One of my dreams is to learn at least seven languages in my lifetime. I wonder, is it possible to learn that many languages, and have a deep understanding of each? I imagine if they are languages from the same family,like Spanish,Italian,French and Portugese, or English and German it would be easier. I have studied Spanish for four or five years now,and I wonder will I ever reach that point where I can speak like any other educated person in the society. I guess if I really want to deeply understand Spanish, I must leave behind English. I wonder if I lived and studied for 40 years in Spain, would I lose my English? I know you can lose a second language, but can you lose a first?
Language goes deep: it is not just speaking, listening, reading and writing: it is thinking, knowing and being.
One learns language in an individual way. I always learn accurate pronunciation first, the intricacies of grammar second and vocabulary last. This means I recite verb conjugations fluently, but cannot order a beer at a bar.
Immersion usually works best for language acquisition. No matter how much study one does at home, it cannot compare to the experience of having to rely on your language skills for everyday living. One good long stay in another language envirionment, about three months, is the best start. If this is topped up with regular study and further immersion experiences language proficiency should come naturally.
Learning similar languages is no easier than learning different languages. If you speak Spanish, you will find Italian very easy first of all. The similarity can sometimes be confusing, and the second language is learned as a dialect of the first, becoming only as proficient as the first. Dissimilar languages are daunting to begin with, but are easier to keep separate in one’s mind. Learning dissimilar languages also helps to foster language learning skills that are not predicated on one type of language. That is, learning Spanish and Cantonese would help one understand the casic building blocks of language from two very different perspectives. If such a person then went on to learn Swahili, it would seem far more rational.
Loss of one’s mother tongue is quite rare, but it does happen. It only really happens when the second language is learnt by constant immersion as a young person with very little support for the first language. I met a elderly woman whose first language was Welsh, but had moved to England to look for work when she was fourteen. She spoke English so constantly that she lost her fluency in Welsh. All she could remember of her first language were a few bits of vocabulary and some songs (all remembered inaccurately and phonetically).
Do you have any thoughts about how you’d like to learn a language, or what you’d like to learn?
Learning many languages certainly is possible. I translate professionally from six languages, and I am able to read newspapers and maintain basic conversations in a few more.
I do not regard myself as a polyglot, and the languages I use professionally are all Indo-European. An acquaintance of mine, Erik Gunnemark, is rather fluent in more than 20 languages. He has written the useful and charming books "Countries, Peoples and Their Languages (The Geolinguicstic Handbook)" and "The Art and Science of Learning Languages". He mentions a few real polyglots whom he personally knows, like professor Pent Nurmekund, Estonia, who translates from 80 languages and speaks more than 25 of them.
For me, the limiting factors are time and determination. Everybody learns a first language. I see no reason that it should not be possible to learn many dozens of languages. The more languages you learn, the more you will learn how to learn languages. The problem will be to maintain the skills.
In many countries, knowing several languages is taken very naturally. Ads for shop assistants, secretaries etc. in Brussels often ask for "perfect trilinguality". In India, I suppose that most people with any degree of education will speak at least three languages, and understand several more. On the other hand, the stories one can read about pre-school children in the Bombay slum who speak seven languages should be judged cautiously. Probably, their conversations are rather limited.
In spite of my interest in languages and the number of languages I have had a good look at, I still don’t know which is the best method for learning a new language, and I couldn’t give very many pieces of advice to others, any more than I can explain in words how to ride a bicycle. But it certainly is possible to acquire a deep understanding of quite a few languages.
[quote author=gailr link=board=translate;num=1084229413;start=0#5 date=05/12/04 at 17:12:50]Saying "hello/goodbye" and "bless you" is not speaking a language. ;)
gailr
It most certainly is not. However, it is surprising how much better one can communicate, after employing some pleasentries in the language of the other party.
I would suggest that if it is not possible to be in an immersion situation, make sure that you are always using your new language. Try to think to yourself in that language, even if your grasp is still limited. When doing everyday tasks, describe them in your head. Learn poems or prayers in the new language, and recite them every day. The internet is also a great resource: try reading newspapers and listening/watching the news. From amazon.com you can purchase books in a few languages. Start out with childrens books and books with pictures, then work your way up. Just make sure that you are using the new language as much as you can.
Immersion in a language is better by far than any other method. If you cannot learn by immersion there are plenty of other ways to learn a language, but they’ll never be as good. The key to immersion learning is reliance on your language skills: you have to learn how to say, "Please can I have an orange," or you have to point.
Both Chinese and Arabic have a broad spread of dialects. Putonghua and Modern Standard Arabic are the dialects that are considered ‘standard’. Learning MSA would leave you sounding like a television announcer unless you learn everyday speech in an Arabic country. Levantine Arabic is closest to MSA, and is my dialect. Egyptian Arabic is quite popular, but it differs a lot more from MSA.
Motivation is an important factor in learning language. Which of these languages do you feel most motivated to learn?
It certainly depends on what you mean by "immersion" but it may not necessarily the best way. It is mainly dued by the fact that L[sub]1[/sub] acquisition, for which immersion is the best and the only way, is very different from L[sub]2[/sub] learning.
The child who used to have the ability to build I-language step by step from the default status of his brain (comp. Masaru Kajita’s dynamic grammar) is no longer able to cipher L[sub]2[/sub] sounds into meanings unconsciously. Instead, he has by now developed manifest analytical faculties. The best L[sub]2[/sub] pedagogy that I have personally experienced is one that makes a learner keep balance between logical analysis and motivated trial-and-error of the target language.
I did not imply that immersion learning should be passive and non-reflective. I did talk about the coupling of immersion experience with study, and perhaps I should shift the emphasis more onto that word with. I think this is what you mean when you talk about the balance between logical analysis (study) and motivated trial and error (immersion).
Is it possible to be in a language immersion environment and learn nothing? Yes, of course it is. If we send a Dane to Korea to work for three months, and we give another Dane Korean-language learning tools, the participant who stayed in Denmark may well have better Korean after the trial is done. However, if I was asked by a Dane whether he would be likely to learn better Korean studying in Denmark or Korea, I would have to state the obvious. Again, some immersion environments may not be conducive to study (e.g. our imaginary Dane’s work environment in Korea).
One of the key features of learning language by immersion is the discipline of reliance; one has to learn the language to be able to succeed at everyday tasks.
In most cases, I have always studied the basics of a language before engaging in immersion. This is usually a blessing in that I can identify morphemes more quickly. However, I have occasionally found that I have learnt something wrongly, and it can be very difficult to unlearn.
I don’t believe that all dynamic grammar skills are lost in adulthood, but that the residual capacity is still there to process meaning in speech at the axiomatic level.
[quote author=Garzo link=board=translate;num=1084229413;start=0#10 date=05/13/04 at 09:31:16]I don’t believe that all dynamic grammar skills are lost in adulthood, but that the residual capacity is still there to process meaning in speech at the axiomatic level.
OK, OK. I knew I stepped on a highly debatable ground. But studies in L1 acquisition have done [edit: enough], I think, to prove that there is a critical period beyond which "language instinct" grows so weak that it needs cogent reinforcement from other mental faculties.
The dilemma of immersion, as you have alluded, is that it is not effective without a proper amount of logical support (either heuristical or explanatory) but that logical support beyond a certain degree cancels out the "naturalness" of immersion.
If only could I master my own language..!! :-[
I have studied several languages, and have been using them in different circumstances.. but there is room to improve in all of them!
I have friends who have been raised in a bilingual enviroment, and they are the only ones I know who can master different languages..
It depends on what you mean by "mastering", as gairl wrote:
Saying "hello/goodbye" and "bless you" is not speaking a language.
Yesterday I talked to a Chinese friend of mine about this, ‘cause I wanted to know which is the language of her feelings.. I can speak English, but when I want to say something important I prefer to speak Spanish.. My friend "masters" Mandarin, Cantonese, another dialect, and Spanish. She says, that depending on the situation, she chooses one language or the other (for reading, writing, speaking…)
What about you there..?
It is hard. I’m in my 6th year of English and I still have lots of doubts when I write in a board like this one.
The other day I thought about people whose first language is English learning Spanish… with all the tenses we have (10 in the indicative, 6 in the subjunctive and the imperative form) and the irregularity of the morphology of the verbs like "IR" and "SER".
It is certainly possible to learn as many languages as you want. I know a couple of linguists who can speak fluently in over 100 languages! (I can’t imagine this myself, but it proves the possibility.)
One of my friends (linguist) likes to joke that every real linguist must know at least 7 languages (from 7 different families).
Esabella, since you want to learn 7 different languages, apparently, you heard that joke, too. ;)
Dear esabelle,
Maybe you know more languages than you think already. When I looked up WOTD’s Archives there is a line with several "functions" one of wich is the Language guesser. Clicking on the one offered by Xerox, I wrote down for me three words that was just gibberish but the Xerox people quickly identified them to a language I don’t know e.g. Polish, Esperanto and Norwegian.
Why not try it. It’s really funny!
Best regards Iter
