For me if someone is talented in an area, it means they excel in that area. I would use the term natural talent or gifted to indicate an innate talent. Thus I don’t agree with the dictionary, but I can’t say how widespread this view is.
There are some wonderful books by Edward Said, which I think you would greatly enjoy. They are in English, but clearly that’s not an issue for you.
Essentially he argues that most of what people see as natural talent is in fact nothing of the sort, and is in fact due to hard work and/or luck. Thus a child raised in a musical family will have their ear tuned to music, and will do better in hearing tests at school. They will have talent. A child raised in a multilingual family will learn other languages more easily because they understand the nature of a foreign language. They will have talent. Kenyans are known for long distance running. Research showed that the runners come from a small area where the children run long distances from a young age as part of their lifestyle. Thus they are the product of systematic training not good DNA. They will have talent.
A friend told me that he was annoyed that he learnt karate so slowly, whereas his wife learnt naturally, she had talent. The teacher, who had been to the Olympics as a competitor, told him that he too lacked natural talent. What mattered was hard work, yes some people progress quicker initially, but they eventually hit a wall, and often give up because they’re not used to working to earn their progress.
Essentially, yes. I am a beginner in German, approaching intermediate according to LingQ.
A significant problem I have is a poor memory, and unfortunately German vocabulary is mostly very different from English. I find that I normally learn words very slowly. Reading words often - the LingQ method - is simply not enough in German. Basically for me it does not work. I’ve started to slow down and focus on each word, to play around with it, and that helps it stick. In fact I can often remember a word after one encounter using that method. Thus die Regierung, die Raumsonde, das Raumschiff and das Rettungspaket are examples from yesterday that I was able to recall today. I think this comes back to your earlier point, that just because it works for one person, in this case Steve Kaufmann, that doesn’t mean it works for someone else, me in this case. As for LingQ using the natural method, it doesn’t because it lacks the emotional and physical context associated with natural learning during childhood.
Well, indeed scientific papers (I did a quick search when I wrote the last post) are using the term in both ways. In German it is only used in the sense as I took from the dictionary (there are all kinds of definition there, though, although mostly outdated). Maybe in English it is used in a broader sense. But it was also based on the impression I’ve gotten from the post I was responding, too. If some people are more talented to learn something, it is something they have. If talent can be acquired, then lacking the talent would just mean that you should first acquire the talent and then use that to learn the actual skill. In that case stating that some are more talented then others as a reason for them performing worse doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, then. And talent would be a synonym for skill.
I guess it’s just one of those words people use in everyday conversation without spending much time on its precise meaning. Makes discussions complicated, though.
Oh my…
From what you wrote about his work I wholeheartly agree with him.
Now that is interesting. One of the things that make me consider English to be an relatively easy to learn language (for a German speaker) is the similarities in vocabulary. But maybe that’s just my perception. It could be that due to the lack of declination and conjugation to the degree you can find it in German, English is easier for an German as vice versa. Although I must admit that the examples you gave are indeed not very similar to its English pendants. Well, ship-Schiff and package-Paket maybe. Rettungspaket is a rather specific term, though. I only ever heard it in one context. One of those fancy terms politicians use to distract you from how they messed up again.
