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Superpolyglots: Pent Nurmekund and Emil Krebs
Автор темы: Jacek Krankowski (X)
Parrot
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Испания
Local time: 00:45
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How our brains work Jan 13, 2003

Quote:


On 2003-01-12 05:49, aivars wrote:

Jacek you started talking about intimidating polyglots, now let me introduce my limited abilities.

When 10 years ago I worked hard to improve my English (aspiring to become a living EN-ES pocket dictionary), I lost 80% of my fluent German. But what about this - yet not fully bilingual, I cannot remember my three-year mobile\'s number. I remember only 2 telephone numbers (my house... See more
Quote:


On 2003-01-12 05:49, aivars wrote:

Jacek you started talking about intimidating polyglots, now let me introduce my limited abilities.

When 10 years ago I worked hard to improve my English (aspiring to become a living EN-ES pocket dictionary), I lost 80% of my fluent German. But what about this - yet not fully bilingual, I cannot remember my three-year mobile\'s number. I remember only 2 telephone numbers (my house connection and my mother\'s).

My girlfriend on the other hand lacks any talent for languages but every time we must call someone I ask her to do it because she always remembers the numbers.

This reminds me of the configuration of computer games characters; if you decide your character to be \"fast-talker\", he or she automatically will be less proficient with weapons, or slower running. I wonder if an outstanding chess player can be also talented in football, or whether those super polyglots have any other skill besides the languages. As for me, I ended up being a translator after failing to be a successful tennis player, musician and psychologist.







Don\'t be surprised. Being bilingual takes up a lot of memory, and controlling it takes more. People who work in two directions are subject to the control tasks required (keeping Spanish out of English and English out of Spanish, for example). That\'s why conference interpreters, on whom such a demand is very stringent, are advised to work in only one direction. They may work from two or three sources, but only in one direction. When they work in both directions, it\'s almost always a foregone conclusion that they\'ll abandon a third working language, because such a combination can wreck a person\'s linguisitic ability in his own mother tongue. Controlling three takes a very special profile and may admit only very particular jobs. The accidents (interferences) that occur can usually be explained by factors inherent to the person himself. The written word tends to follow this pattern. And while it\'s possible to backtrack and correct written errors, there is more likelihood of visible errors in translation than audible errors in interpretation.



This does not mean you won\'t be able to speak another language or add to your language capacities. It only means that the memory you apply to a third or fourth language will be limited if you\'re controlling direct/inverse modes, and you\'ll reach a point at which you make a choice (probably best formulated as: third/fourth language or inverse; I gave up on inverse and never work into Spanish). But as a speaker, traveller, etc., you can keep on acquiring languages to kingdom come. How much of it stays with you will depend on many factors: residence, years of practice/neglect, reading matter, contacts, etc..



Note that a change of residence can bring about a change of language profile. It will never erase mother language, but may \"overwrite\" what you consider a second language; i.e., you become better translating from the language of your place of residence than from what used to be your second language.



Corollary is the observation that numbers are the last thing we learn how to say well in speaking a new language. I\'ve only met a few exceptions to this (accountants and finance people), but as a rule, that interesting foreigner you meet at a disco will probably roll his/her eyes as an initial response (fishing in the pineal gland?) when you ask him/her for his/her telephone number.



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AngusJohnson
AngusJohnson
Local time: 00:45
польский => английский
Polyglots May 1, 2007

Polyglots are a fascinating subject I could elaborate on for ages. A couple of years ago, I assigned myself to read absolutely everything I could find on polyglots and what techniques they used to learn languages, but surprisingly enough, I only found a single book plus a few articles scattered through other books on a different subject. The book was: "Giuseppe Mezzofanti" by Russel (can't remember the surname) - the full text of the book available on the Internet - I'll put up the link if I fin... See more
Polyglots are a fascinating subject I could elaborate on for ages. A couple of years ago, I assigned myself to read absolutely everything I could find on polyglots and what techniques they used to learn languages, but surprisingly enough, I only found a single book plus a few articles scattered through other books on a different subject. The book was: "Giuseppe Mezzofanti" by Russel (can't remember the surname) - the full text of the book available on the Internet - I'll put up the link if I find it. The weird thing about this book is that it presents totally divergent accounts of Mezzofanti, some people appearing there praise his language skills to the skies, while others say he was nothing but a fraud, who could say nothing in most of the languages he said he knew but a bunch of phrases - barely of a tourist's standard. Another story of that sort is on Wikipedia; it says that the famous British writer, Anthony Burgess, had absolute fluency in ca. 15 languages, which included Malayan. However, in another book, don't remember the title, it was a 'memoirs' though, the authors talks about Burgess not being able to make his orders in a restaurant in Malesia. The bottom line is: the matter needs to be researched.Collapse


 
AngusJohnson
AngusJohnson
Local time: 00:45
польский => английский
Correction. May 1, 2007

Sorry - about the post above - Russel IS the surname of that guy - what I didn't remember was his FIRST NAME.

 
Kumosan
Kumosan
английский
GEORGES MARGOULIES Mar 22, 2008

I am searching infromation about Geroges Margoulies who I believe was a United Nations translator in the 1950s. An article in one of the New York City newspapers at that time listed him as speaking five major languages and numerous (52) dialects.
Thank you.


 
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Superpolyglots: Pent Nurmekund and Emil Krebs






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