Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
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Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
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Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#2I would suggest to drop "Amateur" from the title in the sense that languages are useful both professionally and privately - you never know in what language your next deal will be signed, your next networking acqaintance bumps into you to make you the next job offer etc.
Besides, as a professional (computational) linguist, I have met many trained/professional linguists that know only one language - typically English - well - I think that is professionally totally unacceptable when your mission is to study language (in abstract, intentionally without article here => linguistics); the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, AKA linguistic relativity => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity ) is something that you should at least occasionally step out of, so that you don't take it for granted, and for that, you need to master a second language.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#3After many attempts to learn different languages (Spanish, Arabic, German, Bengali) and having mixed results over the years, I started using Assimil courses and I’ve been very pleased with them. Going through Assimil French along with some comprehensible input on YouTube and I got to a high B1 reading/listening in 3-4 months. After that you can jump into tutoring on italki/Preply for speaking and then find other native content that interests you. I just wish I had found Assimil courses years ago.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#4Easy head start is to learn multiple as a kid. Finding it incredibly hard to learn a 4th as adult
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#5I 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 natives have trouble understanding themselves. And then, after immersing myself in the language for a couple of weeks, I was much, much better than anything I could have achieved with the app.
Most apps focus too much on impeccable grammar (even if they usually restrict you to a few tenses/moods) and rote, non-contextual vocabulary learning. Both are, well, useless. Having perfect grammar but not knowing when to use which verb in which context won't get you far. It's like trying to learn how to code in some programming language by studying the formal syntax and rote memorizing a bunch of core functions from the standard library. You miss out on everything that actually makes a language.
All in all, it feels like this post was written by someone who mainly communicates (or learns to communicate) in foreign in writing.
> Forget intonation if it’s not entirely necessary. Especially in French, there is no need to learn if a word takes a ` or ‘.
I can't let that one go, sorry. You don't need to learn perfect spelling, but it's going to be obvious most of the time if it's é or è when you hear the word. And if you pronounce it weird, you will get confused looks. In English, do you "need" to learn if a word takes "o" or "u"? People who were raised with certain native languages cannot even hear the difference anyway, so why bother, I guess? I hope this makes my point clear.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#6After many attempts to learn different languages (Spanish, Arabic, German, Bengali) and having mixed results over the years, I started using Assimil courses and I’ve been very pleased with them. Going through Assimil French along with some comprehensible input on YouTube and I got to a high B1 reading/listening in 3-4 months. After that you can jump into tutoring on italki/Preply for speaking and then find other nati…
What helped so much with them that other attempts/methods lacked?
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#7I would suggest to drop "Amateur" from the title in the sense that languages are useful both professionally and privately - you never know in what language your next deal will be signed, your next networking acqaintance bumps into you to make you the next job offer etc. Besides, as a professional (computational) linguist, I have met many trained/professional linguists that know only one language - typically English -…
> the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts
You can even see it in this article :)
"Learn only 4 tenses. Past for one time events, past continuous, present, future. These are enough to go by and explain yourself."
Some lanuages don't even have 4 tenses. Polish has 3. And Past Continuous isn't a thing, we have aspects instead.
BTW I don't intend to criticize the author, they're far more of a polyglot than I am (I only speak 4 languages, and only 2 well). It's just funny how we take some things for granted.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#8I 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…
Glad I’m not alone, have thought the same thing.
Having taken some French in high school, formally learning grammar and such seemed more useful than what the apps do. Of course, doesn’t make for high entertainment.
I feel the apps only try to sell the idea of learning a language, not the actual ability to do so.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#9I would suggest to drop "Amateur" from the title in the sense that languages are useful both professionally and privately - you never know in what language your next deal will be signed, your next networking acqaintance bumps into you to make you the next job offer etc. Besides, as a professional (computational) linguist, I have met many trained/professional linguists that know only one language - typically English -…
> the way a language structures the world for you in the way its vocab influences the way you think in concepts You can even see it in this article :) "Learn only 4 tenses. Past for one time events, past continuous, present, future. These are enough to go by and explain yourself." Some lanuages don't even have 4 tenses. Polish has 3. And Past Continuous isn't a thing, we have aspects instead. BTW I don't intend to cr…
Some languages are tenseless.
Re: Becoming an Amateur Polyglot
#10I 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…
Glad I’m not alone, have thought the same thing. Having taken some French in high school, formally learning grammar and such seemed more useful than what the apps do. Of course, doesn’t make for high entertainment. I feel the apps only try to sell the idea of learning a language, not the actual ability to do so.
Yeah that's a bizarre (or non-) example for a point that might be otherwise sound.
Accents aigu et grave sound completely different, and stand in for a variety of disambiguating spellings you might use (including the grave even for non loanwords: 'bless-id' vs 'blesst', for example) you could never confuse the pronunciation, they serve the opposite purpose.
In fact that example makes it seem more like a point about spelling, don't worry about writing the wrong accent. (Yeah, people will figure it out I'm sure; in English too 'bless-ayed' is nonsense, so the presence of any accent would look like 'bless-id' was intended.)