Yuki
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Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on May 22, 2013 13:03:05 GMT
Tim Doner, a young guy from New York, speaks more than 20 languages.. check these two videos:
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Post by Alvamiga on May 22, 2013 19:17:50 GMT
If it wasn't for the fact that so many people are making the effort to learn English, I'd put more effort into learning another language. The only time I went to France with a friend, we only encountered one French-only speaking person and the rest almost demanded to speak English to us.
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Post by Kye on May 22, 2013 19:36:42 GMT
Wow! That's a gift!
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Post by Alvamiga on May 22, 2013 19:53:02 GMT
In all the time I did French at school, I have learned enough to barely fill a few sides of paper with what I have done in real use. Even then, we told one guy we wanted to walk somewhere and he kept telling us how to get to the train station and take a train to where we were going!
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Yuki
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Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on May 22, 2013 19:56:43 GMT
Well, it's doable with a lot of motivation and not much interest in anything but language learning.. If it wasn't for the fact that so many people are making the effort to learn English, I'd put more effort into learning another language. The only time I went to France with a friend, we only encountered one French-only speaking person and the rest almost demanded to speak English to us. hmm.. here you can't even get a decent job if you don't speak 3 languages (Darija included).. make that 4 if you come from a Berber cultural background.. and for an even better job you might want to pick up an additional language (usually English or Spanish)..
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Post by raspberrybullets on May 22, 2013 20:01:05 GMT
Yeah I notice that jobs here in Europe require several languages in general. In Oz you can get away with one, though there is some interest if you can speak more than one. Especially Asian languages. I love right now that I'll be at work and have people speaking multiple languages around me. Not only that, but using a mixture of all the languages too. Today one of my colleagues was walking to the metro and chatting on the phone in a combination of Dutch, English and whatever Asian language she spoke.
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Yuki
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Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on May 22, 2013 20:03:54 GMT
The more the merrier! ;D
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2013 16:10:34 GMT
I'd love to learn more languages.
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Post by Mari on May 29, 2013 16:15:44 GMT
For me the learning part isn't that difficult, but keeping up with them is.
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Post by Mari on May 29, 2013 16:16:28 GMT
Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right. I do think 21 languages is way too much for me, but I do think my head has room for more than is in there now.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2013 16:22:30 GMT
I'd be happy to learn Spanish for now.
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Post by tangent on May 29, 2013 17:30:08 GMT
I managed to learn French, Latin and a little German at school but had no incentive to keep them up.
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Post by Mari on May 29, 2013 17:54:08 GMT
I don't even count my French and German anymore. It's gotten so bad. I barely manage to impress my students by telling them in French or German that I want them to speak in English in my class.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2013 17:55:20 GMT
I don't speak much French anymore either.
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Post by tangent on May 29, 2013 18:33:54 GMT
When I try to speak French, French people stare at me in disbelief.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2013 18:47:18 GMT
They do that to anyone.
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Post by tangent on May 29, 2013 22:32:24 GMT
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Post by Mari on May 30, 2013 10:55:50 GMT
I see it didn't post my reply in which I agreed with Kaylee.
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Yuki
Senior members
Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on May 30, 2013 16:49:54 GMT
Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right. I do think 21 languages is way too much for me, but I do think my head has room for more than is in there now. The storage capacity of your brain is not the problem.. it's estimated to 2.5 million Gigabytes approximately, enough to store probably all languages that have ever been spoken on Earth, and still have room for other stuff.. The main problem as you said earlier is how to maintain those languages continually.. you have to live in such a way as to be continually motivated to keep them, improve them, and use them, otherwise they'll just fade away.. which I suppose can only happen if you're very passionate about language learning (and virtually nothing else unrelated), or have the memorization capacity of someone like Kim Peek, or Daniel Tammet (the guy who learned Islandic in one week).. I'm still dreaming about learning 30 languages at least, but considering that I have many other unrelated interests as well (maths, programming, philosophy, etc.) I know it's impossible unless I get a brain upgrade.. so I think a more realistic goal is 10 languages by the age of 50..
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jun 1, 2013 8:17:02 GMT
Good excuse to travel a lot so you can keep using the languages you know!
My dad used to speak fluent Hungarian because he lived with his Hungarian speaking grandma during his childhood and he can barely think up a few words these days.
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Post by jayme on Jun 3, 2013 0:46:12 GMT
A Brit that speaks 7 languages:
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Yuki
Senior members
Posts: 632
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Post by Yuki on Jun 3, 2013 14:35:35 GMT
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