Prof Arguelles - 50 languages!

Open Forum
81

Friedemann, you are being a little dogmatic, absolutist, black and whiteist so to say. ( dare I say “again”?)

We often forget words, even in our own language. We get things rights sometimes in a new language, and get them wrong at other times. No big deal.

As for framtid (future) in Swedish, yes I hesitated over this word. “Fram” means forward, but for some reason when I retrieved from my memory the name of the book and audio book by Herman Lindqvist, called “Från Istid till Framtid” (from the Ice Age to the future), my brain suddenly told me that the book must be called from “the Ice Age to the present”, and that thought overruled, in a split second, my instinct to say “the future”. No big deal. There are always moments of hesitation, and we nail it sometimes and for some strange reason not at other times. I can assure you that I had no trouble reading those books, and even talking about them.

Peter, I use QuickLingQ and we are working to make the LingQing process even easier, no promises. BTW, for Czech I use a lot of google translate since there are few user hints. I find that the interest in the articles sustains me. I am now reading books on history away from the computer and enjoying it, although there are perhaps 15% unknown words, which I occasionally look up if they really bother me.

82

Steve,

as you know I tend to be somewhat insecure and sometimes overly critical of my own learning progress. So it is only natural for me to challenge some of the claims made by others. When I hear someone saying he knows 60.000 Russion words and 20.000 Czech words after 6 months I become skeptical. I’m not even sure that I know 20,000 words in English.

When I hear other learners say they become fluent in 3 months in a completely foreign language or that they read Chinese classic novels after a few months and pass the oral + writing exam after 12, I feel bad about my own progress. I know I shouldn’t but it is just a natural reflex I have. The other one is to find out if what they claim is actually true, and in some cases it is obviously not.

I would think that many (male) polyglots cannot deny that there is some competitive aspect to learning many languages. We constantly compare ourselves to others, that is the case in sports, in our careers and I think that part of this is actually healthy. Life is a competition, to compete is in our genes.

83

Friedemann, I still remember our pleasant dinner in Suzhou.

Yes, I think you are overly critical of your own language learning achievements, which are quite out of the ordinary, English, Norwegian, and excellent Chinese as well as your native language, and I don’t know what else.

I don’t say I know so many words, it just says so on my profile, and on my badge and that is how we count things at LingQ. It is a just an indicator that I am consuming content and progressing. As for my Chinese, I was a full time language student, did nothing but study Chinese for a year. It has taken me 5 years to achieve a lesser level in Russian, because I have few opportunities to speak and because I only had an hour a day or so to devote to mu studies.

I can hardly string a few words together in Czech, ask Zdenek or Jarda but I am accumulating words, reading books, and in the end I will speak well, but I am sure Benny would be ahead of me in terms of making small talk.

I do not feel that competitive urge that you describe. I am only impressed at the performance of others. I am wowed by Luca who speaks better and pronounces better than me in most languages, as I have said. I expect I will be similarly impressed with Richard Simcott with whom I will speak on Sunday. Some followers of my youtube channel will again comment that he is better than me. I don’t mind. I am also impressed with people who speak only a few languages, even those who don’t speak so well.

I have said that language learning is not a performance sport. It is a personal journey of discovery, for our own pleasure. We should pat ourselves on the back every day. We all have different goals, different opportunities, different interests, different strong points and weaknesses. I would like to see the community of language learners grow, and I enjoy getting together with them when I travel, as I did recently in NZ and Australia, and when we had dinner in Suzhou.

It is only a certain unnamed Leprechaun who gets to me because of his aggressive nature and bombastic claims.

84

I think that I’ll give alternative between more complex and simpler content. It can’t hurt.

Friedemann, what if I were to start learning German and at the end of 6 months, I knew 30,000+ words? Well, I’ve got advanced Dutch and intermediate Yiddish, so you wouldn’t be all that surprised. Steve had Russian before Czech. (Russian - he studied for 5 years or so).

Personally, I’ve always believed in what Steve claims as his levels in various languages. My only problem has been the ‘how?’ I’ve understood it to some degree but it’s always baffled me at the same time. I’d like to emulate it better to see how well it works. Hopefully this new tweak will help the process somewhat.

I don’t compete but I look at what others are doing to see what I could do better. I’d call it ‘learning from others’ instead of ‘competition’ or ‘comparison’. To do this, you’ve got to have a goal to begin with and the humility to see what your weaknesses are and the adaptability to change your ways when it’s needed.

85

@Friedemann: “…I would think that many (male) polyglots cannot deny that there is some competitive aspect to learning many languages. We constantly compare ourselves to others, that is the case in sports, in our careers and I think that part of this is actually healthy. Life is a competition, to compete is in our genes.”

I have to admit that I find this idea very bizarre. Compete over LANGUAGES…!? You mean the way that dumb meatheads down at the gym compare muscle-size?? Are you for real Friedemann…??? ¦:-o

Well, okay, so I wouldn’t even presume to call myself a “polyglot”, so maybe I don’t count…?

But still, this idea of competing with others over languages is absolutely not part of my personality! For example, whenever I see another native English speaker who speaks/writes German better than me, I feel genuinely pleased for that person, that he/she has achieved that very high level. The idea that I would feel envy, or that I would want to better them - no Sir, that certainly isn’t in MY genes, and I’m very happy to say so! (But maybe that comes down to having some distant Welsh and Jewish genes mixed in with the Anglo-Saxon blood? Who knows??)

My mottos in life are: “runter mit Benny”, “live and let live”, “each to his own”, “peace and goodwill to all honest men”…!

86

@JayB: And I have to say I’m glad that one of your mottos is “each to his own”, because in the past few weeks you used it in the forums so often that I finally learnt it and started using it myself :smiley: So now I always associate this phrase with you and your amiable attitude :wink:

(We, non-native English speakers, benefit from all these discussions more than you would think!)

87

I would find the idea very strange to “compete” with the language skills of people who have a well-payed and secure job, travel all around the world and live in different foreign countries - while I am here at home trying to survive financially and having talked for some years to German (!) people to practise my foreign languages English and Italian. The life circumstances are already so different that there are no language levels to match. But fortunately last weekend I talked to two of such kind of people on Skype and told them what my life circumstances are, but they immediately understood that my Spanish could not be so good that I could talk with a native South American accent of several countries there and know the slang words of such countries - but could only use my “university Spanish” with some kind of German accent, only spoken on Skype here in Germany and never spoken with any native speakers of Spanish.

Fasulye

88

@Customic

I’m glad you guys are learning English phrases here at the forum! :wink:

(Actually, I would say that “each to his own” is a phrase that Steve probably uses more than I do. But hey…)

@Fasulye

I agree. However, even if I were in exactly the same position as Friedemann (living in China, etc) I still wouldn’t feel any envy towards him because of his very good level Chinese. And I wouldn’t feel driven to “compete” with him over this.

So again, I just don’t understand this attitude at all…

89

BTW

Now that I think about it, I guess it should be “nieder mit Benny” rather than “runter mit ihm”, huh…?
(Aber egal…)

90

Friedemann, what if I were to start learning German and at the end of 6 months, I knew 30,000+ words? Well, I’ve got advanced Dutch and intermediate Yiddish, so you wouldn’t be all that surprised. Steve had Russian before Czech. (Russian - he studied for 5 years or so).

@Imyirtseshem The difference between Russian&Czech is rather comparable to the one between German&Icelandic, than German&Dutch.

91

Czech is far more complex grammatically and the vocabulary is at least 50% the same? I’d call that a big advantage. Let’s remember that Steve already has successfully learned over 10 languages.

In any case, Steve often learns languages which are related to ones he already knows. Absolutely a smart move in my opinion. He’s far more experienced than most of us. That’s to be expected. It’s a mix of those two things, I think.

92

and the vocabulary is at least 50% the same

No way!

93

By Wikipedia’s statistics (which come from the Oxford uni), English has Germanic: ~26% vocabulary and French: ~29% vocabulary. That 26% has really helped me with Dutch. That 29% is really helping me with French. I’d imagine that the Latin (a further ~29%) in English also helps with French too. Also, I most likely don’t know all of those words even in English.

I’ve seen figures for Russian-Czech which are 40-50%. Even if they were half of this is would still be a huge benefit.

94

Jay, thanks mate for all your uplifting words!!

Well, I am only kidding of course, but am I the only person on the planet who has ever experienced to envy someone? I still think that competing with others is a natural thing. When I did competitive swimming I tried to be better than others and there were constant rivalries even among friends within our team. The same at school where we would compare marks, or later at University. In our company we compete with other companies for business. Some men compete for women.

In language learning I can say that the polyglots I really respect like Luca, Richard, Steve, they are certainly mainly sources of inspiration for me. Having said that, when I was struggling with Chinese, some of the success stories of other Chinese learners including our host just made me feel really bad about my own progress or perceived lack thereof. I just found my pitiful level of comprehension so frustrating and reading about others’ results only made it worse.

However the only one person that really got my blood boiling was our Irish friend, and I am almost too embarassed to admit that here. I was in the midst of my struggle with Chinese and along comes this guy telling me basically I am too stupid to learn properly and he is now going to show us how to get to C1 in Chinese in three months. The most annoying thing about him is the fact that it got to me to the extent it did.

So the bottom line is, I know I should feel better about my own progress and that is not always easy, but I am trying to become better at it.

95

“Having said that, when I was struggling with Chinese, some of the success stories of other Chinese learners including our host just made me feel really bad about my own progress or perceived lack thereof. I just found my pitiful level of comprehension so frustrating and reading about others’ results only made it worse.”

This is exactly what I experience at times. However, I don’t give up. I try to learn from those people (hence the annoying questions I always ask Steve, for example) to see if I can step my game up another notch. So far, I think that this has worked. I’ve still got a lot of room to improve, but I’m convinced that I am improving. There’s nothing worse that feeling you’re not/barely improving.

96

“You mean the way that dumb meatheads down at the gym compare muscle-size?”

Hey!

97

@Friedemann
“However the only one person that really got my blood boiling was our Irish friend, and I am almost too embarassed to admit that here. I was in the midst of my struggle with Chinese and along comes this guy telling me basically I am too stupid to learn properly and he is now going to show us how to get to C1 in Chinese in three months.”

For what it’s worth, in his just released email newsletter, he’s now said that he’s not yet claiming fluency in Mandarin and won’t make it by the three month mark. He does claim he’ll be at a B2 level “in a few weeks”, though, so take that as you may. Personally, I think that if he’s saying he’s not yet fluent at any level, he won’t make B2 in a few weeks either. He’ll be traveling in China for the next three months and switching his mission to “cultural”, rather than linguistic.

R.

98

In my experience the distance from beginner to A2 is much shorter than the distance from A2 to B2. It is a long road from A2 to B2.

99

Having gone through that for one language and being in the middle of it for another, I’d agree with that Steve. I guess it’s what they call the ‘intermediate plateau’. Later comes the C1+ plateau. That one isn’t so bad in some regards. You’re capable enough with the language to get around, understand, read what you’d like (most of the time).

100

The C1 - level plateau of a foreign is a nice plateau because with a C1 - level you can do everything. From my estimation I have a C1 - level in English and there is nothing what I can’t do with this language besides specialised professional work which requires adapted training. For me the beginner’s plateau A1 / A2 is harder because with an intermediate plateau you should be able to at least think / write / and speak the foreign language. I am not at all unhappy with my B1 Spanish, to give an example.

Fasulye