42 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >>
Bismuth Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 4363 days ago 30 posts - 46 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Icelandic, Spanish
| Message 17 of 42 29 December 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
Impressive.
I wouldn't say his accent is good in Russian, though the overall skills are fine. |
|
|
Pretty high standarts you got there. Of course his pronunciation is a little too direct and not as smoothly as a native would pronounce his russian.. but he learned russian for 1,5 years at that point, which is fairly ridiculous. Massive talent there.
He lives in Yaroslavl, the place where my father was born.. we still have a few relatives there. I'm kinda impressed somebody would go to live there.
What I noticed so far is that russian seems to be something like 'the holy grail' in polyglotism.. already heard so many polyglots who seemed to do so well in all their languages, but suddendly they are quite failing in pronouncing when speaking russian.
This bloke Alex impresses me a lot concidering that. He seems to be a worldclass 'pronouncer' as his accent in his German is absolutely minimal.. though it would be nice to hear a little bit more of his German.. but he sounds so smooth in all his other languages as well..
I think thats such an immense point in learning languages.. getting the pronounciation right. He does that in a absolute world class way.
Edited by Bismuth on 29 December 2012 at 9:39pm
5 persons have voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6609 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 18 of 42 29 December 2012 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
I only meant that what was said about his Spanish and a couple other languages is not true about Russian. He's nowhere near native-like.
Aww Yaroslavl. I really want to go there one day. Never been there.
Quote:
he learned russian for 1,5 years at that point, which is fairly ridiculous. Massive talent there.
...He seems to be a worldclass 'pronouncer' |
|
|
Some contradictions there:) Those that are naturally gifted are often very good even in their new languages, after weeks or even days rather than months. I would say when it comes to the pronunciation he's hard-working rather than talented.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Bismuth Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 4363 days ago 30 posts - 46 votes Speaks: German*, English, Russian Studies: Icelandic, Spanish
| Message 19 of 42 30 December 2012 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
SERPENT wrote:
I only meant that what was said about his Spanish and a couple other languages is not true about Russian. |
|
|
I'm not sure I understood this sentence.. what was said about his Spanish ? People on this thread were praising his Spanish, weren't they ?
SERPENT wrote:
He's nowhere near native-like. |
|
|
That's harsh man.. 'nowhere near native-like' sounds absolutely different in my ears. His russian is absolutely superb, especially regarding the level of diffculty. Of course you hear that he tries hard to pronounce correct, but you can't seriously judge him for that. If he would speak like 1-2 sentences with me, he could easily fool me.
Quote:
Some contradictions there:) Those that are naturally gifted are often very good even in their new languages, after weeks or even days rather than months. I would say when it comes to the pronunciation he's hard-working rather than talented. |
|
|
That's absolutely no contradiction. What you are implying is of course correct, but I think that can't never count for russian (just like chinese, arabic, japanese, etc.).. I think it's beyond imagination that somebody could reach the level of Alex in russian just within months or even weeks. Unless you are an autistic person, there is no way I could ever see this happen. People who learn languages within a few months or even weeks learn languages that are already related to their own languages.
Though I'm not sure whether he has his good pronunciation from hard work or simply talent.. could be his work as well, I don't know.. I think it's more likely that it's 'just' his lingual skills as he speaks 11 languages.. not everything is obtainable, you also need a fair amount of talent.
1 person has voted this message useful
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5476 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian
| Message 20 of 42 30 December 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged |
Bismuth wrote:
He lives in Yaroslavl, the place where my father was born.. we still have a few relatives
there. I'm kinda impressed somebody would go to live there. |
|
|
I lived in Yaroslavl for six months in 1995. There is (or used to be, at least) a Russian language school for
foreigners there, and many UK universities send their Russian students there for the study abroad
requirement of their degree. So, not so impressive really.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5346 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 21 of 42 30 December 2012 at 12:45am | IP Logged |
He sounded very good in all the languages I know, and the ones I have dabbled in. I obviously am not competent to have an opinion on whether his Russian is native like or not, but it certainly sounded good to me.
I would not have minded having that level in so many languages at the age of 20.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6609 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 22 of 42 30 December 2012 at 2:06am | IP Logged |
Keep the context in mind: first page.
I never said his Russian was bad, just that I couldn't call his pronunciation impressive, unlike what had been said about his other languages.
Bismuth wrote:
SERPENT wrote:
He's nowhere near native-like. |
|
|
That's harsh man..
Quote:
Some contradictions there:) Those that are naturally gifted are often very good even in their new languages, after weeks or even days rather than months. I would say when it comes to the pronunciation he's hard-working rather than talented. |
|
|
That's absolutely no contradiction. What you are implying is of course correct, but I think that can't never count for russian (just like chinese, arabic, japanese, etc.).. I think it's beyond imagination that somebody could reach the level of Alex in russian just within months or even weeks. Unless you are an autistic person, there is no way I could ever see this happen. People who learn languages within a few months or even weeks learn languages that are already related to their own languages. |
|
|
(Eowyn-style: I am no man)
I was only talking about the pronunciation. Naturally talented people do pick it up in days or weeks, not only if the language is related to one they already speak. Of course his overall level is good for the time he's spent learning the language, and even good regardless of that. (good doesn't equal fluent)
Edited by Serpent on 30 December 2012 at 2:07am
1 person has voted this message useful
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5740 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian
| Message 23 of 42 07 January 2013 at 2:58pm | IP Logged |
David Mansaray recorded an interview with Alex. You can find it on David's site.
Interview with Alex
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4856 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 24 of 42 11 January 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
Impressive guy, his German accent is nice, but nothing spectacular. I'm afraid I might be a bit spoiled by Richard and Luca as far as native-like pronunciation is concerned. Unfortunately, the end was a bit off:
Quote:
Je mehr Sprachen man lernt, desto wird es leichter. |
|
|
That should have been: "... desto leichter wird es."
Nice video though!
1 person has voted this message useful
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.4530 seconds.
DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
|