Do I need a hair brush to write Chinese characters?

[Jasper May]

But I asked him something in Mandarin and he stared into his glass. I'm always a little suspicious of such claims.

Same here. I heard that some 17th century scholar was believed to have spoken more than 200 languages... Probably just the 100 most frequently used words of each. I think the largest amount of languages you can maintain at a respectable, semi-fluent level, is 10. Maybe 15, if you were raised in a multi-lingual family (like Peter Ustinov).

[shibo77]

I thought the most one knew is Ziad Fazah. He understands and maintains 58 languages, and had been tested into the Guiness Book of World Records. He learnt 54 languages before he was 17. He is a Lebanese of a Colomian father and Liberian mother and now resides in Brazil.

As for becoming decalingual. That is some hard work. I don't think it is possible unless either you are a genius, or that you stop doing anything else and study languages from sunrise to sunset. Or you can live 3 or 4 years in each of the 10 countries. But I think alot of us here have thought about learning lots of languages, but truely it is difficult. For the first two or three years, it might seem easy, but without attending proper university courses and simply learning them by oneself and achieving fluency, it is almost impossible.

I see languages as 1script 2pronunciation 3grammar 4vocabulary.

The script part usually takes a few hours to a few days, but as for Chinese and Japanese, it's a totally different concept.

The pronunciation might take awhile for Czech, Danish than for Italian, Spanish, but tonal languages, from easy ones like Yoruba to Cantonese, they are a totally different concept of difficulty.

The grammar of English, Esperanto would probably take a month, but the grammar of Classical(Qur'anic) Arabic is a totally different thing.

Then the most difficult part is the vocabulary. I think the best way is to memorise a dictionary, along with intense exposure to language materials(films, websites, newspapers, native speakers). But at the least it takes about 2 or 3 years to have a good deal of vocabulary enough for journal-reading and daily conversations. Of course, living in the country that speaks the language would be great.

Language is for interactions, learning a language in your house and deep in English speaking United States is mainly "theory". It's not real-life knowledge, which languages should belong to.

I wanted to learn lots of languages, but when I turned 18, and was in my last days of secondary school, I realised that even though I have been learning all these strange languages of far-away lands, I haven't even perfected any of the one which I boasted was fluent in. From then on, I gave up all the teach yourself languages books and concentrated on Chinese, English, French. Yes, Chinese, even a native speaker has room to perfect their own's native language. Being in China, I don't have much exposure to these foreign languages, but I try my best to become fluent in them. Even that French took me 8 years and English I learnt since 3rd grade. Both of which I learnt in a class and not by myself.

I think the best method, for me, is reading a grammar book, and memorising a dictionary. Along with exposure to the language and a lot of discipline. It's what Ziad Fazah does.

After I received results from my French test last year, I thought of taking a new language.

I am not good with grammatical genders, this stopped me from pursuing another language with these noun classes, such as Russian, Spanish, German, Italian, or Hindi, Urdu.

I thought Japanese might be neat, but I really wanted to learn the official languages of the UN. The Big Six, so I chose Arabic for this year and the next few years. I have them in this order, and I would like to become fluent in these by the age of 30. Chinese, English, French, Arabic, Russian, Spanish.

Add onto that, I self-study Esperanto, and toki pona. Both are easy constructed languages, so I am confident in mastering them.

-Shibo

[Jasper May]

He understands and maintains 58 languages, and had been tested into the Guiness Book of World Records.

I'm not attacking you personally (shibo77), since your opinions are largely the same as mine, but for those who really believe this claim:

1. Define understanding (understanding a couple of words or 20,000+ are grouped as one thing)

2. Define maintaining (learning 5 words per language, every two months? )

3. Explain how the GBWR tested him.

He learnt 54 languages before he was 17

Ridiculous, of course. This would imply that:

1. if (for the sake of argument) he started learning languages at the age of 3, he averaged one language every 3 (three) months.

2. he not only had to learn 20,000 words for every language (the number of words believed to be necessary for near-native fluency) in 3 months and all the grammatical rules of that language, but also maintain all the languages he had previously learnt.

3. he had to be exposed to oodles of radio, television, newspapers and literature for both the language he was learning at that moment and every other language he had previously learnt, learn and review grammatical rules constantly, and memorize 200 words a day.

4. he didn't have a life. QED.

The fact that he would have learnt 3 (of the 54) languages as a native speaker doesn't change this.

[shibo77]

I don't know, maybe it is a fake then. Guiness Book featured him on a television show and gave him tests.

-Shibo

[nosferatu2083]

So many languages, so little time. I really love languages now, but I'm beginning to think that it's not a good idea to try to learn too many of them. You'll forget them, lose interest, and waste time. You have to consider the limits of time and energy we all have. I'm a native Spanish speaker, but whenever I stop speaking it on a usual basis, I get rusty and all sorts of crazy things happen . Whenever I stop speaking English, my Spanish accent seems to get much stronger. I may have more trouble after I know Chinese. There's no way I can maintain more than four languages, at most. That's because I can only spend about two hours a day on languages studies, considering energy, interest (I really have to do a lot more than study languages), time (15 hr days, 75yr age span), and efficiency (I found out I can learn a lot more by studying less). I don't know where I'm getting at now, but my basic idea is that quality is more important than quality. Aristotle did ok and he only knew one language.

[skylee]

and the hair brush ...?

useful for brushing hair at least ...?

[sunyata]

Jasper May and woodcutter - good points!

Yeah, I know a guy from Georgetown, who claims to have learned 9 languages, but it's total bs. Although he has spent a lot of time learning grammar, everyday phrases and vocab, I still would not call him fluent in anything but English. It's not to say that this kind of people is not smart, They are smart and dedicated to spend so much time going through boring grammar books and lonely planet phrasebooks. Nevertheless, they will never become fluent that way. As woodcutter said, when one doesn't use a language on a daily basis (and this includes verbal communication with native speakers as well as reading), even a native speaker will forget a lot. I am a native Russian speaker, but while I was studying in the US my Russian became quite rusty. I also lived in Germany for almost a year and was rather fluent, but now after a few years of not using it - I can only say a few words.

In order to maintain even 5 languages at a fluent level, one would have to spend at least 2-3 hours a day using each one of them. That means you would have to spend 10-15 hours a day maintaining your 5 languages.

Learning the alphabet, some grammar rules, some words and a few everyday phrases does not mean you have learned a new language, it just means you have a lot of time on your hands and / or are desperate for some attention.

[Jasper May]

it just means you have a lot of time on your hands and / or are desperate for some attention.

Exactly. Though this can be said of any Westerner trying to learn Chinese.

[Haethurn]

sunyata-

I am not worrying about forgetting anything. I have a very good memory, and it is helped by the fact that I take an active interest in learning these languages.

In fact, I do have a "pen pal" who is a Muslim girl from Saudi Arabia, and when I get better at my Arabic I will ask her to implement more of that beautiful language in her emails to me. Also, as for using the language in a reading context, I can always read the Qur'an in its original Arabic. As I am interested in both religion and language, that will be a supremely satisfying experience.

I am still searching for the right religion (although since my father's death I have been convinced that, indeed, there is a God, and indeed, He does have a plan for me), and I believe that I may very well become a Muslim in the future. That matter will, I hope, be decided within a decade. If I do become a Muslim, I will certainly use Arabic on a daily basis. If I do not, then I can still look forward to working for an American company in the Middle East, and I will still be using the language constantly.

Rest assured that I am not just learning "some grammar rules, some words, and a few everyday phrases." I have every single intention of carrying myself to the highest levels of proficiency.

All of my dreams are piled upon the hope that someday I will be able to go to the Middle East, to India, or to Asia, and work there with the native peoples. Besides history and religion, language is something that I am fiercely passionate about, and I will not fail to someday become a man that my father would be proud of.

Indeed, he was prepared to facilitate my education in any way that he could. He worked 37 years as a foreman in a miserable aluminum plant, putting up with insane schedules, night shifts, day shifts, graveyard shifts, with the end result being that the money would pay for my college education. In his Last Will and Testament he left everything to me, to use it to pay my way through college. He did this because even though his parents were too poor to send him to college, he was a firm believer in the value of higher education, and he loved me with all his heart.

I will not fail him. I will certainly make the best of what he has given me, what he worked for half of his life to give me. Make no doubt about it, I am learning Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, perhaps even Chinese. By God, I will do this.

[xuechengfeng]

Honestly, you sound very lost in life. Not to be condescending. Do you feel like you are?

[Haethurn]

No, I do not. What do you mean? I feel as if every second I am moving closer to the destiny that my Creator has made for me, one of countless billions of destinies that he has in store for everyone, but this destiny is my destiny, and it belongs to me alone, though it intertwines with others, as my father's destiny was intertwined with mine.

I feel that my life has an unmistakable direction- it is grasping for the heavens. I see no way but up. I do not feel lost.

[Jasper May]

Well, that's a noble goal if ever there was one. Makes my selfish, materialistic motivations pale in comparison. I do hope you succeed.

[sunyata]

Wow, a complicated mind and a complicated situation to be in for a 16-year-old...What about your mother, don't you still ive with her. You sound like you are all by yourslef or something...

It's great of your father to have done what he did for you, but that doesn't mean you have to learn every other language in order to fullfill his expectations. I suggest you try learning a few and pick out an area you are most interested in - maybe Middle East for you. Or travel around if money allows you and then you can see which place attracts you the most.

Good luck !

[Altair]

Sunyata and Jasper,

In order to maintain even 5 languages at a fluent level, one would have to spend at least 2-3 hours a day using each one of them. That means you would have to spend 10-15 hours a day maintaining your 5 languages.

I agree with the overall thrust of your posts, but I think you might be a touch too demanding in your definitions of fluency.

I recently gave a four-hour presentation, including questions from the audience, in Spanish, a language that I have never studied or been exposed to for 2-3 hours a day. I can use the language in business and casual conversation for ordinary purposes, but do not routinely speak it, hear it, read it, or write it for anywhere near even 2-3 hours a week on average, let alone 2-3 hours a day. I rush to say, however, that for all of my business and casual knowledge of the language, there are many, many ways in which my expressiveness is constrained. I have nothing like native fluency.

Another issue is related languages. Since I can manage in Spanish and have studied about 30 to 40 hours of Portuguese through books and tapes, I find I can speak enough to use it for limited purposes as well. Again, I make tons of errors, cannot pick up a lot of speech, but can occasionally function in it well enough to participate in business meetings entirely in Portuguese.

Haethurn,

I think your goal is possible, but extremely difficult. I say this, because I have acquired varying ability in a number of languages more or less in the way you seem to aspire to; however, most of my fluency was gained through an immense amount of effort over long periods and using a variety of methods.

At one point, I knew enough Arabic to read magazines fairly easily, listen to news, and make basic conversation in colloquial Arabic. I never could really speak it much, however. Conversations were quite halting and painful. Koranic Arabic is rather far from the current written language and very far from any of the spoken varieties in grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. To “learn” Arabic, you must study the standard written language and one of the modern dialects separately. With that foundation, reading the Koran would be roughly analogous to reading Shakespeare.

Although learning “pidgin” Chinese is probably much easier than learning “pidgin” Arabic, I would say that learning Chinese to the “highest levels of proficiency” would be substantially harder than learning Arabic. In my view, the basis of learning vocabulary is more difficult, because of the structure of the languages. The Chinese writing system is immensely more difficult, since modern standard Arabic is almost completely phonetic. Most of Arabic grammar, though rather complex, is fairly regular and transparent. In my view, much of the complexity of Chinese grammar is hidden and so hard to approach outside of a setting that approximates total immersion or prolonged detailed instruction.

[Haethurn]

sunyata-

I do live with my mother. Currently we are living at my father's house until the estate is settled, and then I will be moving in with my mother.

I am not trying to learn every language. In fact, there is a large portion of languages that I have very little interest in learning, and those are the Romance languages. They simply do not appeal to me on any level except for perhaps a crude and practical one. Linguistically, for me, they are boring; I prefer a language where I have to memorize an alphabet, where everything is systematically foreign to my own native language. Arabic, Hindi, and Chinese fulfill these criteria. I will be learning French and Spanish in high school not because I care anything for those languages, but because they are language courses and I feel that I would do well in them. If my high school taught Japanese, I would certainly ditch the Spanish or the French in favor of Japanese.

As for travelling around-this probably will not happen until I am well out of college. My father had $200,000 in the IRA that names me as the beneficiary (my father apparently thought that it would go into the Trust Fund, but since it names me as the beneficiary it goes to me) and I have to place it in a savings account to be consolidated with the $75,000 from the settling of the estate. This may pay for the six years of college I am looking at to get my doctorate, and I hope that my Uncle George will pay for the rest of it if I do not have enough...I know that my father helped his brother out financially many times while he was in the army and George was in college. Perhaps he will return the favor.

Altair- I welcome every difficulty, especially extreme ones.

[hunxueer]

hmm. whatever happened to this poster, i wonder? he should be 19 by now and well on his way to fluency in at least chinese if not all the languages he mentioned if all went as planned?