Any multi-linguals/hyperglots?

[Invincible Summer]

I was wondering if anyone here is capable of speaking more than 2 languages somewhat fluently?

I recently watched some videos on YT of guys talking in like... 8 diff languages (all European languages) for at least 2-3 mins in each language very fluently (from what I can tell; no stumbling or anything). It was very impressive.

So yeah, if there are any of you guys on RevLeft, how did you become interested in learning languages, and how do you do it?



My 1st language is English, and I've learned French in primary school, dabbled in Japanese, and took Spanish in high school. I'm currently studying German in uni, has been about 2.5 years now.

I would very much like to learn more languages (esp French bc my girlfriend and her family speak it) but everytime I learn a new one, I forget the old one. I really love German, but I have almost no one to talk to around here (so my spoken German is rusty) and I don't want my 2.5 years of education to disappear if I start learning French.

Is there a trick to retaining languages?

[LeninBalls]

My girlfriend and her family are French too :D I'm near fluent in French, along with a good understanding of German.

The "trick" is to just try and do some daily activities in the language, like listening to music in French, thinking in your head in French (or at least trying), reading French, playing games with French subtitles etc

Easily though, the best way to get good at a language is to spend a long time where it's the native tongue, you'll learn like woah.

[Glorious Union]

I don't know anything except English, but I have always wondered: is it possible to forget your original language? Like say I move to Japan for, oh, 30 years and speak nothing except Japanese. Is it really possible to forget English, even after spending the first 18 years of my life speaking only that language?

[LeninBalls]

I don't know anything except English, but I have always wondered: is it possible to forget your original language? Like say I move to Japan for, oh, 30 years and speak nothing except Japanese. Is it really possible to forget English, even after spending the first 18 years of my life speaking only that language?

Yes, my friend from Germany and her friend from Lithuania often forget words and verbs :( Not the language though since they have healthy occcasional visits to their homeland.

But I once knew an Iranian guy who forgot how to speak Farsi after only using English so long.

[Glorious Union]

Yes, my friend from Germany and her friend from Lithuania often forget words and verbs :( Not the language though since they have healthy occcasional visits to their homeland.

But I once knew an Iranian guy who forgot how to speak Dari after only using English so long.

New life goal: forget English. :D

[Invincible Summer]

My girlfriend and her family are French too :D I'm near fluent in French, along with a good understanding of German.

My gf and her family aren't French - her parents are Chinese from Mauritius (this tiny island off the coast of Madagascar) which was a French colony I guess, and they speak French/Mauritian Creole at home.

So yeah, Chinese people who speak French and Mauritian Creole. Weird eh?


The "trick" is to just try and do some daily activities in the language, like listening to music in French, thinking in your head in French (or at least trying), reading French, playing games with French subtitles etcYeah I do that with German (I listen to a lot of Rammstein and Nena :lol:) and think of how I'd say everyday things in German.

I use Facebook in German too haha.

I suppose I could start doing that for French as well just so I can get a bit of a headstart if I decide to take lessons.

What's some good French (and I guess more German too) music?



Easily though, the best way to get good at a language is to spend a long time where it's the native tongue, you'll learn like woah.Yeah, true. I live in Canada, and we have a whole province that is almost entirely French, so that won't be too hard. And I still have my background from elementary school.

Like I said, I love German, but I dont' have the money/resources to travel there for an extensive period of time.

I have a German friend who always wants to speak Englisch and a Czech friend who can speak German but is not that fluent.. prob only a bit better than me.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

My first language is English and I speak French "fluently" and enough Spanish to talk a bit, I have friends who I can only talk to in Spanish but I have been improving my Spanish a lot lately. I've also had short-lived attempts at learning or picking up a bit of Latin, Arabic, Esperanto, Mixtec, Romanian and Romani but I have never gotten very far with any of those.

I think the key to retaining languages is repetition and immersion. And then you have to keep practicing. Speak, listen, read, and write.

[black magick hustla]

i speak both english and spanish very fluently and a bit of french.

[An archist]

Dutch english and french pretty fluently, I'm now working on spanish and german.:cool:

[NecroCommie]

I really speak only two languages, but recently i've been scared at noticing how my Finnish has begun to stumble a bit, due to the fact that I think in english. :crying:

I understand Swedish and german quite well though. Wouldn't say that I speak them fluently.

OOH! I just remembered that I know the basic grammar of quenya. Soon I will speak it fluently. :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenya

[LeninBalls]

What's some good French (and I guess more German too) music?

I'm not sure really, but my gf listens to bands called Aqme and Indochine, and they write in French but I don't really like them. :D You could also give L'internationale and Foux Du Fafa (by Flights of the Conchords) a shot :laugh:


I have a German friend who always wants to speak Englisch and a Czech friend who can speak German but is not that fluent.. prob only a bit better than me.

Looks like you'll have to get a German speaking friend then, on or offline. Being in Canada it shouldn't be that hard to find a foreigner that speaks German, I assume.


Like I said, I love German, but I dont' have the money/resources to travel there for an extensive period of time.

Well, unless you want to get really good at German apart from a trivial want, you should be concentrating on French and taking trips to Quebec and whatnot.

I used to love German too (still do), but I put a lot of effort into French and travelling to France and I became crazy at it but at the cost of not being as good as German as I used to be. :(

[Kamerat]

I speak english, norwegian, swedish fluently and understand/speak some danish and german.I am trying to learn spanish now.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I can plod along in Spanish, but that's about it.

[Yazman]

My girlfriend can speak 3 languages fluently (English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon) and knows quite a lot of another 2 (Japanese, Kinaray-a).

[Forward Union]

I speak English and Spanish,

and I am currently learning Swedish.

So, hopefully by the end of the year I will have three languages.

[Woland]

I'm fluent in English and Russian, and can speak German rather well (but not perfect just yet). I used to be fluent in Swedish, but I havent used it in years, though I still read swedish newspapers.

[Wanted Man]

I speak Dutch and English. I can get by in German. Know some French and Spanish words, but not much.

[Os Cangaceiros]

My girlfriend can speak 3 languages fluently (English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon) and knows quite a lot of another 2 (Japanese, Kinaray-a).

Tagalog was a language that I often heard where I live in Alaska. (There's a ton of Filipino immigrant workers there).

I've heard that it's difficult to learn.

[Rjevan]

I speak (of course) German, rather fluent English, I get by in Italian and now I'm learning Russian. Someday I'd like to learn Chinese but first I have to improve my Russian.


Looks like you'll have to get a German speaking friend then, on or offline.
You could try with me. ;)
Of course it doesn't help you very much with proper articualtion but I'm a native speaker and could maybe help you.

Rammstein is a good start, they speak rather clearly, "Die Ärzte" are also cool, you can argue about the quality of the leadsinger's voice but the texts are very funny.

[MarxSchmarx]

I don't know anything except English, but I have always wondered: is it possible to forget your original language? Like say I move to Japan for, oh, 30 years and speak nothing except Japanese. Is it really possible to forget English, even after spending the first 18 years of my life speaking only that language?


I doubt that will happen, it's there it's just not as easily usable.

Something like this happened to my aunt. She now hardly ever uses her native tongue and hasn't for like 20 years. So she can't hold a conversation on it on the fly, and when I visit her she struggles with the words and stuff. But then when she comes home, after a few days it comes back. She still has to translate from her new language to our language mentally, though, she says. Even though she spent the first 12 years of her life speaking our language.

But I think it's pretty impossible to ever completely forget your language. It can come back, but with some people it just takes longer.

[spritely]

I speak 9 languages fluently.

[Raúl Duke]

I speak English and Spanish and have some grasp of Italian.

[LeninBalls]

It's not really what the OP is asking. :p

[Bright Banana Beard]

I speak English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. I am learning Portugese, and hopefully later learn Italian, Russia, French and Germany.

[Invincible Summer]

I speak English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. I am learning Portugese, and hopefully later learn Italian, Russia, French and Germany.

That's not really 'speaking' is it? :lol:

I was always interested in learning sign language... are there different "dialects" then? If you wanted to sign with someone in Europe, would you have to learn a different style?

[LOLseph Stalin]

I may not be "multilingual", but I do speak English and German. That's two. :) I'm trying to teach myself Russian.

[Invincible Summer]

Lots of German speakers here.. interesting. Is it because of interest or are people here of German descent?

[Bright Banana Beard]

That's not really 'speaking' is it? :lol:

I was always interested in learning sign language... are there different "dialects" then? If you wanted to sign with someone in Europe, would you have to learn a different style?
Yes, there is many different dialects. American Sign Language is related to French Sign Language than English Sign Language due to the French founder. And yes, you need to learn different style. When I went to Honduras, I was able to understand about 80% of the guy's native sign language, but I do suggest you learn the country's sign language. I am not sure how different it is because I did not look into it.

[Kamerat]

Lots of German speakers here.. interesting. Is it because of interest or are people here of German descent?
Forced to learn it at school. It was either German or French and since i did not wanted to learn any of those and German is much similar to Norwegian (my first language) then French, hence much easyer to learn i chose German.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Lots of German speakers here.. interesting. Is it because of interest or are people here of German descent?


I'm not of German descent, but Austrian descent. Close enough though. I have Russian descent as well.

[Devrim]

The guy who is the manager of the Göthe centre in Ankara speaks 27 languages fluently. I spoke with him in Turkish, which he spoke beautifully, and English, which he didn't count amongst his fluent languages, but which in my opinion he spoke extremely well if a little accented.

Devrim

[LOLseph Stalin]

The guy who is the manager of the Göthe centre in Ankara speaks 27 languages fluently. I spoke with him in Turkish, which he spoke beautifully, and English, which he didn't count amongst his fluent languages, but which in my opinion he spoke extremely well if a little accented.


Wow! 27 languages? That's quite impressive. Even just trying to get fluent in more than two is a challenge...

[Invincible Summer]

I just realized I wrote "hyperglot" instead of "polyglot." I feel like a dumbass.

Oh well.

But here are the videos that inspired me to make this thread:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3w8yHrqFiQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtWuQmdexs

[Bright Banana Beard]

But here are the videos that inspired me to make this thread:


Just wow, those video are awesome.

[Devrim]

Wow! 27 languages? That's quite impressive. Even just trying to get fluent in more than two is a challenge...

27 fluent, he spoke many more, but didn't consider them fluent. I thought his English, which he didn't consider fluent was excellent. He is a very impressive guy.

Devrim

[RedAnarchist]

I speak English fluently, obviously, and I know very basic French and a small amount of Spanish.

[DreamWeaver]

27 sounds very impressive. I am fluent in English, German and Dutch. I can get by in French, but in other languages I only know how to greet people or how to say 'cheers' and such.

[Killfacer]

I know a bit of german, all of which is from computer games. I also have a very basic grasp of french.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I also have a very basic grasp of french.

I was forced to take French in school up until like 9th grade. It's pretty much mandatory in Canada until then.