I speak more than fifty languages

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lavengro
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I speak more than fifty languages

Postby lavengro » Fri Aug 12, 2022 6:40 pm

This may be of interest, though probably not much new about this aggresively-bearded, well-known polyglot for most of you.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/aug/12/experience-i-speak-more-than-50-languages

I find so much in his story that mirrors my own lifepath, except literally every single detail. I am however comforted in seeing many of the reader comments focussing on the importance of learning how to ask for a beer in a foreign language, which is my criteria for success, which falls I believe somewhat between A1 and A2 on the CEFR scale:

A1
A beer
A2
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby Le Baron » Fri Aug 12, 2022 7:29 pm

I like Richard. Quite a lot, he's a very nice fellow and one of the best language ambassadors who never seems like he's trying to sell you anything. His weekly 'chat' on YT is a selfless thing.
I don't know about the 'I speak 50 languages' though. He's always qualified this in person with 'I say I've studied' over 50 languages'... No doubt the Grauniad thought it was a better title. I checked in on his Korean path though because he posted it to YouTube, didn't it stall?
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby Iversen » Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:03 pm

I have never heard Richard claim that he speaks fity languages - but it is totally possible that he has studied fifty languages and at different levels can express himself in many of them.

Asking for a beer is not my criterion since I don't drink dring the stuff if I can avoid it, but it should not be impossible to learn to do it in fifty languages. However I have personally heard Richard say more complicated things in a fair amount of languages, and it seems that he has been able to organize his life in such a way that he get to use many of his languages on a regular basis. But fifty?
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:20 pm

I heard something like that just week or two ago, from the Expolingua video that Kraut linked to in another topic.
From the description:
Richard kommt ursprünglich aus England und hat schon über 50 (!) Sprachen gelernt.(...)




Already after 30 seconds:
-Wie viele Sprachen sprichst du?
-Ich habe über so 50 Sprachen bisher gelernt.
-Aha..
-Aber ich spreche sie nicht alle so perfekt. Das ist ja völlig unmöglich.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby Le Baron » Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:39 pm

Yes. It's exactly what I said.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby rdearman » Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:04 am

That isn't really a major accomplishment. I have studied 11 languages.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby galaxyrocker » Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:21 am

rdearman wrote:That isn't really a major accomplishment. I have studied 11 languages.


If studied means 'has read the basics of the grammar and some basic vocabulary' I'm probably higher than that thanks to the years of writing Language of the Week on Reddit lol. But actually speaking? Two and a half.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby Iversen » Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:19 am

If you can have a regular long conversation in a language then you clearly speak it. If you can ask for a beer, but not for a glass of milk then you may have some communicative skills at the A0 or A1 level, but it would be exaggerated to claim that you speak it. And below or beyond that there is the question of having studied a language, which is a different thing. Based on my meetings with Richard at gatherings and congresses (plus some details about his biography) I'm fairly sure that he can speak more languages than me - twenty wouldn't surprise me, but fifty ...

As for the 'studying' thing it is hard to define. I own and have read a Greenlandic grammar so you could say that I have studied it even though my practical skills are nil. I have also made wordlists and read parts of a grammar for Finnish, which definitely counts as studying, but also definitely not as learning. I once started to learn Bahasa Melayu, but the first materials I used were a tourist guide to Singapore in Bahasa-something and its English companion. However I soon found out that it actually was written in Indonesian so I switched to that language - leaving Melayu on the 'having studied' (but not learnt) list. The special thing in this case is that the two languages are so close that my Indonesian skills now also spill over to its neighbour - just as I can use my mediocre Serbian to spell my way through Croatian. Speaking about Croatian: I have read Comrie's book about ALL the Slavic languages so at a very low level I have studied them all - including the two Sorbians, Czech, Old Church Slavonic and Belarussian - but I have never had a good long conversation in any of them, only uttered short messages to obtain goods like tickets, potato chips and pizza with ananas. And I don't know a single word in Upper or Lower Sorbian.

In short, unless you specify exactly what you have done with a certain language it is meaningless to say that you have studied it. It could be anything from reading the first ten pages in a language guide to cracking the writing system of Akkadian Cuneiform.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby einzelne » Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:21 pm

Le Baron wrote:I don't know about the 'I speak 50 languages' though. He's always qualified this in person with 'I say I've studied' over 50 languages'... No doubt the Grauniad thought it was a better title.


This is the age we are living now. Sensationalism, or otherwise it doesn't count.
Honestly, I don't know what what "I've studied" means when it comes to languages. Can you read or watch TV in them now? How long will it take for you to brush your active skills and participate in a real conversation?
I've studied more languages than listed in my profile and in some of them I don't remember a thing since, if you haven't reached a decent level, it's basically dabbling. You need to start from scratch.
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Re: I speak more than fifty languages

Postby Kraut » Sat Aug 13, 2022 2:30 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE4VKJ_1Z94
He says that he speaks five on a daily basis, the others to a varying degree of mastery.
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