Extreme polyglossia

There’s a lot of interesting discussion on the forum at How-to-learn-any-language.com about the extreme polyglot, Ziad Fazah, who lives in Brazil and speaks 58 languages. Some of those involved in the discussion are sceptical about the existence of this person, don’t believe that he speaks so many languages, or don’t think he could he learnt so many languages in his native Lebannon, due to lack of materials. Later on the discussion is joined by someone who actually knows Ziad, meets him regularly and can confirm that he really does know all those languages. Ziad’s contact details are given and a number of people mention that they have spoken to him and confirm that he speaks their language well, and that he has plenty advice to offer on language learning.

I find the whole discussion interesting on a number of levels: the fact that this man speaks so many languages so well is incredible. The understandable scepticism about his abilities and even his existence is also interesting, as is the way the discussion develops with some participants refusing to believe the claims of those who know the man in question.

One comment, apparently from Ziad himself, that rings true with me is that there’s not a lot of money in being a polyglot, and that someone who speaks 10, 20 or 50 languages doesn’t usually get paid more than someone who speaks two or three. When I tell people that I know many languages, they sometimes ask me why I’m not rich and famous. To which I usually reply that I learn languages mainly for fun rather than for profit.

Do you know or know of any extreme polyglots?

Every little helps

In an interview I found the other day, Barry Farber, author of How to Learn Any Language, mentions how he learns a new Tibetan word or phrase from the Tibetan woman who works in a nearby local grocery store every time he goes there. He also hopes to use the same method to learn some Moray from a man from Burkina Faso who works in his local liquor store. He says that there’s a big difference between knowing nothing of a language and knowing a little – if you know a little, you can greet people in their mother tongue and have very basic conversations with them, and that this is a great way to break the ice and to make new friends.

I’m definitely going to try this – the next time I take my laundry to the laundrette, for example, I’ll see if I can learn a word or phrase in Hindi. At the office I can learn phrases in Catalan, Polish, Arabic, Hungarian and Norwegian. Elsewhere I can learn bits of Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Dutch, Farsi and probably a few others. Maybe I’ll also write the phrases down in a notebook and/or record them on my mp3 player. This will be fun!

Another point Barry discusses is how to explain which languages you ‘speak’. In fact, he advises that you say something like “I have studied/am studying X number of languages” or “I am a student of X number of languages” rather than saying, as I tend to do, “I speak 10/12/15 languages, with varying degrees of fluency.” or “I speak English and Mandarin fluently, have a good knowledge of 8 other languages and a basic knowledge of 10 more”. Instead, I will say that I’m am student of 20 languages, 15 of which I’ve studied in some depth.

Babbling babies

There was an interesting piece in The Times yesterday about a new book, The Infinite Gift: How Children Learn and Unlearn the Languages of the World by Charles Yang of the University of Pennsylvania, in which he argues that babies are born with templates for the grammatical structures of all languages in their brains, but gradually forget them as they become familiar with the structure of their mother tongue.

Professor Yang, who’s theories are based on Noam Chomsky’s notion of universal grammar, suggests that when babies babble, they are trying out the various templates until they find one that ‘works’, i.e. that earns them encouragement and praise from their parents and others. So the strange word order or constructions young children use, might be correct in other languages. For example, the sentence ‘I want ball’ is ungrammatical in English but perfectly grammatical in Russian, Chinese and other languages which do not have articles.

The train has been replatformed

This week I’m on holiday and spending most of it with my parents in the wilds of Lancashire in the northwest of England. Yesterday, while waiting for a train, I heard an announcement about a different train being ‘replatformed’. This word caught my attention because it sounded quite strange, and even though I’d never heard before, I knew exactly what it meant.

Have you heard any strange new words recently?

Name the language

This week we have a question from David. Can you identify the following language and translate it into English? Note: to make this slightly more difficult, I’ve made a phonetic transcription of the sentence using the IPA. The language isn’t normally written like this.

mystery language

Clues: This a well-known proverb. The language is a constructed one built over a period of many years and only a few people actually speak it.

Here’s a recording of another sentence in the same language.

English is easy, isn’t it?!

One of the things I did this week was to research online English language tests. I also helped some Chinese friends with their English. Doing these things gave me insights into some of the peculiarities of English. For example, usage of small words like at, on, in, for, and phrasal verbs like get on, get off, put in, put up with, etc. must be particularly difficult to master, I imagine. It’s interesting to see your native language in a different light.

Many aspects of your native language are instinctive to you. Explaining them to others can be difficult – they just sound and/or feel right, but you aren’t necessarily sure why. The same is true for other skills – once you’ve mastered them, it can be difficult to remember how you learnt them, and you might feel that you have always been able to do them. For example, when I teach people juggling and other circus skills, I try to break every move down into small parts and to explain each in turn. Quite often I find myself wondering why things that I find very easy are so difficult for others. Then I remind myself that I’ve been doing these things a lot longer than my students.

My aim when learning other languages is to internalise as much as possible of the grammar so that I can use it without having to grope for the right inflection, gender, etc. With lots of exposure to a language, I eventually get a good feel for its structure. This enables me to speak and write it quite fluently.

Foreign language music

Listening to songs in languages you’re studying, learning what they mean and how to sing them are great ways to practise various language skills.

One of the first things that got me interested in Portuguese, Spanish, Irish and Scottish Gaelic was listening to songs in those languages. This also helps to sustain my interest in them. Since I started learning Welsh I’ve also become a big fan of Welsh language music. Before that I was only vaguely aware that there was a Welsh language music scene – it’s a bit like discovering a whole new country. I quite like some Mandarin and Cantonese music as well.

I’ve learnt quite a few songs in Irish, plus some in Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. I’d like to learn songs in other languages as well at some point. I find it quite difficult to memorise the words, but easier if I understand what they mean and can picture the things and events described in my head.

The other day I looked at my music library and discovered that the language in which I have most songs is Irish, followed by Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese and Cantonese. I also have a few songs in Latin, Taiwanese, Japanese, Manx, Breton, French, Cornish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Tibetan.

Do you listen to songs in languages other than your own? Which languages do you listen to?

How long does it take to learn a language?

There is no definitive answer to the question posed by the title of this post. It all depends on the following factors, among other things:

How much of the language do you want to learn?
If you want to become proficient in all aspects of the language, then it’s going to take a lot longer than if you just want to learn enough to ‘get by’ when you visit a country or region where the language is spoken

Which languages do you already know?
Learning a language related to your native language and/or another language you know will probably take less time than learning an unrelated language. There will be a lot of vocabulary you recognise and the grammar will be similar.

How will you be studying?
Studying on your own and/or with a private tutor might be quicker than studying in a class because you can go at your own pace. If you study every day, even for only short while, you’ll probably make better and faster progress than spending a few hours a week in a class. You might make even more progress if you combine studying on your own with going to a class or having individual lessons – the class/lessons will give you the opportunity to use your language with others, and to get advice, guidance and feedback from a teacher/tutor, while studying on your own enables you to work on aspects of the language that interest you and practise the bits that you find difficult.

How motivated are you?
To continue studying for as long as it takes to learn a language, you need to be well motivated, and also focused and dedicated. To motivated you are, the quicker your progress is likely to be.

According to ALTA Languages Services, it takes about 300 hours for someone to go from beginner to advanced level. This works out as around a year and eight months of studying for half an hour a day, or ten months studying for an hour a day.

It took me five years of fulltime study to learn Chinese, a year and a half of which I spent in Taiwan. French and German took me seven and six years of regular study (a few hours a week) respectively. After four years studying Japanese fulltime, including four months in Japan, I could speak it fairly well, though not fluently. I’ve been learning Spanish and Welsh sporadically for about eight years and have a fairly good command of the latter, but only a fairly shaky grasp of the former. After two years of studying Irish I have a good knowledge of the language and can speak it quite well.

Word of the day – 嵐 (arashi)

嵐 (arashi), noun = storm

Examples of usage

嵐が来そうです (arashi ga kisō desu)
It looks as if a storm is going to come

嵐が治まりました (arashi ga osamarimashita)
The storm abated

男たちは嵐の夜に出てきました
(otokotachi wa arashi no yoru ni detekimashita
The men went out on a stormy night

This character is a compound of two characters: on top there’s a mountain (山 – yama) and under that there’s the character for wind (風 – kaze). Storms are common in the mountains, so this combination makes sense. Knowing the meanings of the individual parts of compound characters like this can help you to remember them.

In Mandarin this character is pronounced làn means mountain mist, mountain haze, mountain vapor or mist.

Another, more common, Japanese word for storm is 暴風 (bōfū)

The power of words

More or less every area of human activity involves a different range of specialised vocabulary, otherwise known as a linguistic register. Knowing the vocabulary associated with a particular activity isn’t essential, but without it you will probably find yourself using complex, convoluted descriptions, which can be frustrating. Once you learn the relevant words, you can talk about the activity with confidence, and those involved with the activity will be more likely to believe you know what you’re talking about. Of course it helps considerably if you know what the words mean as well.

If your car breaks down, for example, and you have to take it to a garage, knowing the words to describe what you think is wrong and being able to discuss possible solutions will signal to the mechanic that you about cars. As a result, he will be less likely to slip some extra unnecessary work onto your bill. By this I’m not implying that all garage mechanics would stoop to such practices, but these things do sometimes happen, apparently.