TAC 2014 - dEhiN

[dEhiN]

No worries Voron, I should take a break from my thread more often. All of your (plural you) stories of using a language you're learning are too funny. I think the only story I have is that one time quite a few years ago, a little bit after I had started learning Tamil, my dad was talking to my mom in Tamil. My parents used to do this when I was a child so my siblings and I couldn't know what they were saying. (We would get the gist of it sometimes from random words we knew and especially body language ).

Anyway so since my dad didn't know how much Tamil I knew (not much at the time), when I walked into the room he switched to Sinhalese . I think he also made some comment to the effect that "oh Hiran (what my family calls me) is here, we don't want him knowing what we're saying."

On a note related to my TAC, I recently did an online French test that Vijay showed me and I got a score of 46/70. That apparently translates to the B1 level. I did the same test for Spanish and Portuguese and my Portuguese is better than my Spanish!

Coming back to the multiple languages versus one thing, I think in the end I just don't have the desire to focus on one language. I've tried that over the past couple of years and it never worked. After a while I get bored. That is, I just cannot study the same language day after day. I need variety. So I'm fine with the fact that my improvement in any one language might be slower than if I focused on only that one language. I am more stimulated overall when I'm juggling multiple languages.

[vijayjohn]

your (plural you)

Down 'ere we say "y'all's," podner!

On a note related to my TAC, I recently did an online French test that Vijay showed me and I got a score of 46/70. That apparently translates to the B1 level. I did the same test for Spanish and Portuguese and my Portuguese is better than my Spanish!

Congratulations!

[OldBoring]

your (plural you)

Down 'ere we say "y'all's," podner!

Your guys's.

[vijayjohn]

your (plural you)

Down 'ere we say "y'all's," podner!

Your guys's.

That always sounded so weird to me, even though "y'all's" is also arguably weird for having two apostrophes!

[Koko]

your (plural you)

Down 'ere we say "y'all's," podner!

Your guys's.

That always sounded so weird to me, even though "y'all's" is also arguably weird for having two apostrophes!

Is "wouldn't've" weird too? ^^ It has two apostrophes as well. Y'all's and your guys's are both odd. Especially the fact that the latter is double possessive.

[vijayjohn]

Is "wouldn't've" weird too? ^^

Yep. Double apostrophes look like single quotes.

[הענט]

I like certain YT polyglots, but some are pretty annoying. Richard Simcott, Luca Lampariello, Tim Doner, Emanuele Marini, Benny the Scam and all the HTLAL community just sucks. They make these elite cliques of people who speak more than 7 languages and especially Luca is keen to interview just anyone who "knows" these many languages. They also set up this PG conference as if they were speaking on behalf of all the language learners, polyglots and linguists of the world.



The ones I didn't mention are great actually.

[dEhiN]

I like certain YT polyglots, but some are pretty annoying. Richard Simcott, Luca Lampariello, Tim Doner, Emanuele Marini, Benny the Scam and all the HTLAL community just sucks. They make these elite cliques of people who speak more than 7 languages and especially Luca is keen to interview just anyone who "knows" these many languages. They also set up this PG conference as if they were speaking on behalf of all the language learners, polyglots and linguists of the world.



The ones I didn't mention are great actually.

Haha, those are the only ones I know! Well I've actually never heard of Luca Lampariello or Emanuele Marini before now. But I definitely don't know the ones you didn't mention who are great .

It's funny, the first time I heard of a PG conference I thought: OMG! I want to become a fluent polyglot so I can attend on of these. And I guess the fact that these exist automatically puts those who attend these on a pedestal, saying that they are some sort of gods among men when it comes to multilingualism.

But now I realize that couldn't be farther from the truth. There are so many people in this world with the talent and ability to learn multiple languages and switch seamlessly between them. It's much more a matter of time and effort than it is some sort of born-with talent.

[OldBoring]

I've seen Luca Lampariello's blog, but I don't understand your criticisms.
Though, I think that many Unilangers are better polyglots than those "famous" one.

[הענט]

Moses McCormick, Mike Campbell, Vladimir Skultety, Stu Jay Raj, Ziad Fazah and possibly Loki.

[voron]

How much do you know about Ziad Fazah?

He featured in this infamous video where he was confronted with a bunch of native speakers each saying a couple of phrases to him and he failed to understand nearly everything (e.g. in Russian he was asked "what day of the week is it today" and he didn't get it).
Besides that... is there anything positive about him on the net?

I absolutely love everyone featuring in this "Skype me maybe" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HZbBLl4FA0

It doesn't look at all as if they are bragging. They look more like people who are super shy and have problems dealing with people and are learning to overcome those problems through and thanks to language learning.

(That was also the story of Benny no? He told he had was super shy and learnt to overcome this by constantly pushing himself out of the comfort zone, and I can so relate to that).

[הענט]

Well, Moses claims to know 50+ languages and Simcott claims to know 20+ and so does Tim Doner. But Ziad is the only one getting slammed for his claim, while the others are being followed by large group of people. Ziad did post up some of his videos, but due to this hate-mongrels, he closed down his account. This witch-hunt led to closing his e-mail account and withdrawing from the internet altogether. We'll never know if at some point he knew all of his languages, yet he's shown his proficiency in 16 or so...

Richard Simcott also doesn't sound so convincing in Serbian or Russian as he does in Macedonian or Spanish. And then he goes on a TV show saying, his brain is Arnold Schwarzenegger-like... WTF?

[eskandar]

Well, Moses claims to 50+ languages ...

I have not been very impressed with Moses's abilities in any of the languages I know. It may well be the case that he speaks excellent Mandarin, for example, or Japanese, or other languages I haven't studied -- I wouldn't know -- but as I recall his attempts in the languages I do know were riddled with errors, sometimes verging on incomprehensibility. I tend to be more impressed with people who speak other languages very well than those who can speak many languages poorly. In my own experience, I've been able to get to a similar level of communicative ability to what you often see in these polyglot Youtube videos after just a couple months (sometimes even less) of immersion, or dedicated study, but real skill takes much longer to develop.

[dEhiN]

I tend to be more impressed with people who speak other languages very well than those who can speak many languages poorly.

It sounds better (to my ears at least) to say "...who speak several [or: a few] languages very well than..."

In my own experience, I've been able to get to a similar level of communicative ability to what you often see in these polyglot Youtube videos after just a couple months (sometimes even less) of immersion, or dedicated study, but real skill takes much longer to develop.

I guess that would make sense given that, from what I have seen, many of these public polyglots use these videos as part of their language learning journey. If any of them claimed to speak a particular language fluently, that's different. But I think most don't specify their level.

That's a shame about Ziad. I guess the fact is that if you put yourself out there (in any sort of way, in any area of life), people expect you to be perfect. And if you're not then they tear you to shreds.

[Saim]

Ziad himself said he was prefect (direct quote: "I do keep being the greatest living polyglot"). He said his "skills" were a gift from god.

[vijayjohn]

I tend to be more impressed with people who speak other languages very well than those who can speak many languages poorly.

It sounds better (to my ears at least) to say "...who speak several [or: a few] languages very well than..."

eskandar's a native speaker of English.

[הענט]

Ziad himself said he was prefect (direct quote: "I do keep being the greatest living polyglot"). He said his "skills" were a gift from god.

And what's wrong with that? Just because a chess player with ELO 2000 calls himself the greatest chess player in history, doesn't mean that he can't play chess at all, which is what many people are insinuating here. Supposed he could only hold a basic conversation in Lao, doesn't mean he couldn't speak 10-20 of his languages fluently.

[dEhiN]

Ziad himself said he was prefect (direct quote: "I do keep being the greatest living polyglot"). He said his "skills" were a gift from god.

And what's wrong with that? Just because a chess player with ELO 2000 calls himself the greatest chess player in history, doesn't mean that he can't play chess at all, which is what many people are insinuating here. Supposed he could only hold a basic conversation in Lao, doesn't mean he couldn't speak 10-20 of his languages fluently.

That's true but I guess it partially depends on what he meant by "greatest". In general though nobody likes a boastful person, and a lot of people, when they encounter someone like that, want to put them in their place. So it's natural that he'd come under attack.

[dEhiN]

I tend to be more impressed with people who speak other languages very well than those who can speak many languages poorly.

It sounds better (to my ears at least) to say "...who speak several [or: a few] languages very well than..."

eskandar's a native speaker of English.

Oops, sorry .

[Saim]

Supposed he could only hold a basic conversation in Lao

He can't have any kind of conversation in Lao.

doesn't mean he couldn't speak 10-20 of his languages fluently.

It doesn't, but he can't.