| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Fluent in 11 languages Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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XXXphxxx (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:10
Portuguese to English
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| | Impressive young polyglot | Feb 21, 2012 |
Thank you for sharing Lisa!
Quite impressive performance, esp. at this early age. Maybe the new Mezzofanti?
As far as I can judge with relevance:
-His Greek sounds perfect (he confirmed he was a "true bilingual"),
-His French is a bit unnatural (Swiss accent? French is normally much more romantic!)
-His German sounds ok but maybe naive (short time)
-His Italian sounds ok too but naive, (btw it's "perché" not "porque";)
As a m... See more Thank you for sharing Lisa!
Quite impressive performance, esp. at this early age. Maybe the new Mezzofanti?
As far as I can judge with relevance:
-His Greek sounds perfect (he confirmed he was a "true bilingual"),
-His French is a bit unnatural (Swiss accent? French is normally much more romantic!)
-His German sounds ok but maybe naive (short time)
-His Italian sounds ok too but naive, (btw it's "perché" not "porque";)
As a matter of fact, the reason he may sound "naive" in French, German and Italian is because seemingly he hasn't practiced in context, just learned language as a closed/virtual system... or maybe the reason is just that he is repeating/reading a memorized/written speech...!
Very impressive too to hear how a voice changes according to the language.
Pity he doesn't do justice to French in this respect
[Edited at 2012-02-21 10:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:10
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Okay, 'impeccable' might be overstating it | Feb 21, 2012 |
However, I'm judging him from the standard of the average British 20 year old who would struggle to order a meal in French.
| | | | Andrea Russo
Italy
Local time: 21:10
English to Italian
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| Interesting, but... | Feb 21, 2012 |
His Italian is not that good, honestly.
Anyway, giving a little speech in eleven languages does not mean having a C2 level in all of these languages, also because he has not studied the grammar of some of them. Learning a language in the country where it is spoken makes you fluent, not grammatically impeccable (or almost).
Then, we have two sentences to judge from, so next to nothing. And knowing a language means also to understand it (reading and listening comprehension) an... See more His Italian is not that good, honestly.
Anyway, giving a little speech in eleven languages does not mean having a C2 level in all of these languages, also because he has not studied the grammar of some of them. Learning a language in the country where it is spoken makes you fluent, not grammatically impeccable (or almost).
Then, we have two sentences to judge from, so next to nothing. And knowing a language means also to understand it (reading and listening comprehension) and to write it without too many mistakes.
Despite all this, still quite impressive, although maybe a bit useless... ▲ Collapse
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Mailand
Local time: 21:10
Member (2009)
Italian to German
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| ... although maybe a bit useless ... | Feb 21, 2012 |
that was my second thought, too (after: impressive). But then: does the learning of languages, the pleasure to comunicate always have to have a "use"? I don´t think the young man applies for a job as an interpreter (have to admit I didn´t go into what exactly he is applying for, because there is a "background" here). Reading the title of the post there was also a hint of "oh, another "savant sauvage" , but the young man seems quite "normal" to me, personable, could even be a "cool type" to you... See more that was my second thought, too (after: impressive). But then: does the learning of languages, the pleasure to comunicate always have to have a "use"? I don´t think the young man applies for a job as an interpreter (have to admit I didn´t go into what exactly he is applying for, because there is a "background" here). Reading the title of the post there was also a hint of "oh, another "savant sauvage" , but the young man seems quite "normal" to me, personable, could even be a "cool type" to young people, and therefore a sort of role model . He says at one point "I wanted to be able to talk to people" - and that is what it´s about. In an online dictionary I found this for "fluent": "able to express oneself readily and effortlessly", a couple of sentences does not make this plain to us, but "fluent" does probably not imply"without an accent" and "elegantly". ▲ Collapse
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... although his greek is also clearly not native. He did not make any mistakes, but "something was wrong". Let's say, I would not trust him to translate into greek.
Still, this is cool!
| | | | | Impressive, but ... | Feb 21, 2012 |
I thought it was a very solid performance, especially for a 20 year old! I can only judge the quality of the French, which only got a passing look in. It is clearly not the strongest of his 11 languages and he did not sound like a native speaker. "Personnalité", for example, was pronounced with a definite English twang.
But give the guy a chance - he's a student and so is in the full-time occupation of learning more and gradually improving. I'd like to see him again in about 10 ye... See more I thought it was a very solid performance, especially for a 20 year old! I can only judge the quality of the French, which only got a passing look in. It is clearly not the strongest of his 11 languages and he did not sound like a native speaker. "Personnalité", for example, was pronounced with a definite English twang.
But give the guy a chance - he's a student and so is in the full-time occupation of learning more and gradually improving. I'd like to see him again in about 10 years' time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | But not bad at all | Feb 21, 2012 |
linguandre wrote:
His Italian is not that good, honestly.
Just a bit naive like his French, as far as I can judge.
Thanks for sharing, very interesting
[Edited at 2012-02-21 13:05 GMT]
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Andrea Russo
Italy
Local time: 21:10
English to Italian
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| Other comments... | Feb 21, 2012 |
Even if he applied for a job as an interpreter I do not think he would be more likely to be chosen than someone who can translate perfectly from only one language. He would not be chosen for translating from and into eleven languages, so I do not see how useful it is to be such a polyglot.
Also, it is virtually impossible to have a native accent in more than one or two languages. He should have learned them all when he was little, not now, if he wanted to have a perfect (in the sen... See more Even if he applied for a job as an interpreter I do not think he would be more likely to be chosen than someone who can translate perfectly from only one language. He would not be chosen for translating from and into eleven languages, so I do not see how useful it is to be such a polyglot.
Also, it is virtually impossible to have a native accent in more than one or two languages. He should have learned them all when he was little, not now, if he wanted to have a perfect (in the sense of native) accent.
Anyway, it is important that he has mentioned that he wants to "talk to people", to communicate, because that is why languages exist. And of course I would personally like to know more than just two languages in order to be able to communicate with people from different nationalities.
P.S.: yes Angie, not that bad either. But we should have longer excerpts to listen to to judge more precisely.
[Edited at 2012-02-21 12:55 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Vadim Kadyrov
Ukraine
Local time: 22:10
Member (2011)
English to Russian
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is quite far from what is spoken in Russia, still, German seems to be OK
| | | | Laura Gentili
Italy
Local time: 21:10
Member (2003)
English to Italian
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| Very strong accent | Feb 21, 2012 |
In Italian and Hebrew his foreign accent is very strong.
Laura
| | | | Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:10
Flemish to English
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Reminds me of the first simultaneous interpreter in the world: Kato Lomb, who earned money with sixteen languages (Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Ukrainian). She learned these languages mostly by self-effort, as an autodidact. Her aims to acquire these languages were most of all practical, to satisfy her interest.
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XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:10
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Are we not splitting hairs? | Feb 21, 2012 |
Goodness me, what a negative bunch we are! He's 20, he's having fun, he's not claiming that he speaks any of these languages perfectly but he's doing an excellent job of it and if I were his teacher or mother I would be mighty proud - 'nuff said.
| | | | P.L.F. Persio
Netherlands
Local time: 21:10
English to Italian
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| You nailed it, Lisa. | Feb 21, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Goodness me, what a negative bunch we are! He's 20, he's having fun, he's not claiming that he speaks any of these languages perfectly but he's doing an excellent job of it and if I were his teacher or mother I would be mighty proud - 'nuff said.
Translators can be a negative, bitter, acrimonious bunch.
Just to make an example: how many threads do we have here about simply bad/funny and bad/preposterous and bad translations? Loads.
And how many about good/excellent/virtually perfect/OMG-it-changed-my-life translations?
That's right, none.
I very much admire this remarkable, talented young man. What he's achieved so far shows he's intelligent, hard working, disciplined and driven, and I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours.
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I suppose people took literally your opening claim that at least some of the accents were impeccable (i.e. without flaw or error). As somone less gifted than this student, I am completely incapable of judging ten of his languages. For the eleventh, which I designate as French, I am competant and have already given my reaction.
There are Brits who can speak French to absolute perfection (a random example that comes to mind is the actress Charlotte Rampling, whom I was not convinced ... See more I suppose people took literally your opening claim that at least some of the accents were impeccable (i.e. without flaw or error). As somone less gifted than this student, I am completely incapable of judging ten of his languages. For the eleventh, which I designate as French, I am competant and have already given my reaction.
There are Brits who can speak French to absolute perfection (a random example that comes to mind is the actress Charlotte Rampling, whom I was not convinced was English until I researched her biography a bit). I am judging this guy by these high standards, and not against the average (non) ability of a typical linguistically challenged British student. The guy has, after all, won a competition and is thereby inviting critical comment on his ability. ▲ Collapse
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