Posted on 05/31/2015 8:01:33 PM PDT by Cronos
Out on a sunny Berlin balcony, Tim Keeley and Daniel Krasa are firing words like bullets at each other. First German, then Hindi, Nepali, Polish, Croatian, Mandarin and Thai – they’ve barely spoken one language before the conversation seamlessly melds into another. Together, they pass through about 20 different languages or so in total.
It can be difficult enough to learn one foreign tongue. Yet I’m here in Berlin for the Polyglot Gathering, a meeting of 350 or so people who speak multiple languages – some as diverse as Manx, Klingon and Saami, the language of reindeer herders in Scandinavia. Indeed, a surprising proportion of them are “hyperglots”, like Keeley and Krasa, who can speak at least 10 languages. One of the most proficient linguists I meet here, Richard Simcott, leads a team of polyglots at a company called eModeration – and he uses about 30 languages himself.
..Numerous studies have shown that being multilingual can improve attention and memory, and that this can provide a “cognitive reserve” that delays the onset of dementia. Looking at the experiences of immigrants, Ellen Bialystok at York University in Canada has found that speaking two languages delayed dementia diagnosis by five years. Those who knew three languages, however, were diagnosed 6.4 years later than monolinguals, while for those fluent in four or more languages, enjoyed an extra nine years of healthy cognition...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Exactly, you get nowhere by trying to translate from a foreign tongue back to English. Similar to your experience, I had studied Spanish for several years before it finally kicked in one night and I found myself dreaming in Spanish. Immersion in another language is necessary to eliminate that translation stumbling block. Let it flow in, don't overthink it
If you want a refresher course, listen to a Spanish novella on tv (soap). They speak clearly and it's easy to follow even if you don't get it all at first. These shows are even "soapier" than American soaps. The funny thing is their accents often don't match who they are playing. A Spaniard might be playing a Mexican. It's about like hearing an Englishman play a Southerner.
I've never done more than memorize the "Sh'ma" -- but how do you find your brain works differently when speaking Hebrew compared to when you speak English?
I would suggest that you go and live among people who speak only Hebrew and insist — no English — its incredible what you can do when you have no other choice :) I speak from experience on that!!
I think the problem is you are trying to translate in your head. The best way is to just immerse yourself — this is hard because you have to go back to being a child — it is incredibly frustrating when you can only communicate in basic sentences
I found that written and spoken French can be two different worlds — and i’m not talking only about passe compose. But even saying “nous faisons...” is just in the written world — you use “nous” a lot in a restaurant and they’ll know you’re a foreigner. They use words like “on fait” instead. Why? i have no clue.
I believe it is because you are removing yourself from the action/opinion/occurrence (whatever) to avoid responsibility. The same thing occurs a lot in Spanish. You normally don't say "I lost the book" (Perdí el libro), but "The book got lost (to me)", (Se me perdió el libro).
I’m not sure about that — but you may be right. incidently you say the same in Slavic languages as well — the “bus ran from me”
“I am but a simple redneck and unable to put on any other skin.” — I think “rednecks” are under-rated, furthermore, by the definition on www.dictionary.com, one can’t call you, ZC, by any means “uneducated” — far, far from that definition be ye.
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