lardycake wrote:

Motivates me a bit in that I want to eventually learn Korean and Mandarin, but I won't get started on that within the next 5 years.

Same here, I probably won't learn another language until after 5 years if learning Japanese. Well that's what I say but only time will tell.

11 languages? I'd be happy with 3-4 under my belt. I did notice that the languages he knows are similar to one another. So it does make it easier but it's an outstanding that he knows that many.

so what?

English,  German, Dutch, Afrikaans, are the same family (Germanic) and have similar vocabulary. I could learn these in a year.


French, , Catalan and Italian.Spanish Are the same family (romance) and have similar vocabulary. I could learn these in a year.


Greek,Russian and Hebrew are hard but what tests has he passed in these?

I am not impressed.

Last edited by HonyakuJoshua (2012 February 21, 1:22 pm)

HonyakuJoshua wrote:

so what?
...
I am not impressed.

and how many / which do you know? anyway, the related article points it out:

"If the languages are English, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi and Russian - that would be more significant from a learner's perspective than 11 Romance languages such as Italian, French and Spanish," he says.

but still,

According to author and linguistics expert Erard, there are not many hyperpolyglots like Gillon in the world. He has identified 11 languages as a significant watershed. Those who speak more than this are very rare.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370

Haters gona hate

As it says in the article, he won a competition.  There is no telling what google will come up with, but the point is he is badass at (spoken) languages.  This does not preclude others from being badass at languages, they just didn't win that competition (possibly one that emphasized pronunciation as opposed to just how many) and get a little BBC internet video.  There seems to be an undertone of vitriol that's a little confusing to me unless you were the runner up in the competition or something like that.

Edit: Didn't yet see the haters gonna hate statement.  You did mention the fact that the languages he learned are all in the same family, and then talked at length about how great the things you've achieved are.  Those are entirely unrelated unless, again, you are the runner up.  Of course I might also not be impressed if I was more than just barely bilingual, but there's still a hint of diatribe that doesn't seem warranted.  Sidenote: really enjoying busting out my high school vocab quiz words in this post for some reason ^.^;

The languages of India are an interesting example of language usage.  I forget the source unfortunately, but I recall someone discussing the concept of "bazaar" fluency or something like that.  In essence, there are too many languages used to learn all the ones around you to a high level.  Instead you'll find that many or most people are able to comfortably get by speaking functionally in many languages, but in a way that would not pass at an academic institute.  As I forget the source and a lot of the details I'll end there.  Regardless, props to the polyglots

Last edited by Mumei2501 (2012 February 21, 5:22 pm)

@HonyakuJoshua you're clearly also the man.

If you're thinking about continuing this thread, slowly count to ten, think of all the wonderful things you could do instead with your time (including things that involve Japanese), and then do one of those instead...

There are super interpreters: http://worldinterpreting.com/Interpreters_Nigeria.aspx

http://www.eddiedonovan.com/notablepolyglots.htm

Last edited by HonyakuJoshua (2012 February 21, 5:58 pm)

Some of these hyperglots "master" their languages to a rather low standard (not that there's anything wrong with focus on quantity over quality), but this guy seems to be the real deal, not that I can really verify them though. His dutch pronunciation seems a little off but still very good job overall.

Impressive. Only one small syntax error in the last German sentence... as far as I can tell.

He should learn Japanese!

nadiatims wrote:

Some of these hyperglots "master" their languages to a rather low standard (not that there's anything wrong with focus on quantity over quality), but this guy seems to be the real deal, not that I can really verify them though. His dutch pronunciation seems a little off but still very good job overall.

I am very suspicious and even if he does speak them well, I maintain my point about Germanic and Romance Languages I am much more impressed by Moses McCormick http://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000

There are much better hyperpolyglots than this guy on the BBC.

The kid just participated and won a contest, and it is pretty cool to know so many languages, especially since he's really young. Just because there are quite a few other hyperpolyglots out there doesn't mean that he's any less impressive. (and his accent is good enough to convince me that he knows what he's doing with them). Romance languages may be similar but that doesn't make them a buy-one-get-one-free kind of deal. Sure, get a bit of basic training and you have a huge comprehensibility rate with them, but that doesn't mean you can use them. French is incomprehensible to most romance speakers unless they've studied it extensively. German and English may be both Germanic but the similarities are pretty low, and Dutch is a hell of a weird bucket to dive in. I think everyone agrees that Russian, Greek and Hebrew aren't exactly a stroll in the park either.

Not as impressive as completing Kanji Gold or getting A* on a French test in highschool, I'll have to give you that.