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Do you know any polyglots?

Ubbquittious

Or perhaps you are one yourself.
I met a Turkish woman one time who said all those damn Romance languages are the same and claimed to speak 6 or 7 languages. I had to take her word for it because I dont speak that many languages myself. I know plenty of people who speak 2 or 3 languages but any more than that is unusual.

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[Deleted User]

I struggle with English...

bee06

Someone I work with speaks Spanish, French, Italian and German to a business level. Pretty impressive. It just comes naturally to some people. I am not one of those unfortunately. Languages in school were always a struggle for me.

dermo888

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Or perhaps you are one yourself.
I met a Turkish woman one time who said all those damn Romance languages are the same and claimed to speak 6 or 7 languages. I had to take her word for it because I dont speak that many languages myself. I know plenty of people who speak 2 or 3 languages but any more than that is unusual.

The Romance languages:

Italian and Romanian are very similar. Romanian is the most complex and the closing living relative to Latin. So knowing Romanian enables - facilitates learning Italian and Spanish, and to a lesser extent French and Portuguese.

Indonesian and Malaysian are also similar in the same way.

What the Chinese call 'dialects' have the same writing system, but in spoken form are not mutually intelligible.

gifted

I Speak Cork....you know like.

Do I speak more languages...I do ya.

Tacklebox

I know a German lady who works in tourism who can speak English, Irish, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and is studying Mandarin Chinese now.

Shes inundated to do tours...

[Deleted User]

A friend's daughter speaks 4 fluently and she's 10. I don't know any adults who can do the same.

My girlfriend's nephew is on his way to three. Mother speaks Vietnamese to him, father speaks Danish, with each other and around most social situations, it's English.

Girlfriend has Vietnamese, very good English, good Spanish, and is learning Mandarin. Not fluent but good nonetheless.

meeeeh

I used to learn Serbo-Croatian when thet were still considered one language (you have to be fairly careful to observe the differences), German, Italian and English. It would fairly common where I come from. I was only ever decent in English (and Slovene obviously) and pretty rubbish in other languages and it gets worse if you don't use them. I completely lost the ability to speak German and Italian after not using them for 20 years. I could probably communicate with a Croatian or Serbian but only because there are certain similarities to Slovenian.

Learning languages is not that hard when you come from small nation and you are surrounded by countries who speak different languages. But you want to use the language or you will lose it.

Anyway I know quite a few people who can still speak three or four languages fluently.

Ken.

A guy I use to work with spoke, read and wrote 7 languages. He's from Latvia and after 2 years living around Kildare improving his English he upped sticks and moved to deepest darkest Connemara to learn Irish. He achieved his goal to speak,read and write it in about 3 years.

Last time I spoke to him on Facebook he was in New Zealand trying to learn Maori and was then planning to head to America to try some Native American languages.

He is a welder by trade so can go anywhere but also his grandmother left him (only grandchild) about €5m when she passed away.

AllForIt

Yes I knew a guy would could speak 6 languages. He was a professional interpreter. He told me that Irish was the hardest to learn, in fact I think he said he gave up on it.

Apart from Irish at school I never studded a second language until last year, something I always wanted to do and practically because I wish to emigrate at some stage and I guess a second language would help. Anyway, I have to say I find the process of learning a second language to be utterly tedious not least because it's a very slow process. As someone previous said it certainly seems to be a skill that suits some ppl and not others.

Edit: I do see thought how if one has learned a second language that a third one is easier to learn. I studied Spanish and as a result I can make out some French text where I couldn't before.

El Horseboxo

Spanish is my native language. Raised with English too. Went to a gaelscoil when I lived in Ireland. Studied French in college. Gaeilge being the weakest now as I haven't spoke it regularly since I left Ireland over 10 years ago. Self studying Italian now and done the same with Portuguese. Can hold a decent conversation in those languages. Knowing Spanish makes French easier. And knowing both of those makes it easier to learn Italian. Can read and speak Portuguese ok. Understanding is a bit difficult.

corner of hells

Nosnon wrote: »

A guy I use to work with spoke, read and wrote 7 languages. He's from Latvia and after 2 years living around Kildare improving his English he upped sticks and moved to deepest darkest Connemara to learn Irish. He achieved his goal to speak,read and write it in about 3 years.

Last time I spoke to him on Facebook he was in New Zealand trying to learn Maori and was then planning to head to America to try some Native American languages.

He is a welder by trade so can go anywhere but also his grandmother left him (only grandchild) about €5m when she passed away.

A welder you say ?
I've a gate that needs fixing , does he do nixers ?

Tacklebox

Nosnon wrote: »

A guy I use to work with spoke, read and wrote 7 languages. He's from Latvia and after 2 years living around Kildare improving his English he upped sticks and moved to deepest darkest Connemara to learn Irish. He achieved his goal to speak,read and write it in about 3 years.

Last time I spoke to him on Facebook he was in New Zealand trying to learn Maori and was then planning to head to America to try some Native American languages.

He is a welder by trade so can go anywhere but also his grandmother left him (only grandchild) about €5m when she passed away.

He's one lucky guy, able to what he loves, and enough money to do what he wants.

I admire people with rare sense.

Ken.

corner of hells wrote: »

A welder you say ?
I've a gate that needs fixing , does he do nixers ?

If you can pay for his flight from New Zealand I'm sure he'd do it.

[Deleted User]

Huge difference between knowing Italian, Spanish and Portuguese versus Russian, Arabic and Chinese

antodeco

Nosnon wrote: »

If you can pay for his flight from New Zealand I'm sure he'd do it.

I'd chip in with the cost, but I'm looking for a welder that speaks Swedish

Ken.

Tacklebox wrote: »

He's one lucky guy, able to what he loves, and enough money to do what he wants.

I admire people with rare sense.

I remember getting him to watch a hurling match and the next day he went out and brought all the gear. I brought him to the local club and they sent him home after half an hour.

He was determined and was trying but just didn't have the instincts that hurlers learn from an early age. Kept putting his head and body in places that no other would.

Ken.

antodeco wrote: »

I'd chip in with the cost, but I'm looking for a welder that speaks Swedish

When I knew him his languages were Latvian,Russian,German,Swedish,French,English and Spanish.

The Swedish gave him a grounding in Danish,Finnish and Norwegian
The Russian in all the language of the former USSR.

meeeeh

riffmongous wrote: »

Huge difference between knowing Italian, Spanish and Portuguese versus Russian, Arabic and Chinese

What is so special about Russian? It's Slavic language and part of Indo European languages. Among European languages I would consider Hungarian and Finnish the most unlike any other. Although I know people who find Hungarian language fairly easy to learn.

Here we go

Eastern Europe s usually know a good few at least 3 always find it funny when people go e puts out how these uneducated people taking are jobs and not able to speak English it's there third language give them a break ffs

D3V!L

I thought a polyglot was another one of these gender fluid things

Alf Veedersane

Is it necessary to learn all these languages?

If you speak more slowly and a bit louder and point a lot, you can still get your point across to the natives.

Ken.

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Is it necessary to learn all these languages?

If you speak more slowly and a bit louder and point a lot, you can still get your point across to the natives.

Who done that joke?
English guy in English chipper- Bloody foreigners don't learn the language.
English guy in Spain- Oi pedro. DO YOU DO CHIPS.

orourkeda1977

I speak the language of love.

[Deleted User]

meeeeh wrote: »

What is so special about Russian? It's Slavic language and part of Indo European languages. Among European languages I would consider Hungarian and Finnish the most unlike any other. Although I know people who find Hungarian language fairly easy to learn.

Well I meant that it's completely different to the other 2 languages, you could also say Russian, Ukrainian, Polish is less impressive

Although personally I do find Russian hard to learn, harder than the Balkan slavic languages for sure

meeeeh

riffmongous wrote: »

Well I meant that it's completely different to the other 2 languages, you could also say Russian, Ukrainian, Polish is less impressive

Although personally I do find Russian hard to learn, harder than the Balkan slavic languages for sure

I never learned Russian but I can tell few words and there is familiarity in language. Among Slavic languages I would find Polish the most different from others (but that's just my impression). But in general if your mother language is germanic (English, German...) you would probably find it easier to learn other germanic languages. If it's romance (Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese) it's probably other romance languages. It probably also depends what languages you border on because they tend to mix.

accensi0n

I've been trying I learn Spanish for about 8 years now.

BeerWolf

There's a work colleague at the Airport who is fluent in 7 languages, who can easily pick up hints from a person to start speaking to them in their language right off the bat... to their surprise.

Me? I pretty much only speak English. :pac:

[Deleted User]

meeeeh wrote: »

I never learned Russian but I can tell few words and there is familiarity in language. Among Slavic languages I would find Polish the most different from others (but that's just my impression). But in general if your mother language is germanic (English, German...) you would probably find it easier to learn other germanic languages. If it's romance (Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese) it's probably other romance languages. It probably also depends what languages you border on because they tend to mix.

Yep that's my point too. It's more impressive to learn languages from different families

Bannasidhe

My brother is fluent in High German, Basel Deutsch (a Swiss dialect), French, and Italian - he can converse in Spanish and Portuguese and has retained a smattering of Irish (did his Leaving Cert through Irish back in the day).

His daughters are all fluent in German, French, English and Italian. One also speaks Brazilian Portuguese, while another had added Spanish and Basel Deutsch to her string of languages.

The weird thing is he speaks English with a hint of a German accent but his Swiss reared daughters speak English with a distinct Cork accent. When he's home people usually assume he's the 'foreigner'.

Gimme A Pound

I got on well at languages - French, German and Irish at leaving cert, then Spanish in first year of college, getting from beginner to leaving cert level in one year. Wish to god I hadn't been lazy and had pursued them further. They came very easily to me - what a waste, and what an idiot I was!