Barring English, I only speak "dead" languages. Am I a polyglot still? Latin, Koine & Classic Greek, ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and am at "coffee" level in a few ANE/Semitic languages.
No, you're not a "polyglot".
Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
91–100 of 111 posts
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm OP. I am not communicating mostly in writing. I think that most people memorize the sound of the word. Ecole is the first word I learned in French and to this day I forget is it's a grave or aigu. What I realized with your comment and thank you is that I didn't mean intonation! I got confused because and I meant the type of accents and I meant spelling. Thank you
> Ecole is the first word I learned in French and to this day I forget is it's a grave or aigu. What I've noticed with most French words is that initial-è seems to be phonotactically disfavored if not outright forbidden. A quick scan of my dictionary suggests the only word with initial-è is ès which is archaic. In general, I associate è with a sort of final position, using je préfère as the mnemonic (since it has bot…
Words that start with a "è" sound typically have an "H" as a first letter.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#93I'm currently actively learning my 5th language and passively learning the 6th one. There's no universal way to learn a new language. What works for one doesn't work for another. Also, a big factor in how hard it will be to learn a new language are the languages you know already. If the new language is similar to the one you know already, i.e. is in the same language family, you will have a much easier time learning…
Once you learn, how do you maintain the language? I'm currently in Brazil speaking Portuguese a lot. I used to speak more Spanish. Right now, if I want to switch back to Spanish it takes me a lot of time. They're so similar I still keep on mixing them up quite often. I even started a small project ( https://glot.space ) to try to keep training vocabulary in two languages at the same time to keep the distinction in my…
OP here. I'll just say what I'm currently doing. I read a book in french , a second book in Spanish and I'm watching an Italian tv series on Netflix. Doesn't have to be more than 10mins per language per day. The only way you don't forget a language is to reach a high level. Even if I don't speak Spanish for months I won't forget it. But I'll surely forget Italian.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#94Barring English, I only speak "dead" languages. Am I a polyglot still? Latin, Koine & Classic Greek, ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and am at "coffee" level in a few ANE/Semitic languages.
Yes you are a polyglot. The fascinating thing is that soon you will be able to chat with an AI in these languages (have you even tried speaking to chatgpt on latin?)
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#95I must say, I'm really skeptical of all these apps. I've tried pretty much all of them (well, not literally all of them, but a lot). I've had to move/travel quite a lot in my life, and I tried to get a "head start" on learning the language, with a different app. Every time, going to the country, I quickly realized that I could not speak the language. At best I could read it and produce with effort some sentences that…
> In English, do you "need" to learn if a word takes "o" or "u"? English semi-famously remains comprehensible if you replace every vowel with a schwa. So sure you'll have an extremely weird accent, but this is acceptable according to the OP's definition of "speaking a language" from the first paragraph of the article.
Hi, OP here. It's not optimal, it's just the way to make you progress fast, not quit and then get a good accent,learn complicated grammar structure etc.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm OP. I am not communicating mostly in writing. I think that most people memorize the sound of the word. Ecole is the first word I learned in French and to this day I forget is it's a grave or aigu. What I realized with your comment and thank you is that I didn't mean intonation! I got confused because and I meant the type of accents and I meant spelling. Thank you
Really? Try to pronounce "ecole" (I'm omitting the accent on purpose). Does it sound like the end of "café" or the first sound in "mère"? It's impossible to confuse the two. I'm really curious as to how you manage not to distinguish them while claiming to speak the language. That's what I meant when I said I thought you are mostly communicating in writing - if you actually speak the word, you'll never be confused abo…
I'm not only claiming to speak the language, I not only have spoken it with various friends but also I have a formal B1 certificate from institute francais. Which proves that pronouncing the e of mere and the first e of ecole exactly the same is not very important. Also for reference I used to hang out with an examiner from the same institute and told me they only care about your accents unless it's something monstrous only at C1 level. You can pass the exam (official from the state) without writing any accents even in written composition.
This is like the c++ pointers guy complaining "how can this guy write so ugly PHP". I'm the PHP guy and I'm a fan of the way @levelsio is doing things in a simple and effective way that makes others annoyed. But in reality his projects work. And I chat with french friends :)
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Try to pronounce "ecole" (I'm omitting the accent on purpose). Does it sound like the end of "café" or the first sound in "mère"? It's impossible to confuse the two. I'm really curious as to how you manage not to distinguish them while claiming to speak the language. That's what I meant when I said I thought you are mostly communicating in writing - if you actually speak the word, you'll never be confused abo…
I'm not only claiming to speak the language, I not only have spoken it with various friends but also I have a formal B1 certificate from institute francais. Which proves that pronouncing the e of mere and the first e of ecole exactly the same is not very important. Also for reference I used to hang out with an examiner from the same institute and told me they only care about your accents unless it's something monstro…
You do realize that B1 is lower intermediate level...? This isn't exactly the flex you think it is.
Besides, learning a language isn't about exams or certifications. It seemed to me that we have very different ideas of what learning to speak a language means, and your answers confirm it. That's fine, but I'm not sure what there is left to discuss, then.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You may find yourself having to learn to think in a new way literally. I've said for a few years now my personality is slightly different when I speak English. I have a partner of several years that doesn't speak my language nor me hers and we communicate in English and even simple things like expressing affection feel different even after a decade. At some point since I speak more English every day than my own lan…
With English you get to lose nuances and to simplify your thoughts. As a result, you cannot put exact words on your emotions or your thoughts and you start to think and feel differently (and not in a nicer way).
English is one of the languages on earth with by far the most words, and with some of the most extraordinary writers. You can give as much nuance as you want.
The problem is that, as a non-native speaker, the words carry less emotional weight somehow than my native language. This is not specific to English, and it's not because of a lack of familiarity. It's most visible in swear words - I have no problem saying any swear word in English, while I still get slightly squeamish with certain swear words in my native language.
It's basically a part of how you can't really absorb certain cultural aspects of a language, even if you learn about them. They're never going to be a part of your own internal culture if you didn't grow up with them.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
With English you get to lose nuances and to simplify your thoughts. As a result, you cannot put exact words on your emotions or your thoughts and you start to think and feel differently (and not in a nicer way).
English is one of the languages on earth with by far the most words, and with some of the most extraordinary writers. You can give as much nuance as you want. The problem is that, as a non-native speaker, the words carry less emotional weight somehow than my native language. This is not specific to English, and it's not because of a lack of familiarity. It's most visible in swear words - I have no problem saying any…
Exactly! Swear words are a great example, "I love you" another. "I love you" is just something "people say in movies and books", whereas the one in my language is what my mom told me. Big difference!
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#100> Learn only 4 tenses. Past for one time events, past continuous, present, future. These are enough to go by and explain yourself. There is no future tense in Finnish. Or gendered personal pronouns. Oh and there’s about a gazillion words for snow. And god help you if you need to articulate that your spruce is returning.
English also doesn't have a (proper) future tense, but you would still need to learn how to talk about the future using the modal 'will'.