It struck me today that many polyglots and hyperpolyglots are male. I wonder if this has something to do with the instinct to collect things and the tendency to get a bit carried away with particular subjects, traits that seem more common in males than females. Perhaps it might also be a result of the male inclination to show off. The ability to learn many languages is quite a good indicator of intelligence, after all.

Any thoughts on this?

Addition
I suspected this might be a controversial observation. Maybe I should expand my point a bit: I’m certainly not implying that there are no female polyglots, or that men are better at languages than women. What I mean by polyglots here is people who learn a large number of languages, i.e. ten or more. If you look at the list of polyglots on Wikipedia, you notice that most of those who know 10+ languages are men.

I came across another useful site for language learners today – Polyglot, which describes itself as a ‘free language exchange community’ where you can ‘learn languages and make friends’. The site apparently has over 100,000 members.

As well as finding online language exchange partners and penpals, you can also use the site to set up realworld meetings with other language learners. I might try to set something up in Brighton.

Some of the features of the site, like the forms, only work properly in Internet Explorer, and if you try to enter more than eight languages in the ‘Languages you want to learn’ section it says ‘Don’t over estimate yourself’, but apart from that, the site looks good.

Many years ago while travelling in China, I heard Norwegian being spoken for the first time when I met some Norwegians in Guangzhou. To me their language sounded sort of familiar and quite funny – a bit like German being spoken by very drunk people. Danish and Swedish sound similar to me and I think it’s the intonation that makes them sound like fun languages and puts a smile on my face. I also quite like the sounds of Dutch, which again sounds to me like a funny kind of German.

The only Germanic languages I currently know are English and German. I plan to learn one or two others, Norwegian and maybe Dutch, in the not too distant future.

A friend recently starting learning Norwegian and he’s really enjoying it. He finds it a quirky and fun language and says that he’s never before studied a language that makes him laugh out loud so frequently.

Which languages put a smile on your face?

A while ago I came across an interesting language learning-related idea but then promptly forgot where it was. I finally found it again today here. The idea is that you record yourself speaking the language(s) you’re learning every so often, then go back to the recordings later to see how much progress you’ve made. These recordings could be said to be linguistic time capsules.

If you’ve learning to play a musical instrument or to sing, you could make something similar – a musical time capsule.

If you’re trying to choose which language to learn, the following question, which is based on one I came across yesterday, might help you to decide:

If you were offered a free trip to one of the countries where the languages you’re considering are spoken, which country would you choose?

For me, choosing which language(s) to learn is a frequent conundrum, though often the choice is between learning a new language, or brushing up and improving my knowledge of
languages I already know. Often I end up trying to do both.

Today I came across an interesting article on Overlearning, via Polyglottery, which argues that it’s better to learn a relatively small amount thoroughly than to try to learn as much as possible of a language.

The author’s main point is that some language learners don’t repeat words and phrases enough before moving on to the next ones. This results in them half-knowing quite a lot, but unable to produce what they know smoothly and fluently.

A better way is apparently to repeat things many times, then practice using them with native speakers as frequently as possible. In this way, you are able to produce words and phrases without conscious thought – they just flow out when you need them.

The author also says that you can pick up the grammar by learning how to use words and sentence patterns in various situations. You may not know why a particular inflexion is needed, but you will be able to apply it when necessary.

This makes a lot of sense to me and sounds similar to the Pimsleur method.

There are many different reasons to learn languages, some practical, some intellectual, and some sentimental. Have you learnt, are you learning, or would you like to learn any languages purely for fun? If so, which languages and why?

I’m learning, or plan to learn, all the Celtic languages mainly for fun. I fell for Irish because of my interest in traditional Irish music. Same story with Scottish Gaelic. In the case of Welsh, I’m also studying it for practical reasons – before securing my current position, one of the jobs I applied for was based in Bangor in the heart of Welsh-speaking Welsh (y Fro Gymraeg) and a knowledge of Welsh was desirable for that job. Welsh is an ancestral language for me as well – my mum’s family are from Wales and spoke Welsh a few generations ago.

Czech is another language I’m learning mainly for fun, and to surprise and impress my Czech friends. I’d also like to visit the Czech Republic at some point, so my studies are partly practical.

Other languages I’d quite like to learn for fun, if I had the time and could find the relevant materials: a Polynesian language such as Hawai’ian or Maori; a Native American language such as Cherokee or Navajo; a ‘click’ language such as Xhosa or Zulu; and maybe Tibetan and Mongolian, mainly because I really like their alphabets. These are all interesting languages unlike any I already know and I’d like to find out more about the people who speak them.

This post was inspired by discussion on the Language Learning Forum at How to learn any language.