INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2012 on Thursday, 08 March 2012
As a group of female polyglots we had a long Skype discussion about female language learners and polyglots and my discussion partner has made a You Tube video about this.
The new video is not public yet, but tomorrow on Thursday, I will post the link here in this thread!
Fasulye
The on video recorded Skype discussion will be in English only. I suggested to talk in several languages but the majority of us three females was against this proposal. It will be a long discussion of 42 minutes duration.
Fasulye
But worth the wait! Really looking forward to it.
Nice to hear - as well for my two female discussion partners - that there are so many people curious about listening to our new video. It will be something completely new, there has never been such a discussion in English on the internet recorded in a video.
Fasulye
It never ceases to amaze me how many “polyglots” there are who only want (or are only able?) to speak their native language plus English!
Bilingualism is great, but it isn’t the same as being a polyglot. A person surely has to be able to demonstrate at least 3 foreign languages (at level B2 and C1) in order to justify the description “polyglot”!?
@Rank “It never ceases to amaze me how many “polyglots” there are who only want (or are only able?) to speak their native language plus English!”
I know what you mean Rank but somehow thanks to that kind of comments many people aren’t that comfy about wanting to speak more than their native lang and english xD
btw, my english sucks so I would not be able to speak english but my native one
I wouldn’t count any of them as polyglots, Rank. Of course, the specific number is always going to a difficult point. I consider 3 to be too low even. Of course, that’s just my opinion.
There are some unknown polyglots who never get attention on the internet.
John Hanson is an American who works for IMF and lives in Washington DC. He is fluent in more than 15 languages, Urdu is one of them. He visited Pakistan at the age of 19 and became interested to learn Urdu.
Hasn’t he made The Critical Period Hypothesis wrong because he started learning the language after the age of 19? On my ears, he does not have an accent. One of the best non -native Urdu speakers I have ever come across. If I take off my eyes from his face and instead focus on his audio, I will take him as a native speaker.
So they would really love to speak all these languages - but they can’t because people would be interested to hear them…
Huh…!? :-0
A few questions: How many languages does one need to speak to be considered a polyglot? Common numbers I usually hear are 4 or 5.
What’s the definition of bilingual? I have heard anything from “Speaking two languages fluently” to the extreme “having two native languages and perfect command in both”. The most practical definition to me seems to be “speaking (fluently) in two languages routinely in daily life.”
Is it possible these plyglots just chose to speak in English so that they could reach a larger audience? Steve and Luca just released a video yesterday where they speak to each other for 20 minutes, and the whole time it is in English.
@Rank nope… just notice the quotation marks -“polyglots”- and the parentheses -(or are only able?)-
so they would really love to speak all these langs but they can’t because of those people interested to " " and ( ) xD
…
but hey, I know there are a lot of people who are in that range you’re talking about and do deserve those quotation marks and parenthesis, and I am one of those " " and ( ) “labelers”… my language skills are quite low but I love to… mmm…
anyway, in short let’s say it’s just this time it seemed to me kinda rude, that’s all
Why only in English?
It will be a video of three female polyglots discussing female language learners and polyglots. One point is that we have to use common languages. I for example don’t speak Japanese, Mandarin Chinese or Russian. The other two polyglots for example don’t speak my languages German, Dutch and Esperanto. The more participants you have in one discussion, the more difficult it gets to match the language of the conversation. As far as I am informed the only second language in which we could have spoken, would have been French. More than two languages on a fluency level - English and French - we don’t have in common.
I think this explains our language choice a bit better, even if I would have liked to speak more than just one language during the conversation.
Fasulye
@Fasulye
Okay - that’s a very fair and logical explanation. (But I’m still left wondering why you suggested speaking in several languages in the first place?)
@Odiernod
I guess there’s a long debate about the exact definition of a polyglot.
But I would say being ‘bilingual’ simply means you are fluent (i.e. at least B2 level) in a language other than your native tongue.
Being ‘natively bilingual’ means you were brought up and educated in two languages, so that they are like twin native tongues.
Although…there are other ways of looking at the matter…
(Start the video at 1.06) 
My first suggestion was to make a multilingual Skype call, but in the beginning of our contact I didn’t know the You Tube channels of my female discussion partners. So I wasn’t enough informed about which languages they speak at which level. Later I noticed that they don’t speak any German, Dutch and Esperanto at all. One of them speaks no Italian and is not fluent enough in Spanish.
It was easier to make a multilingual video with Richard Simcott for example because he speaks all of my languages. And he has been a Skypie of mine for a long time so I have a clear idea that he speaks these languages and on which level.
With these female polyglots I wasn’t aquainted before. In fact it will be a video of unknown people talking to each other and from this event on we will get closer in contact.
With long-lasting Skypies of course I know exactly to which extent they speak my own foreign languages.
Concerning my French I would say that my speaking level is around B2.
Fasulye
Yeah, Richard Simcott is the real deal.
(And so is Fasulye, of course.)
The other women? Well…perhaps…?
Haha, yes, I have little regard for Mr. Chomsky and this is one of my favorite videos. You can tell he is extremely annoyed but trying not to show it. I crack up every time when Ali G asks about multilingualism involving animals
Yes it’s so uncomplicated with Richard - Which of my languages I choose, he speaks them as well. And even Danish, which is not such a common language for foreigners to learn. It isn’t even offered as a language here on LingQ. 
Fasulye
Tomorrow I will finally present the video and introduce my female discussion partners. I know that you guys are really curious but I will still wait “one night’s sleep” until you can listen to the video with additional infos about the other two participants of the discussion.
Fasulye
Glad to hear this! For me it’s real fun to switch languages in a conversation but of course you have to have somebody who speaks the same languages. I could imagine a conversation partner who speaks also my languages but I first want to have regular Skype contact with him. And recording a video is always a project of consensus, so one has to find an agreement with the other people.
I am really open to making videos with together with other people - may they be men or women.
Fasulye
A video about female polyglots in English only? Aw, that’s no fun…