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Discussion: The Polyglot Thread-#IfPopGirlsWereLanguages
Member Since: 4/4/2014
Posts: 8,883
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I would advice anyone who wants to learn a new language to get into music in that language.
Look for videos on YouTube that have onscreen lyrics. It helps me A LOT with my French.
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 2,413
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I fluenty speak three languages :
Tamil being my mothertongue (like M.I.A.); then comes French and finally English. I learned the latter solely by watching a huge amount of American TV series (can't really trust French educational system when it comes to teaching an other language) but for some weird reason, I have a british accent.
I also have some notions of Spanish, I can kinda understand a conversation with a lot of guessing, but I'm absolutely not fluent at it; wish I was but my brain probably won't be able to handle it.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 10,195
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Oh!
1. What is your native language? - English
2. What's your second language? When did you learn it? - Portuguese, because I moved there when I was very young.
3. What other languages do you speak? - Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Korean
4. To what level are you proficient in each? Spanish fluently, Japanese to a good degree (although my writing is terrible), Italian to an okayish degree and Korean I just started taking classes for recently.
5. How has being a polyglot impacted your life? - I've made most of my closest friends because of this and it's opened me up to a lot more.
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 5,524
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i speak french, traditional spanish, latin american spanish, british english, american english, and know sign language
6 languages total for me just like melania trump
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Member Since: 9/4/2008
Posts: 11,720
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English
Croatian
Slovenian
French
Italian
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 5,524
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Quote:
Originally posted by JessLM
I would advice anyone who wants to learn a new language to get into music in that language.
Look for videos on YouTube that have onscreen lyrics. It helps me A LOT with my French.
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this is so true, if anyone wants to learn spanish, listen to JLO
JLO's spanish songs are great and very advanced with the vocabulary, great educational tool
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 57,339
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if you're going to troll, at least be funny
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 17,232
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While my parents consider themselves Lebanese, I'm far more attached to my Canadian Nationality. So I grew up learning Lebanese Arabic thanks to my parents, and was raised with French culture throughout it all and went to a French school. So for the most part of my life I've spoken 3 language all at once (French, English, Arabic). At school I took Spanish, and now I realize that I really dislike it and should have taken German instead. I can barely keep up with Spanish speakers though.
This summer I tried learning Dutch (only managed to learn the basics so far) and my focus will really revolve around Northern Europe's languages (so Dutch, German, Danish...) I really hope I manage to learn these three but seeing at the rate I'm going I'll only get to knowing each of them just a bit by 2024
I would love to get a better English accent, it isn't bad (and by no means as tragic as what French speakers usually sound speaking English) but I aspire to get a British accent (I tend to lean more towards American right now).
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Member Since: 4/14/2011
Posts: 48,397
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What languages do you guys think are more useful? I'd personally would say
1. English. duh.
2. Spanish. Most spoken language by number of native speakers after Mandarin, but Mandarin is not nearly as spread out. Also all varieties of Spanish are mutually intelligible. I get the impression that languages like Mandarin, Arabic and German are cheating because people just speak a bunch of different dialects, often not even mutually intelligible. It's just that people know the 'standard.'
3/4 Either French or Mandarin. French is a language of the past but also of the future. Africa's boom will validate the study of French once again. Mandarin will only grow as China replaces the US in the future.
5. Portuguese. VERY underrated. Often ignored despite having more native speakers than German, Italian and French.
6. Russian. Largest country on Earth w/a huge population
7/8/9. Japanese/Standard German. Economic powerhouses. Standard Arabic too.
10/11. Bahama Indonesian, maybe? They're a big economy. Vietnamese too. I was tempted to say Hindi but lots of Indians can communicate in English just fine as it is also an official language in India.
12/13. Italian or Persian. Italy and Iran have about the same population.
14/15. Polish or Cantonese. Demographically speaking I think they follow. Lots of Indian and Indonesian languages have millions of speakers but Indians manage well in English and Indonesians in Bahama.
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 13,482
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1. What is your native language? english and patwa aka jamaican creole english. I learned both of them at the same time. in other words, I have two maternal languages
2. What's your second language? When did you learn it? french but I'm still learning it. I started in grade 6 and now I'm almost at the end of high school. I'm probably a B2-level student
3. What other languages do you speak? none lol
4. To what level are you proficient in each? I'm fluent in english and patwa but I'm intermediate in french
5. How has being a polyglot impacted your life? well whenever ppl try to tell me that patwa is a language I lowkey get annoyed bc the linguist community overall agrees with the FACT that patwa is its own language and is not an ethnolect/dialect/sociolect/etc. so it's like… you're wrong. also I guess it kind of has affected me in terms of my social views? like whenever people mock patwa I kind of cringe and just think bad about them and then I just start judging them idk.
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 1,125
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Quote:
Originally posted by LoKoPaNdA
What languages do you guys think are more useful? I'd personally would say
1. English. duh.
2. Spanish. Most spoken language by number of native speakers after Mandarin, but Mandarin is not nearly as spread out. Also all varieties of Spanish are mutually intelligible. I get the impression that languages like Mandarin, Arabic and German are cheating because people just speak a bunch of different dialects, often not even mutually intelligible. It's just that people know the 'standard.'
3/4 Either French or Mandarin. French is a language of the past but also of the future. Africa's boom will validate the study of French once again. Mandarin will only grow as China replaces the US in the future.
5. Portuguese. VERY underrated. Often ignored despite having more native speakers than German, Italian and French.
6. Russian. Largest country on Earth w/a huge population
7/8/9. Japanese/Standard German. Economic powerhouses. Standard Arabic too.
10/11. Bahama Indonesian, maybe? They're a big economy. Vietnamese too. I was tempted to say Hindi but lots of Indians can communicate in English just fine as it is also an official language in India.
12/13. Italian or Persian. Italy and Iran have about the same population.
14/15. Polish or Cantonese. Demographically speaking I think they follow. Lots of Indian and Indonesian languages have millions of speakers but Indians manage well in English and Indonesians in Bahama.
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Poor Portugues is always in the shadow of Spanish. The number of people who think Brazilians speak Spanish is quite tragic I always thought it would be amazing if they made a standard Portunhol/Portuņol to learn in latin america + Spain and Portugal. And also I agree with your list
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Member Since: 1/20/2012
Posts: 27,830
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I'm currently learning Spanish but have a long way to go until I'm fluent I'm only using Duolingo and listening to Spanish music. I know how to say very basic sentences but my grammar still needs a lot of work.
I want to eventually learn French and Portuguese as well. I feel like it'll become easier once I "master" Spanish. I'd love to learn other languages like Mandarin, Arabic, etc but they're not really useful outside of certain regions
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Member Since: 1/20/2012
Posts: 27,830
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Quote:
Originally posted by LoKoPaNdA
What languages do you guys think are more useful? I'd personally would say
1. English. duh.
2. Spanish. Most spoken language by number of native speakers after Mandarin, but Mandarin is not nearly as spread out. Also all varieties of Spanish are mutually intelligible. I get the impression that languages like Mandarin, Arabic and German are cheating because people just speak a bunch of different dialects, often not even mutually intelligible. It's just that people know the 'standard.'
3/4 Either French or Mandarin. French is a language of the past but also of the future. Africa's boom will validate the study of French once again. Mandarin will only grow as China replaces the US in the future.
5. Portuguese. VERY underrated. Often ignored despite having more native speakers than German, Italian and French.
6. Russian. Largest country on Earth w/a huge population
7/8/9. Japanese/Standard German. Economic powerhouses. Standard Arabic too.
10/11. Bahama Indonesian, maybe? They're a big economy. Vietnamese too. I was tempted to say Hindi but lots of Indians can communicate in English just fine as it is also an official language in India.
12/13. Italian or Persian. Italy and Iran have about the same population.
14/15. Polish or Cantonese. Demographically speaking I think they follow. Lots of Indian and Indonesian languages have millions of speakers but Indians manage well in English and Indonesians in Bahama.
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English, Spanish, and French are the trinity. I think Mandarin's importance is overrated tbh. It's only spoken in China, and not even all of it
Portuguese is more important than Mandarin imo. It's spoken on all continents and is a major language in a number of developing countries.
The rest are really only useful if you wanna learn more about the culture or live in a country where the language is spoken. I'd love to learn some Italian, German, Japanese, Cantonese, Hindi, Arabic, etc eventually though since I plan on traveling all over the world
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 188
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1. What is your native language?
Brazilian Portuguese
2. What's your second language? When did you learn it?
English, studying (seriously) since I was 11.
3. What other languages do you speak?
French, German and Spanish
4. To what level are you proficient in each?
Fluent in English, intermediate in French(can understand 70% of spoken language), can survive in Spanish and still baby steps in German because the spelling is a bit odd.
5. How has being a polyglot impacted your life?
It made my mind open for understanding different cultures and worldviews and be less ethnocentric.
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 188
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Quote:
Originally posted by Barovi
Poor Portugues is always in the shadow of Spanish. The number of people who think Brazilians speak Spanish is quite tragic I always thought it would be amazing if they made a standard Portunhol/Portuņol to learn in latin america + Spain and Portugal. And also I agree with your list
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To be honest the two languages are so similar, I sometimes think they should converge for better connection between "Lusitanos" and "Hispanos" It's sad that Portuguese is always overshadowed by Spanish because both languages are very beautiful phonetically and in the spelling
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Member Since: 1/13/2012
Posts: 13,577
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random but conoci a un polyglot via grindr and we hit it off well y salimos and our love for languages made us bond so easily. We both wanna learn/already speak the same languages + he's more advanced than me in german and arabic.
Meu deus, o que fiz pra merecer esse garoto?
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Member Since: 4/14/2011
Posts: 48,397
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As far as languages, I think I want to tackle all the major Romance ones (incl. Catalan and Romanian eventually), then I wanna do some German and Dutch, and I'm obsessed w/Hungary and Czech Rep. so I'd love to learn Czech and Hungarian tbh.
Arabic, Mandarin and Japanese seem like such a hassle due to the writing systems
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Member Since: 1/13/2012
Posts: 13,577
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1. What is your native language?
(Mexican) Spanish
2. What's your second language? When did you learn it?
English. Learned it kindergarten after I came back from Mexico
3. What other languages do you speak?
Portuguese. Starting to dabble in French, Italian, and German.
4. To what level are you proficient in each?
Portuguese (85%-95% depending on day tbh) French (15% max) Italian (5-10%) German (15%)
5. How has being a polyglot impacted your life?
I got to meet a cute boy. but also it really has opened my eyes to new cultures and such. It's so satisfying as a person who constantly loves learning.
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Member Since: 4/14/2011
Posts: 48,397
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@swiftie sis you're mexi too?
Random but Mexicans suck so much at languages. They study English from 7th to 12th grade but most people are outright terrible at it
I feel like that's a thing of monolingual countries though, or countries where one big language easily dominates all the others.
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Member Since: 1/13/2012
Posts: 13,577
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Quote:
Originally posted by LoKoPaNdA
@swiftie sis you're mexi too?
Random but Mexicans suck so much at languages. They study English from 7th to 12th grade but most people are outright terrible at it
I feel like that's a thing of monolingual countries though, or countries where one big language easily dominates all the others.
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si
and you're right. I came in and out of ESL real quick (K-2nd grade) while my fellow Mexican classmates remained in their until high school :3
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