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Terutoyo Taneda: 20 languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6276 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 1 of 16 22 March 2007 at 12:18am | IP Logged |
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Has anyone heard of a Japanese polyglot named Terutoyo Taneda? It is said that he can speak 20 languages fluently. I came across some information about him on a Japanese website, but there seems to be very little written about him in English. Apparently he wrote a book in Japanese called 「20ヶ国語ぺらぺら」("Fluent in 20 Languages") in 1969 and then pretty much disappeared. His book seems to be somewhat well-known amongst aspiring polyglots in Japan. It is thought that he now resides in the United States, but no one really knows what (if anything) he has been doing with his languages, whether he has learned anymore languages, etc. Apparently he had learned over half of his 20 languages by the age of 20, and all 20 of them by the age of 30. The above-mentioned Japanese website included the following chart (the years on the left refer to the year in which he began studying each language):
1939（birth） 1951（12 y.o.）： English（Junior High Grade 1） 1954（15 y.o.）： French（High School Grade 1） 1955（16 y.o.）： Swedish, German, Russian (High School Grade 2 with Study Abroad in the USA) 1956（17 y.o.）： Finnish (High School Grade 2） 1957（18 y.o.）： Dutch, Chinese（High School Grade 3） 1959（20 y.o.）： Italian, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic（College Freshman） 1960（21 y.o.）： Persian, Turkish（College Sophomore）、Spanish 1965（26 y.o.）： Portuguese 1966（27 y.o.）： Latin, Greek 1967（28 y.o.）： Czchech, Indonesian, Romanian, Korean, Arabic 1969（30）： "Fluent in 20 Languages" is published. Kind of interesting, eh? For anyone who can read Japanese, here's a link to that website: http://ijustat.at.infoseek.co.jp/gaikokugo/taneda.html 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6254 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 2 of 16 22 March 2007 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the info, janalisa!
I wonder where he found time to study multiple languages in college? Are there translations of his book available in English? I tried Googling it, but I didn't have much success. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| japkorengchi
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