Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2014-02-15 03:32 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-02-15 03:32 pm
[ SECRET POST #2601 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2601 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 098 secrets from Secret Submission Post #372.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: How many languages do you speak ?
"Speak", though, is pretty ambiguous. When I was just starting out in terms of language education I assumed that when people said they "spoke" a language, they meant "fluently". Thus I was awestruck by all of the people who spoke five, six, ten languages, etc. It was only later in life, after meeting many of these people and querying them in the languages they "spoke" that I realized that what they meant was "could maybe order breakfast in it, if the menu was right in front of them, with only a few mistakes". Aside from a few life long linguistic scholars, and linguistic superstars working for the UN, "fluency" seems to top out around two or three.
It depends, though, because not all languages are created equal, depending on your native tongue. A host of studies support this - an English speaker will have an objectively easier time with, say, French or Spanish than they will Arabic or Mandarin. English speakers are at a disadvantage here compared to, say, French speakers. English is a Germanic language, but it's diverged greatly from German since. French speakers, on the other hand, studies have shown, will pick up other romance languages with relative ease due to their lasting similarities in terms of both vocabulary and structure, meaning that they can learn Spanish and Italian in a fraction of the time it would take a native English speaker. Worse, some of these language pairs are mutually intelligible - I recall hearing that my great grandmother spoke five languages, but then when I realized that these included Russian/Ukrainian, and German/Austrian, I was considerably less impressed (the latter pair is like saying you speak both "British" and "American"). English speakers don't get any of these freebies.
So to really impress me I'd ask someone "in how many languages are you fluent that aren't in your native tongue's language group?". At which point I find that the number of languages my fellow linguistic enthusiasts "speak" plummets dramatically.
Re: How many languages do you speak ?
(Anonymous) 2014-02-16 06:19 am (UTC)(link)Like you said, French people get Italian and Spanish more easily. Dutch people get German. The Scandanavians get a 3 for 1 deal.
I'd argue, however, that nobody is actually 'fluent' in the way that many people take the word, even in their own language.
There'll be pockets of any language, even your native one, that are completely foreign to you. For instance, ask the average English speaker to understand a legal document in English, or an engineering dissertation in English, or to translate a German accountancy magazine even if they are 'fluent' in German. To an outsider, it looks like they've lied by saying they know the language.
I don't think the word 'fluent' is that useful. English is my native language. I'd describe it thusly. Never that I'm fluent in it, because there are literally thousands of words I don't know.
Re: How many languages do you speak ?