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Vietnamese girl speaks 11 languages

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
108 messages over 14 pages: 13 4 5 6 7 ... 2 ... 13 14 Next >>
ilanbg
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6358 days ago

166 posts - 189 votes 
Speaks: French, English*
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (classical), Persian

 
 Message 9 of 108
19 January 2008 at 5:03pm | IP Logged 
Gilgamesh wrote:
ilanbg wrote:
I've only been studying the language for about five months now
and I can read at a better level.



You did notice we are speaking about a child?


Her Arabic wasn't up to par with her Spanish or English. I'm commenting on how fluent she is—it hardly has to be
said that her language skills are amazing.
1 person has voted this message useful



bluecollar
Groupie
United States
Joined 6102 days ago

43 posts - 48 votes

 
 Message 10 of 108
21 January 2008 at 7:27am | IP Logged 
Come on guys!!!So far,all I can see is a few comments from English speakers.Are there people from other parts of the world on this forum?
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6651 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 11 of 108
21 January 2008 at 10:29am | IP Logged 
That kid is pretty amazing. It seems that she has learnt her languages mostly by speaking: her French was colloquial rather than formal, and I noticed that she had some problems reading Cyrillic letters, but spoke Russian without much hesitation (though not without a lot of giggling). In French she was not quite sure what kind of meat she had eaten, but in the Vietnamese cuisine that can be a real problem - it can be anything from prawns to dogs. In the English text she did hesitate at the word "larkspur" - but they may not have larkspurs growing in Vietnam (and even I had to walk the long way to my English-Danish dictionary to find out exactly which kind of flower it is).

So my conclusion must be that she has been living in a very cosmopolitan setting, and she has avidly sucked up every single language that anybody in that neighbourhood spoke without going through too much formal study - which must be seen as a positive thing in a world of harshly trained wonderkids. And getting acquainted with eleven languages before you are eight must be the ideal start for a budding hyperpolyglot. Most people here would be happy to know just a couple of languages at that age

ilanbg wrote:

I noticed that she recited the languages she speaks in the same order every time; I don't know if that's a common thing for people to do when they know that many languages. Can anyone comment on that?


She may have been asked so many times that she has settled for one way of ordering them. I sometimes quote mine after lingustic relationship (Germanic first, then Romance ), sometimes in the order that I have learnt them. But if I was asked the same question hundreds of times I might settle for one sorting order.

Which make me think: it is a little bit unsettling that somebody makes so many films of an 8 year old child just to publish them on youtube - even though it must be tempting to do it in such a case.


Edited by Iversen on 21 January 2008 at 10:54am

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bluecollar
Groupie
United States
Joined 6102 days ago

43 posts - 48 votes

 
 Message 12 of 108
21 January 2008 at 11:31am | IP Logged 
This little girl composes music too.You can listen to her music on showcaseyourmusic.com.Type wendy vo.
1 person has voted this message useful



apparition
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6598 days ago

600 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Pashto

 
 Message 13 of 108
22 January 2008 at 12:10am | IP Logged 
That's 100% awesome.

Ah, to be a kid with nothing but time and a room with a bunch of native speakers (or polyglot parents).


1 person has voted this message useful



Cisa
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6367 days ago

312 posts - 309 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: Hungarian*, Slovak, FrenchC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin, SpanishB2, RussianB2, GermanB2, Korean, Czech, Latin
Studies: Italian, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Hindi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew

 
 Message 14 of 108
22 January 2008 at 5:57am | IP Logged 
She´s a clever little girl! Even if she does not speak those languages fluently,then what?

She´s on the right way to become a polyglot ;) and it is a really nice achievement from a child of her age. :)
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bluecollar
Groupie
United States
Joined 6102 days ago

43 posts - 48 votes

 
 Message 15 of 108
22 January 2008 at 10:51am | IP Logged 
Wendy Vo must be thrilled to hear positive comments from professional linguists like you guys.It seems she is the real deal.
1 person has voted this message useful



Vlad
Trilingual Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Czechoslovakia
foreverastudent.com
Joined 6532 days ago

443 posts - 576 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French
Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese

 
 Message 16 of 108
22 January 2008 at 12:45pm | IP Logged 
She's a very clever girl, I agree with all the positive comments.

The best part I thought was her accent in the languages she spoke and the fact that she could read in them. Her accents blew me away actually. Someone mentioned here, that by the sound she wouldn't pass as a native..well in my eyes she would pass as a native 8 year old girl.

For those saying they can read better than her..well thank God. She's 8! what's that.. 1st grade/2nd grade? I'd like to see an average 8 year old girl from an Arabic speaking country read something for comparison. I don't think her results were strikingly worse.

I really keep my fingers crossed so that she will keep up with this.

thumbs up!


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