zenmonkey wrote:If you know what is going on, clue me in. Because frankly a discussion of some sort on the definition of polyglottery has been going on for the last twenty years (or more) and I really don't see anyone making inroads.
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This type mealy-mouthed bickering is such a turn-off that it destroys any respect or interest I might have in those YouTubers. It's petty.
I agree. It often feels like beating a dead horse just to get more likes.
When I entered the online language learning community sometime around 2010 or 2012, the situation was still very different. Back then, we really needed tons of "learn in 3 months" and "learn plenty languages" discussions, because the norm at that time was harmful too. There was still pretty much a monopoly of one part of the industry. You want to learn a language? Sign up to a school, pay them for five years, then you
might begin to use the language in the real life, but not really too much. Nope, you cannot learn faster, you canot learn on your own, you are unlikely to succeed in any case, and your teacher is the main contact with the culture and the ultimate judge of what you should do.
But then we got through this phase, and now a too big part of the industry is the opposite scheme. Pay for an app, play a game for a month, and we promise you miracles, like what this youtuber shows. Oh, sign up for twenty languages, you're a polyglot!
And after those ten years, this fight has become rather boring to me. It is still complicated and tricky for all the newbies, which is why I still participate with my two cents, just like many other normal learners.
BeaP wrote:After the internet democratised learning and gave everyone the possibility to acquire almost anything, the role of experts got questioned. The old definitions got blurred, and a lot of people became visible who don't fit in the boxes. On the one hand people become specialists to earn more, on the other the perceived social value of certain degrees is much lower than before. I think a lot about what to recommend my children, what's the most profitable and useful way of learning now, and honestly I don't have an answer. So I accept that people try all kinds of things, get passionate about all kinds of things that might prove to be dead ends. You can call me naive, but I don't really think that most 'fake polyglots' are clever criminals who make fortunes out of lies. I think a lot of people really believe that it's easy, quick and interesting, and a couple of sentences are enough. Without the context or the background how can you be objective about your knowledge? Even if they do things for economic reasons, in a world full of influencers it seems to be a rational choice.
They overused this word and consequently modified its meaning. We can stick to the old one stubbornly and say it's only for the high achievers, but I think it's also OK to accept this phenomenon.
The world has changed. These days, we actually need many more plurilingual people than before. Even the EU authorities say people should learn two foreign languages, too bad they don't also support this wish by actions (outlawing geoblocking, more support to language learning in every country, removal of some economic obstacles to learning etc).
If we want to live in this world and profit from it, we actually need to no longer treat languages as something for experts. At least in the sense of experts being the main population of speakers of foreign languages (but of course, there is still a lot of space for linguists etc). If we don't want to see our normal communication damaged, dumbed down, and blurred by relying on machine translation or on intermediary langauges etc, we need more plurilingual people. Millions in every country.
If we want to keep some of our values, such as respect, diversity, integration (not assimilation), we need even four languages to be the norm for a part of the population (the language of their country, the language of their roots, and of course two real foreign languages to not be handicapped on the job market). But well spoken 4 languages, not a few phrases.
But the fake polyglots are very harmful to this effort too right now, because they're contributing to the fake polarisation between "learn one language well" and "learn a few phrases in 20 languages". I agree that most of them may be just naive, not necessarily looking for monetary profit. They could be more objective, if they wanted, they could for example take cefr or they could show off real skills, not staged videos. Unfortunately, they are a part of a harmful loop of lowering standards.
Cainntear wrote:Oh yes, definitely, but what's remarkable is how high the standards a lot of these jobs require. Obviously not as high as official sworn interpreters, but you're talking "degree in language related discipline with native fluency in 3 languages" for a minimum wage job with no guaranteed hours.
I shared a flat with someone in Edinburgh who worked with one, and I met all these extremely intelligent people with incredible skills, just trying to keep going until something better came up.
It's a vicious, exploitative cycle: they don't want to work in a supermarket as it doesn't look as good on their CV, even though it pays more, and there's always (or was, at least, before Brexit) a steady supply of cheap replacement labour keeping wages down.
Thank you, now I regret a bit less having studied medicine and not languages. I was rather dishartened, looking at some of these career options, in hopes of getting paid for my C2 skills, just to find out that they want a specific degree that I haven't done. Just speaking and translating better than many people with the degree is not enough. Reading this makes me regret a bit less.
Iversen wrote:zenmonkey wrote:(...)I've had the same conversations with a lot of people studying fields like mathematics, literature, and even engineering. Asking "to do what?" seems to be a surprise to many, as if the topic of study was an end to itself.
You can study all kinds of things without having a clear picture of how it can be used for earning money. Some people manage to find a job or at least a way of living that brings them into contact with people speaking a variety of languages, others don't - but it can still become an entertaining (and time-consuming!) hobby. It is sad if you thought you could earn a lot of money by learning a lot of languages, just as it is sad if you thought that you would be speaking
all your languages with your neighbours and collegues, but the world is as it is. Take it or leave it..
Learning several languages as a hobby is excellent, just like studying maths, literature, or even engineering as a hobby is excellent. I find it very sad, that we ask the question "why", when it comes to intellectual hobbies, but nobody asks "why", when people do several sports, or various other not intellectual hobbies.
The main problem are the wrong expectations, I agree. Just speaking several languages can be pretty worthless careerwise, it needs to be a part of a bigger plan. We no longer live in the 90's, where just B1/B2ish skills in English and nothing else were already a gateway to a beautiful career.
The main difference between being a polyglot and being something else is that the word in itself suggests that you are something of a collector, just as some people collect Ming vases or expensive watches.
Yes, this is definitely a common perception. But no clue, why many people find collecting vases or watches more normal than collecting language skills.
That being said I still think that we should keep the word polyglot, especially when it is used about people who makes an effort of learning a number of languages (with the -lingual series mainly used about people who are native speakers of their languages). And then the word "linguist" can finally be reserved for people who study languages on a scientific basis...
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"linguist" should definitely be reserved to the scholars, true. "-lingual" as native of more than one is ok too. But we are still left with the problem of the lowest number for "polyglot". I am still ok with being a pentaglot or hexaglot, and I feel very uncomfortable with anyone labeling me "polyglot"