What IS the dirty little secret of multilingual people??

I had enough of a problem learning Scottish and Geordie!

Bilingualism rocks!



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The dirty little secret of the multilingual? It's good for your health!

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UPI link

Brilliant news!

More evidence for the use it or lose it school of thinking in regard to your brain.

better info at PsychCentral

what did you say ?

was sagten sie ?

wat hest du seggt ?

eh ?

i'm "quatro-lingual" :wink:
hbg

OK. Being a polyglot is good against senile dementia... but what about dementia praecox?

How many crazy polyglots do you know?
Many?
Yes!!!!!

I had to take my wife to the antenatal clinic yesterday. The Thai interpreter we arranged took ill and couldn't make it. So we got a Korean interpreter, which worked out OK-and her english is improving every day.

Well, I am fluent in three languages. Two I grew up with and English I picked up here and I think I am pretty good at it but you'll be the judge in months to come. BTW, Hi to everyone. This is my first post in this message board!!
When I was still at school, my german language teacher insisted on meeting with my parents to get their permission to get me to attend her intensive german language tutoring classes free-She kept telling me that I am natural when it comes to languages. But I was a hyper-active child and German was never interesting for me, even though I speak a bit of it too now and got straight A's in my german class.
Maybe it is something in my brain, or maybe the teacher was just exaggerating and there is nothing special in me being fluent in three languages, speaking broken German and taking Spanish classes right now.

I think there is a definite talent there (welcome to A2K, BTW). Some people paint, others learn languages. Sounds like a good gift to have.

I speak seven languages with varying levels of fluency. I am also currently learning Russian, and Slovakian. I find learning different languages is very easy, and I catch on quickly, and am able to imitate the language's accent with very good precision, to the point where it is thought that I am a native speaker even when I am not. I don't know how I have such a predilection for language, nor for the learning thereof; perhaps the rumor I heard that those who have a talent for singing and music are predisposed to easily learning languages, while people who are 'tone deaf' aren't. I've no idea if this is true, but if it is it causes many interesting questions to come to my mind. I would like to know if that rumor is true, at any rate.

Prečo sa učíš po slovensky, Amarinth?

Btw, welcome to a2k.

There IS a dirty little secret. In my opinion, this is something that you should be born with. Multilingual people just love learning languages. They're doing this with pleasure and thirst for new knowledge...
I speak English, French, Spanish and Bulgarian and I'm fourteen. I think that it is easy for me to learn languages because I have the logical thinking. For example, there's a relation between Spanish and French and between these two languages and English.
It helps if you get it.
Although it's better if you have that "talent", if you don't - just study hard and if this is what you want - it's not that difficult.

If you can grab the relationship between romance languages and English, you're certainly on the right track to learning many more.
I take it that Bulgarian is your native tongue; so the key for you was the first big jump.

I don't think you have to be particularly gifted, but you gotta have the need or want (which so many native English speakers lack).

I have learned (to some extent) two languages in addition to y native English.

In both cases there was a woman involved in my initial desire to learn the language. (Only one of the two was a "romance" language).

There is no better incentive, I tell ya.

Interesting conversation.

Kids in south India are exposed to multiple languages right from the start as opposed to north Indians like me who only grow up with English and Hindi. The south Indian kid will probably know a minimum of four languages growing up: English (because that's taught in school), the state language (Kannada for folks in Karnataka, which is where I currently live), Hindi (because that's the language used in Bollywood movies), and the local language of that district. And if one of the parents is from another state, they'll also pick the language of that state. And these people easily pick languages while travelling, especially other south Indian languages that have similar grammar.

As some of you have already noted, there's a critical period for learning languages. I read sometime back that kids who are exposed to a second language during this critical period are able to not only master that language much better than people who start learning it at a later stage but these early learners are also able to pick up other languages in future quicker than others. That definitely explains the prowess of south Indians with languages.

Interestingly though, the same book said there's a certain percentage of people who will master a second language with same ease and precision as early learners even though they had only learned one language during the critical period.

I've lived in Karnataka for a year now, but I haven't picked more than three words in Kannada, the state's most prominent language. That obviously shows I'm not a genius at learning new languages, but then I haven't been exposed to the language much because I live in a university campus where almost everyone speaks either English or Hindi.

I've challenged myself to learn French and Kannada over the next year. Let's see how far my will takes me.

I guess through aging, I'm moving out from "the dirty little secret of multilingual people."

I've forgotten most of my Japanese (verbal, reading and writing), and I only remember a few Spanish words that I have used in recent travels to Latin America such as Cervesa, gracias, and banos.

Some knowledge of the language plus a bit of additional basic cultural interest can be a great help:

British tourist imprisoned in French "hotel"