8 year-old Wendy Vo speaks 11 languages fluently

Guest   Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:14 pm GMT
She is a lot more than bilingual,K.T
Guest   Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:51 pm GMT
"It comes down to definitions. I just started Vietnamese, so I can't judge Wendy in Vietnamese, but I'll just have faith and say that it is likely that she is bilingual, a good bilingual in Vietnamese and English. "

I like K.T 's statement.What bothers me about J.C is he knew nothing about Hindi and Arabic,but he still judged somebody else's Hindi and Arabic.
K. T.   Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:16 pm GMT
She is a lot more than bilingual,K.T -Guest

Yes, I agree, but in French, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese I would probably simply say that she is studying them. That sounds more modest and more accurate. Perhaps something like this would work: Wendy has been studying language X since the age of ( )when we noticed her special ability to imitate sounds, sing accurately on pitch (I don't know if this is the case or not), etc.

Some people are jealous of others and it's better not to arouse jealousy in them, if possible.

The FSI allows for descriptions based on levels. I really think this is the best way to go for adults. It allows us to honestly say that someone speaks a language, but it gives us a better idea how WELL someone speaks a language.
Guest   Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:46 pm GMT
I think J.C. has an extremely lax definition of 'mastering' a language.

I'd like to see how he writes in the other languages he allegedly has mastered.
K. T.   Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:41 am GMT
The Ellen show with Wendy Vo is supposed to be repeated on the fourteenth of April according to AOL television. I don't know how AOL TV works, but NBC is the network and it's at eight PM. I'd like to see it.
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:50 am GMT
She's eight years old for god's sake, she isn't expected to have mastered the languages to be considered a prodigy. A maths prodigy is considered a prodigy if he can solve complex problems relative to his age group, he isn't expected to be able to beat a PhD holder. Maybe he is smarter than the PhD holder was at his age but you can't know something you've never heard of before, and hearing about stuff takes time no matter how fast a learner you are.
J.C.   Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:44 am GMT
"I think J.C. has an extremely lax definition of 'mastering' a language."

Guest- I don't think my definition is lax because I have been studying languages since I'm 16 and I'm quite strict on myself and have as a goal to speak as close as possible to a native (An educated one), which means to be able to use all the functions of the language, i.e., speak, listen, read and write without any difficulties. Wendy just happens not to satisfy my standards. Period. If you don't agree with my standards that's fine with me.
Maybe she speaks the languages better than what we can see but at least from the languages I understand well I just can't see any support for "I can speak 11 languages"(Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese aren't enough in my opinion) based on replying basic questions about "age", "name", "how many brothers" and "favorite color" followed by reading a book (As for Japanese I would be surprised if she could read in Chinese characters (Kanji) because a child her age in Japan can already read and write some hundreds of characters. Also, by the time a child finishes elementary school in Japan he/she will know 1006 characters. Hiragana can be learned in a couple of hours). Well, if she can understand what she's reading then things can get a little better.
(I could read Dostoyevsky without much understanding because I can read the Russian alphabet. Alternatively I could also read a book in Korean or Hebrew because I know the alphabets but that wouldn't mean I know what's written)


"I'd like to see how he writes in the other languages he allegedly has mastered."

Guest- As I told you before that I feel no need to prove myself to anybody but I show my language skills pretty well at job interviews because during such venues one is required to prove one's capabilities.
But I can give you some criteria:

German: I have the ZDaF (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3530858) and ZMP (http://goethe.de/ins/de/prf/zc1/enindex.htm) certificates, which require the candidate to pass a written test followed by text interpretation in addition to an interview and listening test. In other words, it's sink or swim! Either you know the language in ALL ASPECTS or you go KAPUTT!! I have also considered applying to the KDS certificate (http://goethe.de/ins/de/prf/kds/enindex.htm), but don't feel motivated to do it because I haven't used German for about 10 years and need to have more contact with the language so I won't study only to pass a certificate, which I don't consider very alluring.

Japanese: I got a bachelor’s (From a Brazilian university) and master's (From a university in Japan) in Japanese in addition to the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (http://www.jflalc.org/?act=tpt&id=21) levels 4,3 and 2. My dissertations from undergraduate and graduate school were written in Japanese and, again, that requires much more than saying a "bunch of words". Last but not least, I'd like to sweeten the pot by adding that I also speak the dialect of Osaka (大阪弁) in addition to speaking standard Japanese.

Ciao!
p.s I have experience as a translator in English, Japanese and German, which I consider enough to prove my written skills.
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:17 pm GMT
"It comes down to definitions. I just started Vietnamese, so I can't judge Wendy in Vietnamese, but I'll just have faith and say that it is likely that she is bilingual, a good bilingual in Vietnamese and English. "

K.T.I don't think she is even bilingual.Her English is not good and her Vietnamese seems to be bad too.She is not even monolingual.She is zerolingual actually.She doesn't speak any language at all.I wonder why on earth that happened.Children at her age usually speak at least one language.
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:24 pm GMT
When I was her age I spoke 3 languages.
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:49 pm GMT
KT says:Some people are jealous of others and it's better not to arouse jealousy in them, if possible.

I totally agree with him.J.C is a good example of the dark effect jeolousy has on us.I am sure JC has a bright side too.
No matter if we like it or not,Wendy Vo is here to stay.She is the first and I am sure there will be more kids like her in the future when parents realize that their children CAN learn a lot of languages.That is the good part of the story.
Jo   Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:02 pm GMT
I can't see the need for bickering at J.C. and I don't see the why the jealousy accusation. If any, having learned all those languages himself, he would most likely be the first to admire those abitlies in an 8 year old kid.
I agree with him that while you can teach a child a number of set sentences in different languages, such does not make her a polyglot.
J.C.   Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:09 pm GMT
"When I was her age I spoke 3 languages."
Guest- That's pretty cool! Which languages did you speak? Unfortunately I didn't have that opportunity when I was a child. To be honest I didn't even know about the existence of other languages. Being raised in Rio de Janeiro I was more interested in going to the beach in Copacabana and getting some waves!! :)

"I totally agree with him.J.C is a good example of the dark effect jeolousy has on us."
Guest: If you think I'm jealous that's fine with me. My point here was just to express my view about what it means "to speak a language fluently" and I didn't see that in the girl in question. Period.
If someone says, "I speak language X fluently" that means something more to me.
I learn languages because I love to communicate with people from all over the world and change my "Weltanschauung" in order to be able to see things and people from a different perspective. Competition won't take me anywhere, specially learning languages for "the sake of getting people's mistakes" or just to speak more languages than Mr. so and so.

If you see my posts in other topics you'll see that I'm studying Chinese, Russian, Swedish and French but my goals are simply to be able read books and if possible speak these languages well so I can use them for working. Even if that's not possible I'll be glad to have studied about another language and culture, which will contribute to my knowledge.

I guess we should move on to a more interesting theme where maybe we can learn from each other.

Peace!!
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:19 pm GMT
So Jo.Does she need a master degree in each of the languages to be called a polyglot?What is the definition of a polyglot in your opinion?
J.C.   Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:32 pm GMT
"I can't see the need for bickering at J.C.and I don't see the why the jealousy accusation. "
Jo: Thanks for supporting me. I was beginning to think I was jealous or was attacking someone unjustly. :)
It's good to know that someone agrees with me. After all it makes no difference if this girl speaks 11 languages or not because that won't change the fact that I know the languages I've studied and will keep on learning.

Looking at posts I understand why people want to praise a 8 year old girl: Many people think or want to believe that it's easy to "speak a language fluently" when it actually takes a lot of work and time to do it (At least in my case because I usually have to learn alone and never had the opportunity to study a language in the country where it is spoken with the exception of Japanese). I've seen many people saying they speak many languages and some even offer a miraculous "how to be a polyglot method". Well, I guess that doesn't work for me. I kind of like the "no pain no gain" method because learning a language is really a breathtaking job.

Jo, I wonder if you could share you linguistic background with us so we can feel more motivated to keep on learning.

Peace out!
Guest   Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:06 pm GMT
J.C.How do you know the little girl didn't spend a lot of work and time?Your reasoning is based on assumption mostly.That is why it is flawed.