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My story, what’s yours? # of languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6041 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 18 03 January 2012 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems like at least once a week, someone asks me " so, how many languages do you speak anyway?". My answer is usually "I have no idea!". I really don't. So, for New Year’s this year I thought, what the heck, perhaps I should tally them up and see how many I do “speak”. I have studied quite a few foreign languages over the years: some for school, some for work, some for travel... But the majority of them have been " just for fun"! Most people I tell this to can't wrap their heads around it. Why on earth would someone voluntarily study a foreign language "just for fun" ? Especially one with little chance of actually being spoken with someone ? ( yes, I actually bought a Zulu audio course once so I could figure out how to do clicks!). Most Americans that I know totally dreaded their obligatory High School language courses. They merely endured them and as a result speak one language, English. The idea that anyone would voluntarily subject them to the process comes across as just plain crazy. After all, "eeeeveryone speaks English, right?!?” Yep, I am a bit crazy and that does help. But, I think the real reason I do this goes deeper than this. I think my love of languages started back when I was a child. Our family would take several week trips to remote areas of Mexico every year and it would drive me nuts that I wasn't able to communicate with most of the people. We usually went to areas where very few people were able to speak English and as a result, I was determined to learn some Spanish. 4 years of High School Spanish and 2 semesters of University Spanish later, I could pretty much hold my own in Mexico speaking Spanish. My Senior University year I spent a summer in Spain where all my classes were conducted in Spanish. Unfortunately, all my interactions outside of class were in English with the other U students. A cautionary note: if you intend to go abroad for an "immersion" experience, avoid other Americans like the plague...unless you feel that your English needs work... The true value of this experience abroad came after my term had ended and I set out to explore as much of Europe as possible - in four weeks! Traveling through twelve different countries I found my experiences improved considerably by allowing myself to get out of my comfort zone. I intentionally sought out the destinations less frequented by tourists in order to get a better sense of what each country was truly about. English was rarely spoken but I was amazed to find that with a phrase book/dictionary and a little effort, I could be understood in languages that I had never studied before! In return, I was rewarded with hospitality, generosity and insight into cultures that there is no way I would have received if I did not make these efforts to speak with people in their own languages. My curiosity was then ignited. I started to learn more about language families, mutual intelligibilities, dialects, different alphabets and scripts. It was like I uncovered a universal puzzle with thousands of little pieces to be mastered one by one. When I returned, I only had one semester left in school so I had to make the most of my limited time. I concurrently enrolled in Russian and Arabic. Not the easiest languages to pick up, but they were in different scripts and totally unrelated to any language that I had come into contact with. I didn’t “master” either one in my one semester, but this became a springboard into the study of many, many others which continues to this day. So, back to the original questions; Why do I study all these languages for fun and How many languages do I know? For the first question, sometimes it is simply for the challenge, or because the language sounds cool, or because I love the script, or because there is a Greek speaking restaurateur down the street and I can try to speak with him in the tongue of his motherland, or because I love the music of the country and want to be able to sing along ( however badly ) ... The reasons I study them are as diverse as the languages themselves. There isn’t a specific reason. For the second question, I suppose it comes down to how well I can speak the language. I do believe from my experiences abroad that one can “know” a language without necessarily being “fluent” in the language. Since the main reason I study is for travel, I devised my own spoken fluency spectrum which encompasses my needs. Maybe I’ll call it the “Liddy Scale” :-) I then self-assessed how well I speak the languages that I have studied and ranked them according to the scale. Level 1: Very basic knowledge of the language. Rudimentary familiarity with the language’s grammar. Knowledge of several basic phrases from memory for example: Basic Greetings and polite expressions, How much is this?, Do you have a room?, I’d like to order this, I’m learning _ x_ I need help, Am I going to get violently ill if I drink/eat this? etc... Able to have basic needs met with the help of a phrase book. Level 2: A basic knowledge with ability to construct several phrases freely without a phrase book. Basic conversations should be fairly easy but beyond this, help of a phrase book / dictionary is necessary. Able to comprehend if the speaker speaks slowly and deliberately although much in the way of gesturing is still needed. I would estimate that a three level Pimsleur course should get one to this level. Level 3: A good command of verb tenses, aspect, case declinations, plural formation gender formation and other components of syntax. Conversations on most common subjects should be fairly effortless. Help with phrase books or dictionaries is necessary with less routine subject matter. Speaker is still likely to have an accent. Ability to understand over 50% of news broadcasts and movies, more if subtitles are used as an aid. I would estimate level 1 of an FSI type course should get one to this level. Level 4: Thorough command of grammar and syntax. Ease with production and comprehension of most conversations. Ability to understand most news broadcasts and movies without subtitles. Help with phrase books or dictionaries may be necessary for highly technical subjects. I would estimate level 1 and 2 of an FSI type course should get one to this level. Level 5: “Fluent”. Can engage in any conversation easily and pick up the subtle nuances of humor and irony. A dictionary or phrase book should seldom if ever be needed. Reaching this level without being in an immersion program or residing in-country would be extremely difficult. Level 6 : Native Proficiency. ‘Nuff said. So here are the languages that I have studied and my self-assessed fluency levels of them: Level 5 Spanish Level 4 Portuguese Italian Galician Level 3 Haitian Creole Turkish Hungarian French Level 2 Hindi/Urdu Greek German Arabic (Written and Gulf Dialect) Dutch Mandarin Chinese Japanese Russian (used to be a 3 but lack of practice has demoted it to a 2 :-( … ) Level 1 Persian Swahili Romanian Serbo-Croatian Thai Vietnamese Finnish Korean So there it is. I speak anywhere from 1 - 24 languages aside from English depending on what level you would consider “speaking”. For me, I would consider Level 3 and above “speaking” a language and below that having “knowledge of” a language. This is of course very subjective and I’m sure there are as many opinions on this as there are languages! I do strongly believe that any knowledge of a country’s language, no matter how basic, is a tool that can greatly enhance a trip to that country. My experiences have proven that it can introduce a window into its people that would not exist without any knowledge of its language! 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5146 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 18 03 January 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I once had a Hebrew teacher who seemed to know a bunch of languages. I asked him the inevitable question - "How many do you speak" - and he just smiled, and said: Let's just say that I can get fed in many countries". You do not look like you would starve either:-)
For myself I guess I could be summed up as follows: Level 5 Spanish English Level 4 French Level 3 Italian German Level 1-2 Russian And then I have no idea where I would put Swedish and Danish. I understand approximately 98% of both written and spoken Swedish, and 99% of written and 90% of spoken Danish. If what we measure however is spoken output, I might make a level 4 in Swedish, though with a really funny accent, and could not produce Danish to save my life :-) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4527 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 3 of 18 04 January 2012 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
What's the problem with Danish, Cristina? =) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 18 04 January 2012 at 1:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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It all depends on how you learn and what your goals are. If you don't use textbooks with "touristy" texts and phrases, you might get to a high level without knowing them. However, I don't think you can call it basic fluency if you won't get by in the country of your target language. But intermediate, why not?
and exactly, as Christin said, there's a huge problem with where to put related languages. I have had fun with some of the advanced Croatian materials at GLOSS - but I don't speak it at all! It's kinda the same with my Romance languages, out of which I have only studied Portuguese formally/properly. I just put it the way it is - I speak some Portuguese and I also understand Spanish and Italian, but I can't speak them. Instead of giving the number, I mention some of the languages :) And well, I guess at this forum you can usually safely say that if someone lists a language as "speaks", they, well, speak it :) I suppose on your scale, 3 corresponds to basic fluency. depending on the person, 4-5 will correspond to advanced fluency. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6041 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 18 04 January 2012 at 4:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Ha ha! That's great. Although that is what the gesturing is for in the early stages! You point at your belly with a desperate face and that gets the point across in any language!! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5963 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 18 04 January 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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The following doesn't reflect the effort I've put into the languages. E.g. several months of Portuguese study brought me further than the years spent tackling Russian or Hungarian.
As I used to track my study for the various TAC's, I've included the approximate hours I've spent on each one. Level 4/5 Spanish ~ 1,500 hours Level 3/4 French ~ 900 hours (+ 6 years schooling) Level 3 Irish ~ 0 hours (15 years schooling) Portuguese ~ 200 hours Russian ~550 hours Level 2/3 Hungarian ~ 450 hours Italian ~ 100 hours Level 2 Thai ~ 200 hours (includes classes in Thailand) Greek ~ 150 hours Indonesian ~ 150 hours Danish ~ 100 hours Level 1/2 Polish ~ 80 hours Estonian ~ 50 hours Cantonese ~ 50 hours Czech ~ 50 hours German ~ 30 hours Edited by DaraghM on 04 January 2012 at 10:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5146 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 18 04 January 2012 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, as I said I understand everything, but pronouncing Danish is not for the faint of heart. I guess if I deliberately went out to study pronouncing Danish , I would at some point manage to, but so far, the only Norwegians I know who can pronounce Danish, are those who have family in Denmark. They eat up 80% of their consonants, which makes it pretty hard to do. In Swedish it is different, I have been singing Swedish since I was a kid, and have had conversations in Swedish, even though I feel really strange when I do so, but Danish. I could not even do one sentence. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 18 04 January 2012 at 11:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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My problem with Norwegian is that it is impossible to keep all those dialects apart (although there are some broad tendencies), and that a bad attempt to speak it would sound like an attempt to make fun of our Northerly brethren. Actually I once did a video in Norwegian, but luckily few people have watched it.
The question of passive versus active skills has much to do with this question about related languages (and dialects). I have tried to learn Low German and Scots as separate entities, but so far not the Danish dialects. But I understand them in the form you can meet them here in 2012 (they may have been more extreme and less comprehensible 100 years ago, before television and radio), and I have in fact written messages here at HTLAL in Synnejysk (= Southern Jutish). To do this I imagine my mother's neighbour reading aloud from the magazine given out by the Synnejysk Forening, which you can find on the internet. After a time this activity puts me in a 'synnejysk' state where I can write a decent travesty in the dialect, and afterwards I check spellings etc. against those in the magazine and correct those errors I can find. But to date, I have not even tried to speak Synnejysk. I use the same method when I write in something resembling Nynorsk (New Norwegian) - but I simply don't know whether a native speaker would recognize it as true New Norwegian or just categorize it as a mock-up. However it is fun to do it, so I don't intend to stop. So when I count languages and dialects I only include those which I studied formally (with wordlists, grammars etc.), but not those in which I theoretically might be able to write something (in the same way that I wrote those things in Synnejysk and Nynorsk). 'Tourist survival phrases' is another problem. Last time I was on a safari in Tanzania I deliberately tried to learn the name of the main animals in Swahili, and I can also say "pole pole" and a few other things. I have even read an overview of the grammar. But a few words and phrases and isolated facts about the grammar do not suffice to make me include Swahili among 'my' languages. Roughly speaking I would say that there are around 10-12 languages which I can speak with little or no warning, and around the same number in which I can write, but you wouldn't want to hear me speak without preparation. On top of that there are at least thirty languages in/about which I know 'something', but at a level where I can't claim that I know the language - not even as a beginner. Edited by Iversen on 04 January 2012 at 1:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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