin) may broaden the spectrum at its synthetic end a little.
What I want to say is that laws of analogy and competence in indoeuropeistics may improve the rate at which you learn each successive Indo-European language, thus the limits to being multilingual are pushed backwards.
When I was a kid, I had been happy to recite English verb tables like singing mnemonics, but I can't really remember all of them now. Whether I can still recall some of the conjugations depends on how frequent I use them. I don't do something like:
(English) Ah, ok, now, I'm talking to my Anglophone professor and I have to use the verb learn. Now, learn may be irregular or regular, i.e. learnt or learned, but well, it doesn't matter much.
Ok, professor, eh... I learnt something ....
even for this famously fairly analytic language, by doing so you would be thinking for a few minutes just to utter the conjugation of a single verb, when you may have to speak multiple sentences (so, not to mention declensions if you think they are complicated enough).
In the long run, I believe true polyglots spend more time on listening and reading than remembering isolated conjugations, declensions and things like those.
(English) Ah, ok, now, I'm talking to my Anglophone professor and I have to use the verb learn. Now, learn may be irregular or regular, i.e. learnt or learned, but well, it doesn't matter much.
Ok, professor, eh... I learnt something ....
even for this famously fairly analytic language, by doing so you would be thinking for a few minutes just to utter the conjugation of a single verb, when you may have to speak multiple sentences (so, not to mention declensions if you think they are complicated enough).
In the long run, I believe true polyglots spend more time on listening and reading than remembering isolated conjugations, declensions and things like those.
<< Not at all. It all depends on you and not only on your abilities but on how much effort you are willing to put in your learning languages. Suppose I am learning my 7th language and am fluent in only 2 of them. What could possibly stop me from picking one of the remaining 5 languages and start putting a lot more effort in learning it than before? >>
Good point. What I really meant was that I think that the more languages you learn, the less likely and more difficult it will be for you to gain fluency in all of them. But, as you said, if you speak let's say 5 languages, and are only fluent in two of them, then there is no reason why you couldn't become fluent in one more if you worked hard enough, but it is less likely that you will gain complete fluency in all 5...a more reasonable number would be like two or three, IMO.
Good point. What I really meant was that I think that the more languages you learn, the less likely and more difficult it will be for you to gain fluency in all of them. But, as you said, if you speak let's say 5 languages, and are only fluent in two of them, then there is no reason why you couldn't become fluent in one more if you worked hard enough, but it is less likely that you will gain complete fluency in all 5...a more reasonable number would be like two or three, IMO.
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