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Certified polyglots | ||
Tags: Diploma/Certificate | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4035 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 21 13 April 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
We understand them from different perspectives then. I view them as this "rite of passage" thing that is more or like "hello youtube's community of language enthusiasts". I don't even see any point in rehearsing or pretending you speak languages that you don't speak, where's the gain in that? Odd that people would view those videos as trying to "prove" something, I never got that vibe but I guess I understand that. I was thinking of doing some videos in Icelandic and so on so as to get feedback from Icelanders. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4250 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 10 of 21 13 April 2014 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Isn't youtube (or the internet) a popular vehicle for people craving attention? Just off the top of my head. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4035 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 21 13 April 2014 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, but why discredit everyone if some people might do it for the purpose of attention? Feels kind of cynical to me, especially if the person is not selling anything. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jpmtl Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 3784 days ago 44 posts - 115 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 12 of 21 13 April 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
My issue with this - assuming the suggestion is serious - is that it would glorify or encourage extreme behaviors and or disorders, like TLC reality shows do. All human beings need balance in their life, and there is no way you could be the winner of such competition unless you spend all of your time awake studying languages. It's one thing to be a polyglot, it's another one to try to accumulate more B1 or B2 certificates than any other human being on earth. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6987 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 13 of 21 14 April 2014 at 12:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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And it's another to be the World Record Holder.
Not everyone can eat more hot dogs or hard boiled eggs or cockroaches than anyone else. Some will have to seek their fame in less flamboyant pursuits. Note: The fastest time to eat 2 hot dogs is 47 seconds. Note 2: 141 hard boiled eggs in 8 minutes. Edited by luke on 14 April 2014 at 1:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5843 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 14 of 21 14 April 2014 at 1:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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To be frank, I don't see what the fuss is all about. Language certificates have their role in the marketplace, helping hire people. It's a tool like any other.
Sometimes, people in this forum tend to have a zealot approach about these subjects: "oh, he's got a C1 diploma, but he's really more of a B1, with a terrible accent...". I live in Europe (where CEFR levels are de rigueur) and most of the people I speak with never heard of them. Most of them use terms like "fluent", "a bit", "reasonable", etc. I won't go to the extreme of my parents, who, when asked if they could speak French or English, invariably answered "un petit peu" or "a little bit" (I heard that a lot throughout my childhood). I guess back then it was polite to be modest and downplay your knowledge. I think sometimes people here should lighten up a bit. Not everyone is a priest at the HTLAL temple. Most people in the world speak foreign languages because they need to. EDIT: I forgot to say I don't watch "polyglot" videos on Youtube. Edited by Luso on 14 April 2014 at 1:43am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6485 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 15 of 21 14 April 2014 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Craving for attention? Well, I made some videos a couple of years ago, but I have stopped now because I didn't learn much from the exercise, and there are so many language videos on the net now that my absence from that scene can't be a problem for anybody.
And how did it happen? Well, first I was asked to tell about my language learning methods (in English), and I did. The content was roughly the same as in my Guide here at HTLAL, but I personally prefer reading to listening. Some members here at HTLAL and a few others found them, and hopefully they found them useful, but I can't understand why anybody would want a video when they can get a written explanation. When I had made a dozen or so 'educational' videos I thought it might be fun to make one video in each of my languages (with the last half of each video spent on a summary in English). It was quite easy with some languages, tougher with others - and a nightmare of memorizing lots of expressions and editing the result afterwards in a few select languages like Polish which I blatantly didn't speak (and I did point this out in the videos for these languages). I had hoped for some effect on my skills, but I couldn't see any longterm effect. So I stopped wasting my time on those videos. My current belief is that doing things which are way too difficult doesn't add to your skills, contrary to activities where you can get some kind of 'flow'. Alongside the bilingual videos I had made a few multilingual videos (though never of the type with ten or twenty languages in one video), and then I thought I could make such multilingual videos about my paintings. But hardly anyone bothered to watch them, and then I couldn't be bothered to make them. So there my video career ended. If anybody thinks this venture could be called attention seeking then you are welcome to do so, but then anything except sitting totally silent in a dark hole in the ground and waiting for doomsday could be seen as attention seeking. * As for formal certificates I have my university exam in French from 1982, and that's almost certainly the last language in this world I'm going to get certified. I can understand that people might need those expensive and elusive diplomas for the sake of their career, and I have done some anonymous tests on the internet just to see what the result might be, but apart from that I just want to learn languages for fun, travel, write here at HTLAL and attend a few conferences. That's the essence of being a happy amateur. * EDIT: It just occurred to me that even that could be seen as attention craving: there is actually a program called "Doomsday preppers" on one of the American documentary channels! Edited by Iversen on 04 May 2014 at 4:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4250 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 16 of 21 14 April 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Henklles asked for a reason why someone would gain from such a trouble.
I gave one, the most accomodating I'll add. How were you or others personally criticized by my words? I've personally seen your videos and I found the ones for the Italian language genuine. I found someone else reciting the translation of the same script in 20 different languages, and for that I can't come up with any good looking explanation. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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