Are YouTube Polyglots FAKE?
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- čas přidán 17. 07. 2018
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Interesting topic. I'd say it's good for polyglots to add a disclaimer like "5 of these languages I'm a beginner in so I don't claim to be fluent, but the rest I've been learning for XYZ amount of years". For me It's important for the polyglot to have other videos that aren't a polyglot compilation, that shows them naturally speaking another language.
In my case, I can barely speak Hindi and wouldn't be able to make a full video in it, so in my polyglot video I just added a disclaimer that I'm a beginner. For the others like Korean and Japanese for example, I'd upload full videos in them.
Lindie Botes Good point.
Exactly, I was thinking about that! love your videos Lindie!
Exactly! That is so important, I totally agree. Btw, I love your video's! You've inspired me a lot to start learning Korean, so thank you. :)
Love you babycakes!
I’ve started saying, “l speak 7 languages. I’m active in 5.”
As a native French speaker who's reasonably fluent in German, I can tell you that very few of the polyglot videos I've seen demonstrate any conversational ability in even those fairly common languages. Grammar and vocabulary notwithstanding, the self-professed polyglots are usually very slow speakers with borderline incomprehensible accents, which makes me very sceptical regarding their proficiency in languages I don't speak. There are many people around the world who use more than three languages in daily life, but being wary of the people who treat languages as a party trick is totally justified in my opinion, especially considering those people have invariably something to sell you.
I'm a native spanish speaker,and when those "polyglots" speak spanish they speak it wrong.
I can't undestand what they are trying to say but they aren't fluent at all.
I know spanish is a hard languague.
My english isn't the best,i need to talk more to improve it,but i can understand english perfectly,even i can say sometimes where is someone from by earing his accent because i watch at least 95% of youtube content on english for like 7 years xD
And i'm still very bad at grammar :'v
Su inglés me parece mejor de muchos hispanos que he leído. Llevo 3 años aprendiendo español y aún no siento que hablo como me gustaría. Me sorprendo también con esos tipos que dicen que aprenderón una lengua en tan corto tiempo. Me acuerdo de una chica brasileña de 15 años que decia hablar 4 lenguas: Portugués, español, inglés y ruso. Español lo hablaba con acento, inglés con mucho acento y errores. Ruso solo hsblaba unas palabras. Qué veo de esos youtubers que hablan muchas lenguas en general es que si no hablan mucho de la lengua, hablan mal, con acento y errores. Que se aprende con eso, que es mejor hablar pocas lenguas y bien, que "hablar muchas" y malo. ¡Saludos desde Brasil!
@@LeonardoGuilherme92
Si no me decías que estabas aprendiendo español hubiese pensado que eras nativo, incluso manejas mejor las tildes que la mayoría de nativos jajaja
@Elijah Vedder Quite strange if you ask me. lol Do you live in US?
@Elijah Vedder French is very strange to us, even being a latin-based language. But portuguese, spanish and italian speakers tend to understand each other in a way that may be useful to get some basic information, often touristic information. But as a written language, french is a bit easier to understand. I get your point. :)
I think that many people started to consider learning languages as a some kind of a competition.
"I will learn 20 languages at C level and then I will show off! Everybody will see that I'm the man!"
It doesn't supposed to be like that.
I think that first we should find the reason why we want to learn a specific language and name the level, which would be satisfactory for us. Not being a polyglot doesn't mean that you are stupid. Speaking a language at A2 level is always better than not knowing the language at all.
I do agree with you stiepx it is not a competition..it is passion for languages...does not matter if you are C2 or A2 ..Don't show off.. ....keep learning languages because it is amusing
Speaking is only one skill. Language skills include listening, writing AND reading. You speak C Level ,does not mean that you can read or write C Level and that is why an expert of languages normally cannot claim to master more than 2 -3 languages of which literacy includes literary comprehension and which the so called polyglots on CZcams never achieve
talking and listening are linked, there is no way to be C1 in speaking and be not capable to be a C in listening. Writing is different.
The only thing that matters is listening and talking reading and writing not much
@Searat not necessarily. when you speak 3 languages at home, you'll usually only know things such as slang in the language spoekn in the area. In terms of more formal and academic language it will be the language of education. But its not like these people know vocabulary from every aspect of life in all of these languages, unless they study them more deeply
@@thebeanz6593 you couldn’t be more wrong. I almost never speak English irl and as a result it’s horrible. On the internet though, I use English just as much as I use german. Speaking is probably the least used skill especially for introverts. I only need to have good reading, listening and writing skills in a language for me to be satisfied. I can still speak English somewhat decently despite it not being that great though
Luca Lampariello has a C2 certificate(covering all four language skills) in German, English, Spanish and French. So your claim does not make any sense.
I never say I speak 4 languages I say I study 4 languages
In my case I don't said I *know* 3 languages
I said I can speak 3 languages
"I hope they have certificates in those languages."
Often, certificates are just pieces of paper and don't really mean anything about level of conversational ability. I have known plenty of people in Korea who have TOEIC certificates, showing extremely high scores for English, yet they have very low ability in actually speaking/conversing.
slycordinator Most certification has a bare minimum of speaking if at all. When I worked in an English conversation school, I found an outgoing personality to be better indication of English ability and potential than TOEIC scores. I stopped taking the JLPT (Japanese test) myself because I reached Level 2 and Level 1 is basically a collection of stuff you will never use and Japanese people get wrong. I don’t believe I testing past native level, especially since from a practical standpoint, actually using a language better than 90% of the native population is near impossible.
I love tests and I think certification is important, but it’s definitely no absolute indicator of ability.
Wtf does a certificate have to do with anything anyway? If some foreign guy came up to me and started speaking to me in English, I wouldn’t be like “sorry I need to see a certificate before I can know if I’m understanding you”.
What kind of bullshit is that?
@@gofastER
Believe It or not, that mentality exist.
@@gofastER It's just that when you say you're C1 level for example we assume that you can meet the requirements for all 4 pillars of testing a languange: Listening, Speaking, Writing, Reading. But if you're only say C1 in speaking not C1 in general as the skills for writing are very different than the ones in speaking.
You can have a certificate but don't know the language, but you can't know the language and fail certification.
I thought you were going to do an actual investigation on polygots, not just talk about it in your car
LOL
My perception from my own experience is that getting to B1/B2 takes a lot of time (1 year for me) but it is not that hard to do. Getting to C1 is a different story and takes a much higher level of commitment, skill and aptitude.
Exactly. C1 means hours and hours of watching TV series, reading books, having conversations, etc.
Learning just 1 language is a life style. To really get good at it, you have to use it and consume it everyday just as much as English
I’ve been told that it takes twice as long to reach the next level. A2 takes double the time/effort needed to reach A1. B1 double that. B2 double that, etc. So it’s exponential.
Many polyglots & fans are obsessed with the number of languages they "know" without defining the word "know". Even for the best polyglots, it's hard to understand what exactly they can do with the language. I remember one guy who "knows", like, 40-50 languages; he explained that Afrikaans is mutually understandable with Dutch (it's not, unless your Dutch is perfect and you had some exposure, or you mean simple stuff in Afrikaans like "my pen is in my hand"), Scandinavian languages are mutually understandable (they are not, otherwise they wouldn't put subs and study each other languages), that he learned Dutch in a few weeks because he knew German (BS, unless "learned" meant "memorized a few phrases"), etc, etc. There are people who claim they know all Slavic languages because they are "mutually comprehensible" (they are not, no more than Germanic or Romance ones), or people who "know Russian" after a month of studying it every other evening. My favorite is "I know it because I studied it, well, I've forgot it already, but I can re-learn quickly". With such a definition, I am a concert pianist because I studied piano 35 years ago for a few months, even if I can't tell a note from a bug and a piano from a black hippo. On the other hand, I am against perfectionists who claim that you know nothing unless you know everything. It simply would be nice if people told precisely what they can and cannot do with each language, without giving a meaningless number. Often the number is given even without the names of the languages, so it's completely meaningless: say, did he correctly count Serbo-Croatian as 1 language, or as 4 (Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin), or, does he know Spanish & French, so he claimed Catalan (NOT mutually comprehensible with Spanish) and a dozen of Occitan languages with cool names like "Limousin", "Gascon" or "Provencal"? It's all this confusion of claims that makes people wonder what on earth it means that someone is a "polyglot" who "knows X languages".
Well there is a strong case for Scandinavian languages being intelligible. Several linguists have argued it is the same language, just differing dialects, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. There are sevearl dialects of Norwegian itself. Norwegians for sure have no issue reading and understanding DAnish and Swedish for a large part.
There is no strict definition of the word "dialect", so calling something "dialects" is meaningless as an argument. I doubt that any Scandinavian would agree that their languages are somehow not independent & well-defined enough to deserve being called "dialects" rather than "languages", like Vlaams is a group of dialects of Dutch. Mutual intelligibility is a physical phenomenon independent of opinions: if you can understand Language B just by knowing Language A, they are mutually intelligible. No person in the world can understand spoken Danish just by learning Swedish, thus, Scandinavian languages are not mutually intelligible. Any non-Scandinavian linguist making such claims should try it herself and see - like I did. I'd say, the three Scandinavian languages can be compressed into two non-mutually-intelligible: if you learn Danish and Swedish, you'll get Norwegian for free, because it's sort of "Danish pronounced as Swedish", as many people say. When I was learning Scandinavian languages, I was simply reading Norwegian and Danish together, not paying attention which one is which, but when I tried to listen, they were worlds apart. Scandinavians themselves are bad judges of intelligibility, since they are exposed to all 3 languages since childhood, through TV, internet and books. It's the same with East Slavic languages: if you just know Russian, you won't understand the other two, but if you know Russian & Ukrainian, you'll understand Belarusian, missing only occasional words here and there. And, when I was a child in Ukraine, I was quite surprised to learn that Russians in Russia don't understand Ukrainian like I did. P.S. As for dialects of Norwegian, I've never been to Norway, but just by reading/listening to Norwegians on the internet, it seems like bokmal is what people usually write/speak, except in some songs by some songwriters. Sort of like with West Vlaams for Dutch or Galego for Spanish: unless you go looking for dialects, you won't come across them much, the world is getting linguistically standardized through TV and internet.
Scandinavian languages aren't mutually intelligible. north Germanic languages are. Scandinavia includes languages outside of the north Germanic languages which wouldn't be mutually intelligible
URSS-CEI, OK, now go learn English, re-read my comments and tell me, where did I write all the stupid stuff that you claim I wrote? Where did I write that foreigners cannot learn Russian well?
yes thank you for the correction!
In CZcams someone finds people who learned spanish in one week. Someone who speaks good enough Spanish could be fit to read the original "don Quijote" and understand the most without dictionary. I'm really skeptical about many CZcams poliglots.
Maybe if they already knew french, Italian and Portuguese
I think it could be possible if they grew up speaking Catalan and then learned Spanish
Well, speaking a language and writing in it are two completely different things. High level writing skills in more than one language is something extremely rare and I find it quite ridiculous that this fact never is taken into account since advanced writing is way more complicated and difficult than just speaking at a normal everyday level.
I do agree mary ....WRITING really well is extremely hard especially c1 c2 levels but from my prospective listening is very tough too...
@@riccardo4694 What's your mother tongue and what languages have you studied so far?
@@marydecouvertes3789 I am studying arabic ,german and english with assimil ...My mother tongue is italian
I think it's the other way around. Formal studying of a language generally gives you the abilities of reading and writing, not that much about speaking and listening. I'm able to write in English and French but I'm really unable to speak properly (maybe because I'm kind of shy but also because everyday language is informal and has a lot of slang - and people accents could be a nightmare - and when you study a language this is not the kind of things you learn: people often think informal is easy for foreigners as it is for natifs, but it's not). My mother tongue is Spanish and I work as copy-editor in Spanish - so I have a deep understanding of Spanish grammar. I speak English and a little French (but I'm forgetting my French because I haven't practice it lately) and I'm struggling to learn Korean.
Riccardo 46
I know your feelings. English has more sounds than Italian. Listening English is very difficult
Guys like Laoshu are much more real and honest with their abilites. He does say he speaks many languages, but he doesn't hide the fact that he isn't fluent in many of them. In the very videos you can see him for example barely make it through a conversation in Thai, but in another video he is effortlessly conversing and switching between Swedish and Somali (none of these are exaggerations by the way). Even if he speaks languages at various levels, he still *speaks* them. However he doesn't deceive or lie over how well he can speak them.
My problem with laoshu50500 is his lack of humility. I mean, his titles alone - "black man soaks Chinese woman's head with Cantonese" are a clear indication of his arrogance. A lot of his titles are just straight-up offensive, as is his recording ppl w/o their knowledge. I commend his talent for picking up languages, but I can't help but wonder if he is doing it to connect with ppl, or if he's just addicted to the reactions of praise he gets.
My issue is he never says how many languages he speaks FLUENTLY! and which LANGUAGES
@@mrtony80 good point. I always admired how many languages he can speak, but the titles always put me off
Ibrahima Barry what do you mean?
@@mrtony80I thought most of the titles were just memes, don't take everything so seriously.
“We are in trouble as a species, when people refuse to believe that someone can do something they can’t actually do themselves.” - David Mitchell
I speak 6 languages fluently, one very advanced (Catalan, since I live in Barcelona) and 6 others where I can get by reading and speak to "get by" in various levels but NOT fluent at all. I am 46. It is really impossible to be fluent in the number of languages these"polyglots" have because you NEED TO STUDY and MAINTAIN what you learn and unless you have NO LIFE, NO JOB and don't sleep (and you need sleep to absorb language), no way a person can master fluently that many languages. Period.
I have lived in 8 countries and traveled to some 40. That is my advantage. Plus, I work use on a daily basis Castillian, French (mother tongue), English (second mother tongue), German, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan as teacher and translator so those will always be "C" level.
So yeah, they are exaggerating.
This is such an interesting topic! I read some articles on the internet of people who didn't believe in polyglots and I can understand their point. Learning your FIRST foreign language is challenging (it was also for me). But once you're able to speak two languages, each new language you learn becomes easier. You'll know which tips and strategies to use.
I´d also add that maintaining a language becomes a lot easier after you reached a certain level, because automatisms build and exposing yourself to the language becomes much easier.
Mur Mor. That's a good point. But becoming a true polyglot means becoming a polyculturalist. To learn a language well, one needs to have a full and deep grasp of the culture in the language, which means having a huge repertoire of idiomatic expressions, rusticisms, and urbanisms in its spoken varieties. I can speak several languages, and read and write many more. Yet I'm still, at 73 years of age and retired, learning my own native culture in all of its variations and nuances. I still have to look up some of the native words of American English to be sure I'm spelling them correctly (often because the spellchecker is in error and has caused me doubt). Parenthetically, I and one other person I've encountered on social media use the spelling 'despiccable' /dɪˈspɪkəbəl/ instead of the preferred spelling 'despicable', that could only reflect the pronunciation of someone who put the stress on the preantepenultima (fourth syllable from the last and unnatural in spoken English in a four-syllable word). Unfortunately, I developed the habit of searching for the etymology of new vocabulary I was just acquiring in my mother tongue; so, by default, etymology has become a part of building a lexicon in other languages. Thank Heaven for Wiktionary(c)!-- because I don't have to keep several etymological dictionaries at hand. I, for the life of me, can't understand why someone would want to became a polyglot in such unrelated languages as, for instance, Finnish, Japanese, and Hindi, unless either it was for diplomatic purposes or trailblazing linguistics (Nostratics, perhaps?). Personally, I think several lifetimes could be spent learning all the Indo-European languages, which I'm vainly hellbent on doing despite death's knocking at my door. Not out of any disregard for the glories of other language families, I assure you (I'm at CEFR level A2 in two members of another). Perhaps, before I've passed on, I'll have put some of my insights on Indo-European into a scholarly offering; but that's a bit vainglorious to contemplate. Perhaps, had I been independently wealthy or had no social or political concerns, it might have been different.
Kamila Tekin That's true
I have 2 native languages as a kid of immigrants and I also know English so I'm good
Most polyglots that I've watched on CZcams don't claim to speak a lot of languages to a high level--usually one or two to a high level and several more to intermediate levels, plus maybe they've dabbled in a few (or many) others. In fact, they might be embarassed at how rusty they are in most of their languages and would rather not put all of them on display on CZcams, except maybe for a few sentences. But some viewers assume that because they use the term "polyglot" that they speak a lot of languages to high levels of proficiency. Dictionary definitions of the word "polyglot" usually don't specify that requirement. Sometimes on their blogs or websites, polyglots will tell you what level they think they're at in each language. Jan used to do that but the LanguageBoost website has crashed at least twice and so now his self-introduction is shorter.
Andy Roberts Yeah man, my mastery in Malay languages is total different in level from my Malay linguistic professor, for example. It does also happen among native speakers right? Everyone take the same English test but not everyone possesses the same proficiency.😊
Also, the polyglots focus on day to day speaking. For tests there are other topics, reading, listening, grammar, writing - and these can be taken to a stratospheric level of difficulty as well. They often use different vocabulary /phrase constructions, antiquated words, jargon, invented words, plays on words, idiomatic expressions etc. Speaking C1 is thus not the same as being C1.
Ciao Jan, you bring up an interesting topic here, but maybe my follow-up question(s) would be: "Why would you feel the need to fake those skills?", "What's the point in getting complimented on skills that you know you actually don't have?" That's it, for me it's all about sharing and caring - no need to demonstrate anything.
If you're talking about CZcams fakes, they do it mostly for the views, I suppose. If you're talking about real life, there can be many reasons. I met people who truly believe they can speak a language, if they know some basic stuff. So they basically do it out of ignorance. A few others are just professional liars who feel the need to inflate their ego by showing off how good they are, even if they are mediocre at best.
@@allesindwillkommen I wonder if I could say, that I don't understand the idea (or necessity) to announce your own ability to speak some languages. If you can, then simply speak when you need. You see people of different tongues around then speak to them. They'll be glad. But is it necessary to announce that you are fluent in Arabic or Tamili if there is no one you can speak to?
Why would they do it? Why would they "fake" it? Views, subs and to sell their book on "How To learning languages before you even start to learn languages" or some outlandish title, or sell their "course" or "membership group" and so on.
Look, I'm a polyglot and years go I was dazzled by these 8, 9, 10, even 21 language speakers, but once I realized that they were using ALWAYS the same speech for each language. No, man! Everyone has their own "easier" and their "most difficult" languages. It took me years to have a good ear for german while in italian it clicked in immediatedly. The same for french and portuguese, respectively, etc... I'm not gonna show up how many languages I speak, but, just let me tell you that english is my third one. Possibly there are a few who really can achieve this expertise in so many languages, but I believe that most of them in CZcams DON'T. 7:45 Ik leerde nederlands toen ik 28 was tijdens mijn drie jaar verblijf in Nederland, en na 16 jaren in mijn land geloof ik dat mijn niveau B1 of B2 is.
I hate the question, “How many languages do you speak?” It feels like a lie not to include A level languages, but it also feels like a lie to include them. And to ask the person what they mean by speak feels like getting really serious about a question they asked as a by-the-way.
Speaking a language,having an informal conversation in a foreign language requires at least 3.000 words and correct verbal conjugation( this is professors teached me at the uni). People who claim" I speak 20 40 or 60 languages" are just boasting or kidding.
The thing is the vocabulary of many languages overlap and the same goes for grammar. An English speaker already has some french vocabulary and German grammar, this however only become recognizable when you actually been studying.
CZcams polyglots have always faced the same problem when it comes to credibility. The problem is that they don't define terms and they don't use graded scales. What do they mean by "speak"? What do they mean by "fluency"? They never define those terms and just leave everything vague which makes their whole community loose credibility. In the world of language education there are plenty of language scales and certifications that can, pretty accurately, determine the level of language proficiency that someone has. CZcams polyglots don't seem to like these scales or actually doing those certifications and they just say, well, I think I'm a B1 or a B2 without actually doing the certifications. They do this all the time. It's an extremely informal community and I find it kinda boring because, since they don't define terms, they are always going in circles about the same topics with disregard of what linguistics, academia and educational institutions have to say on the matter. Which they have A LOT to say, by the way.
Hi I do agree with you but only some of them are frauds. The definition of fluency is always different ..for me it is c1/c2 levels but B2 is not bad at all..From my perspective certifications are pretty good because assess 4 different ability reading writing speaking and listening for a more complete evaluation but it doesn t mean that a person cannot speak that language very well if he doesn t have the certification...translators and interpreters are another thing but you need to consider that some of them do this type of work ....For instance I dislike when they call themselves polyglots ...I reckon that this behavior is not good ...other people have to say if you are good or not ...define themselves it is never a good idea...
To me someone claiming to be fluent should be able to sit and take the highest level of a regulated exam and pass it: HSK for Chinese, something from Real Academia Española for Spanish, maybe the SAT in America for English (writing and reading sections)
To me, being fluent means being able to say what you wanna say confidently and have the same conversations you do in your native language
0:27 the correct way according to context is " to think to yourself" not "to think by yourself"
This is a very interesting topic that I haven't seen anyone bring up yet. Some of the people who call others out may just be trolls. However, I do think that others can see if the polyglot is genuinely interested in languages for the sake of learning them (and will strive to learn as much as they can) and learning about other cultures vs trying to get attention by memorizing the same phrases in many different languages
The most talented polyglots that I have met in my life are not on youtube. They are busy engaging in life and feel no need to show off their skills as they legitimately use these languages in every day life. Some want external validation and find themselves on youtube, others want to share their knowledge and find themselves on youtube. While I am sure some feel no need to take tests to validate their claims of fluency, I think if you want recognition and want to proclaim yourself B2 or C1 or whatever, then you need to legitimize it, either by demonstrating your ability via video or through certification. Not only to appease those in your audience but also to have a measurable idea of where you are because I think many polyglots tend to overestimate their ability. Jan, your English is obviously C1 but my girlfriend who is a C2 French speaker, examination and all, like your partner also has heard your French and thinks you are somewhere between a B1 and B2, not nearly close to a C1. Test results can give you very accurate measures of where you are, so I think they can be very practical and helpful in that sense. We also know of people who takes these test of course and are just good test takers, learn the tI tricks of the trade and pass but are not as fluent but I think the testing is a good option if you want to have a public profile as a polyglot and give an accurate measure of where you are. Luca has taken tests and demonstated his ability time and time again, so to question him is a bit absurd. I think what a lot of polyglots have done is encourage others to also be passionate about language learning. Regardles sof your level or ability to disclose fully your skills, there is that wonderful element that I think all of you have brought to youtube and into your communities so bravo to all of you for that!
You are basically saying that CZcams content creators are the more exhibitionist part of society, and that may be true but why should it be a criticism? If you don't like it, you are perfectly free to ignore the entire portal and not give these big heads (like me) the oxygen of publicity. As far as I can see being a YT content creator is a hobby like any other. People come into it, go out of it, some even get to make money out of it, most only put money into it. It is a hobby where in addition to earning you get a vanigty dividend as people will recognise your face, something which in the olden days was only for TV celebrities. You can quickly get tired of that, though.
Never said it as a criticism. Guess you chose to be negative before reading my entire comment, good day
Jan VandeBruik because your comment is a little long. If you have a successful CZcams channel, you can make f*****g bank.
They are on youtube to inspire people like me.
There is something as simple as this. The more you practice the better. You can be a genius or not, but in the end you will be able to speak the language. All depends on :
Time
Language you want to study if it is far from yours.
Attitude
If you speak with other people.
I wonder how many people speak and write their own language
properly.
Not just Speaking but writing.
I really enjoy watching these types of videos to reaffirm my decision to take it easy with my language learning. Even though there’s all of these CZcamsrs who seem to speak a million languages it doesn’t mean it happened overnight for them.
Someone told me once that fluency in a language means you can successfully chat up a girl in that language. OK, I thought, so Brad Pitt needs only to say "Hello" in twenty languages and he's a total polyglot!
The good thing about language is once you have used it you never lose it, learning Another one doesn't make you lose the other so it was possible to learn multiple language
To have all language skills in many languages is hard but not impossible.
I've studied over 10 languages over long period of time but when people ask me which languages I speak I avoiding answering because I may have learned a language but that doesn't mean I remember it well enough for me to feel I can tell people I still speak it. I think this is especially true of polyglots. Languages become passive when we don't use them frequently. How can you learn a new language and practise the other 9 so frequently you stay fluent in them? You can't if you're living a normal life. I admit to speaking three or four fluently. Having said that, my definition of 'speaking a language' is quite high. Maybe I expect too much of myself.
you're right
If you can effortlessly work in your chosen profession in countries of languages you know, then you are fluent.
Not necessarily, if you can understand more than you can speak, you can still work.
I don't get why people say it's impossible to know 8+ languages fluently. If you're fluent in at least one foreign language, you'll know without a doubt that you could get fluent in more, the number doesn't matter that much. What matters is time and dedication, and that's what famous polyglots like Luca, Steve Kaufman and so on have.
Even I experienced this personally when I made new friends that didn't know me well. When they heard I speak 5 languages they dismissed it instantly.
Andrew it definitely gets easier, especially if you stay in the same language family. Have French, Spanish and Italian? Then Portuguese is a walk in the park. I’d be hella impressed if you spoke a combo like Yoruba, Guarani, Japanese, Russian, and German though. Lol
Fake? Most of them probably not. However, I have seen several exaggerate how proficient they are and it's always amusing to see a polyglot claim to be "Completely fluent" in spanish and then watch them make error after error. If they were honest about their levels I wouldn't even judge butchered spanish because they tried and are learning. It's when they lie through their teeth about how "Easy" spanish is and how "Fast" they became fluent and then you see their spanish and you're like "Ok..." . Seen the same thing with a lot of polyglots claiming to be "Completely fluent" in French too although French seems to have a higher "chic" factor as people think it is somehow harder than spanish. (I'd argue the opposite tbh )
Right, always thought they were on a basic level and not even to the intermediate to expert/advanced level with more depth to it.
For sure it is possible to have a good reading knowledge of 20 (maybe even 30 languages depending on how you cut the "buy-one-get-one-free" ones like NL/VL/(AF, FR), HR/SB/MNG/BiH, BG/MAC, FAR/TAJ/DARI, MY/IND, CZ/SK) without it being like a life-long task. To be active, so to speak, and functionally fluent in more than three or four of those at once is not really needed in practice. Some people, playing up to the fact that folk are going to ask them to "say something" in their languages do have a small phrase book which they keep current. It's valid if that's for languages which they also understand, especially to buy themselves time to get into the language which is inactive. For some, that's really all they have in that language and they ought not to be putting it on display.
I write my notes in English so I can refer to them if I get lost but I never script my vids, even if I already know everything I am going to write in the notes in that language fairly well I would never write my prompts in anything but English because I'll feel like I'm cheating.
I’ve seen quite a few polyglot videos since watching this vid the first time, and I’m realizing that there is a lot of anger around the word “Polyglot.”
People be like, “But he made 3 mistakes in his 15th language. He’s not fluent.” I don’t even understand where the idea that speaking a language means fluency came from. I have lived in Japan for 10 years. I speak Japanese every single day. I enter contracts in Japanese, I deal with police and city hall and paperwork in Japanese. I read all my work documents in Japanese. But I make hella mistakes and I am not C2 and probably not even C1. These people would not count my speaking Japanese as speaking.
I also don’t understand why people are so intent on tearing others down. Didn’t they hear Thumper from Bambi? “If ya can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” Instead they are focused on just assuming they are fake.
And the thing is, I never see anyone say, “This is fake and I know because I’ve also learned basic convos in 27 languages myself and it sounds just like this.” It is rarely people with a lot of multilingual experience. Yet these people feel so compelled to speak on something they themselves have never tried to do. They don’t live in a quatrilingual country like Singapore, so they can’t understand how that sort of environment actively promotes being a polyglot. In fact, if you think about it, all the countries which have a history of tribal life and colonization promote being a polyglot. We just don’t think about because most of them are in Africa and South Asia. When I was in Lagos, Nigeria everybody was fluent in English and their tribal language and perfectly able to carry on daily conversation in the languages of 1,2, or 3 neighboring tribes. So if you make that your environment, either by moving there, or by creating a mini-environment with friends, family, media etc, then it’s obviously way easier to do than they are imagining.
Finally, it’s usually people who appear to be native English speakers. I guess English hasn’t really had a culture of learning other languages so many English speakers see monolingualism as a norm. But in colonized countries, they got a European language on top of their home language and bilingualism is their base. I suppose if you walked up to a child in some of these places and said, “There are entire countries where most people speak only one language,” it would seem as mystical as the tooth fairy.
*End of random disorganized rant.*
Even though my native language is English I mess up all the time. 😂
Many of the viewers who build up the CZcams polyglots are monolingual English speakers, who don't understand nor speak the languages many of the CZcams polyglots demonstrate outside of English.
Ive met a lot of Indians/Nepalese guys that grew up speaks 3 or more languages.... Some of them nailed Spanish... And it seems i have to dedicate my entire life Learning Hindi...
Great conclusion! !
I study History & am something of a polyglot myself (although I don't boast about it, as I usually get looks of disbelief). Polyglots have been around for hundreds of years. Most British & American people don't even try to learn a 2nd language, let alone more than 4 or 5. To me it's an addiction (or maybe a nerdy hobby).
Man, so many angry perfectionists in the comments... I wanted to cook chicken & rice for myself today, but now I understand that it makes no sense to do it, because I don't have an Official EU Restaurant Chef Certificate. Yes, I know, it's better to starve than to do my subpar non-international-level cooking in my uncertified kitchen... And I can't even sigh with sadness about it now, for I have to practice & wait until my ability to express emotions raises to that of a Hollywood superstar, and even then I may be only a BS1 level sigher, not a FU2 one, so it will all be totally wasted...
Liked the topic. You have seen my degradation from mega polyglot while filming an interview in Kyiv back 2013 and now in São Paulo, becoming mini polyglot, aiming to be fluent just in Portuguêse and Chinese.
Man, being fluent in Portuguese, Chinese, Russian AND English is a great achievement. Jan
... and fluent in Ukrainian 😉 It's a beautiful language!
Jan & Lucas - LanguageBoost migrating to Brazil made me think in terms of necessity, whether a language I learn will be applicable at my work or not. So if I continue staying here, I will have to nail up Japanese and stop there. If I were in Ukraine, I would have focused only on Polish, German, French and Italian, they have 800 to 400 jop openings per month. When I become financially independent, I will focus only on two I really like : Dutch and Cantonese.
Ani Sa yes it is, thank you very much
I would think it’s a question of time spent for a language. Polyglots spend all their free time on languages. They do everything possible in a foreign language. They’re obsessed with foreign languages. They’re basically crazy for languages. I guess that’s me too which is why I’m watching your video. I however only aim for a B1 or maybe B2 in a target language and then well I would like to get to the C level but haven’t gotten there yet and think maybe just getting more B level languages is pretty cool too. C level is damn hard.
The thing is you can grab 5 languages in the latin group and then 3 languages in the Scandinavian and English, that’s 10 languages including your mother tongue, that’s very reasonable to attain.
I'm suscribed to several polyglot channels here on CZcams and I can tell that they don't seem to brag, included you Jan. They've been honest about their levels in each language. Why is that people think is so impossible to learn that many languages? If you maintain them, that's another story.
As you mentioned with time, well I have set up with my Doctor a therapeutic source of treatment for my clinical depression to be personal language acquisition so I've spent roughly six hours intensely, four times a week plus daily 'boosts' of studying Korean, so I've gone from knowing nothing to the level I'm at in about 9 months. So I can make full paragraphs talking to my friend on WhatsApp about what time I got up, what I made for breakfast, what I did that day, the weather, what time is it, what I like/don't like etc.
As for other languages, I have friends in other countries which I mostly speak English with but I do speak English and German with one of my best friends without realising that I'm learning German per say as I'm speaking with him because I'm not studying the language I'm just speaking it.
Between being 12 and now at 26, near to 27 - due to traumatic experiences I've practically attached myself to languages and sometimes I've spent 10 hours a day doing things like memrise, making flashcards, watching grammar and vocabulary videos and during that time I think I've unintentionally learnt things without actually realising?
So when I look at a phrase in Italian and realise I can read most of it because my main languages that I'm fluent in are Spanish and Portuguese - other than my native English - because I've watched videos on Italian grammar or spend time daily on tatoeba reading, I suddenly realise that I can understand. Like when saw "dipende dalla situazione" the other day.
Or when I make logical realisations of things. Plus my epilepsy causes me to colour words and place them into boxes depending on what mood that word is in so all words like happy, sun, rabbit, sunflower, sol, goed, dank je, merci, 해돋이 etc I colour those words yellow and they're all in one 'box'.
good video man. interesting. I never script videos myself. I'm sure most polyglots aren't fake. Its always impressive to see people speaking multiple languages. A polyglot might speak different languages at different levels, some very good and others much lower. Good video. I have subscribed. Greetings from Melbourne Australia
Luca is probably the best one in my opinion.
if you can comunicate yourself, its fine.
I want to be a polyglot I have only been learning for 1 year and 4 months I noticed I can learn in understand a language quickly but actually talking takes years.
Best advice? Focus on 1 for about two years, add next one once You get to a decent B2 level or above in the first one. As simple as that. If You have skills at B2 level you can learn two or more different languages at the same time with little or no risk of interference.
I think it goes in levels. I was able to speak Japanese in 6 months. I could ask and answer any direst question related to my daily life. The ability to have flowing conversations though? That took another 3 years to even scratch the surface.
It's true what you said about not comparing yourself to other multi lingual people. Some of those young people that speak a variety of languages very well, may have, (#1)inherited 3 languages from upbringing and then
#2) spent 7 hours a day studying and then spending much time at the target countries.
In that scenario, anyone (with good strategy) could be at advanced levels in 5 languages by 23.
TheFiestyhick I ABSOLUTELY agree on this....You're right and you know your stuff about learning a language.
Quique Dillon gracias. Lately, I've been spending almost all my free time trying to put the pieces together on the science of language learning.
There's a lot of info out there. Some good and some not so good. And, sometimes some yt channel's are misleading or mixed with both good and bad.
Sometimes the hyperglots make me depressed. I “speak” 7 languages but I only use 3 daily, so the others are varying degrees of hot mess. That said, I’m a teacher, so I have 3 months a year where I can study 8 hours a day. And I can argue that learning language is part of my job as I foreign language teacher, so I could sit at work watching the Italian version of Princess and the Frog no problem. So maybe there’s someone out there saying WHOA 7 LANGUAGES and not looking at the whole picture. And maybe those hyperglots have similar circumstances of their own.
Vladimir Skultety is definitely the most impressive polyglot in the community.
I would say Steve Kaufmann is the most impressive.
Laoshuu
I do agree Vladimir is great. He is a translator/interpreter in some languages.
Well I speak 3 languages Albanian,Greek,English and my brain stops working when I try to learn a new language lol..
He excludes himself but says every else may be fakes 😂👎
Good job bro.
Verging on C level in Turkish and Spanish, I’d say I’m trilingual but I also know Azerbaijani and Uzbek at a intermediate level, Russian at a basic level,
Fantastic subject matter.
Sometimes I think that it's impossible to speak a lot of languages. But then I always think about my friend, who is from Ukraine, so it's her native language, and of course she speaks in Russian language, because these languages are similar. But she moved to Poland and she speaks in Polish very well (her Polish is like she were Polish). And at the university she has English and Spanish languages, because to be a translator. So it's 5 languages (maybe 6, because few years ago she learned German).
I learn English and Spanish, because I am student of international relations. My native language is Polish. Probably I will learn German (because in a lot of companies German is obligatory). And I watch Japanese anime and I would love to learn Japanese.
There's nothing wrong with scripting. I have to script videos when I make them in my native language - English. If I didn't, I'd have 20 minutes of uh.... ah.... uh..... half the time.
What ever u said , I still watch laoshu50500 because he is impressive
Hes definitely not fake he speaks them with people in public all the time
I watched his video on 22 December 2019. He is definitely not honest about his Mandarin ability. I made the comment:
'I don't know about his other languages, but this guy's Mandarin is mid-level at best. After 10 years of Chinese exposure he still stumbles thinking about how to say 'What time does this place close?' . Most of his tones are wrong, even the basic words. One example is 12:30 he pronounces 汉字 incorrectly, a very basic word which means Chinese character. 14:05 the sentence "我会比较简单比较舒服因为我可以解释东西给她“ doesn't make sense, and the women are confused . I'm just saying, at least be honest about your language ability'
Rooxie
His mandarin is actually okay but his japanese, hindi and arabic that ive heard are abysmal. Im still learning japanese, learning foreign languages are not as easy as its made out by the youtube community. But the vids are entertaining nonetheless
@@King-gx1jt I know his Mandarin is 'okay'. , but he makes claims that he is fluent in the language when he can barely string together a simple sentence. I saw him recently struggling to ask a lady what time her store closes. His pronunciation is so bad that he can't pronounce the word for 'Chinese character' correctly
Doge Step if you pay attention he often says the same few things over and over. And his use of certain languages are very basic at times.
I don't speak 5 languages but understand most of them well and some I can speak more or less. I didn't work that hard on it. If you really want to you can learn 7 or 8 languages fluently. It's impressive but not sensational. I have my doubts when people claim they can speak 20 languages. How do you keep them alive? A day only has 24 hours. If we include sleep and doing other things you have a maximum of 30 minutes to spend on each language. But then you don't have much time to learn anything else.
I realized most of people who claimed to be able to speak Chinese actually can only speak foreign Chinese
Dr. Jose Rizal speaks 22 languages.
Dutch guy from amstradam is cool af love that dude
You stress 'speaking' a language, as if that is the only measure of knowing a language is to be able to speak it. What what about understanding a language - being able to read and or listen to it? Perhaps that is different.
Glot means 'tongues'. Hardly a polyglot if you read languages fluently.
So if I can read, write and understand what I hear in another language, do you mean to say that none of that counts unless I speak it? Onsin.
The word means 'many tongues'. It literally means you SPEAK many languages.
I'm not saying full understanding etc doesn't count, it definitely does, but personally i wouldn't say i was fluent in a language unless i spoke it fluently. I read French 'fluently' but i'm not fluent in French.
And you are who ? Oh yeah, that's right, nobody.
William I guess most people learn their languages for speaking - but you are right, reading and writing are parts of fluency. My observation is that most people who *speak* at a high level ALSO read and write at a fairly high level. For myself, in most languages I’m most interested to achieve conversational fluency, and I don’t care as much about written literacy, but I usually find literacy leads conversation until I get to about B1.
This is such a down to Earth video. You're exactly right about the 'thinking about what you want to say' thing... I do that in English (which is my native language), so of course I do it in a foreign language. I had a hater rag on my Swedish because he said it sounded robotic and that no Swede sounds like me... But of course it was robotic, I had to memorise it. And of course, even in his written comment, he revealed that his own English was garbage... a language he has been study three times as long as I've studied Swedish.
I do think there are many fake language learning videos though, like the guy who claims to have learnt Italian in a week. He uses every trick in the book to then dull down the claim IN the video, but still gets all these people congratulating him, despite the fact that it was the most click-baity thing ever.
Well done! P.S. When I was 22 I only spoke English haha. I started my languages very very late.
"like the guy who claims to have learnt Italian in a week"
That video kind of changed my perspective on language learning.
I studied Swedish for a week in 2018 for fun and by the end, I could only say things like "jag vet inte" or "Jag äter ett äpple"
@@Riurelia I am glad it changed your perspective on language learning, but the more I see of Nathaniel, the more I think he is out to have people think he's cool and give him props.
I don't dispute that there are many polyglots around who actually know their stuff. I myself speak 4 languages fluently, and can fake my way through a conversation in a fifth one. I also have an uncle who is a retired economics researcher and speaks 13 different languages.
We both agree that once you learn one or two languages that are part of a subset with common structure, pronunciation and grammar it's fairly doable to learn adiacent languages with minimal effort.
That said, I've watched a lot of these videos where polyglots meet people on the street.
Most interactions, as is to be expected, revolve around the same talking points: my name is, you're speaking..., I'm learning that, I've been learning it since, I'm learning it because, do you speak any other languages.
If someone is fairly well versed in a number of languages, it is really not that hard to practice and learn the basic elements of such conversations and how to navigate them, even in languages you don't actually speak fluently. We also are rarely shown, in these videos, people who don't understand what they're saying, incomprehensions or blunders. I've actually noted how, often, in the languages I'm competent in (fairly common European languages), the performance of these polyglots is shaky, tentative and fairly basic, often with accents that are all over the place.
That is not to say polyglots aren't real, their channels shouldn't be encouraged or their motivations and genuine passion for languages should be discounted, but let's not pretend being able to hold very basic and similar conversations equates to "speaking a language" at anything but a basic level.
I too am skeptical about people who claim to speak 7 or more languages. 5 to 7 is possible because I speak 5 languages only because I was born into one, then I lived for many years in different countries attending elementary, middle, and high schools and college. Sometimes, I wonder about people who claim to speak 10, 15, or 18 languages. What's is really "fluent" mean anyway?
I. An english learner...and taking me as an example it is unlikely to be fluent in 6 idioms...people need to study...basic isnt enough ...people need to reach b2 ...minimum
I understand that some of the video is to be scripted in someway. Nothing strictly written down, but a lot of bullet points on specific topics for each language being discussed.
I heard that a lot of polyglots don't actually switch languages that fast in their head. They basically have to prep up 2-3 languages for the day, and focus on just those few at a time. To suddenly go through everything that they know on a whim is sort of daunting isn't it?
I also heard that "Translating" is also the wrong way to look at it speaking a language apparently. If you're missing vocabulary from one language to the other, you're kinda stuck. You basically just go into a certain mindset for the location that you're currently in, and speak that day at that level of fluency and move on. Not being tasked to convert knowledge on every sentence throughout the day.
Overall, if you speak as well as a common 10-11 year old. I say that's pretty fluent to say that you reasonably know the language. A lot of detailed words are missing, but you have a decent amount of words to get by well, and the grammar structure should be rather intact by then.
Short answer. They are fake. People on CZcams be telling lies for sport
Luca is legit. So is Robin MacPherson. Other than that, I take their word for it because a lot of these polyglots are immersed in that community and would get found out pretty quickly, especially the more vocal CZcams guys and gals.
I think having certificates might mean something. It doesn’t have to, but it might. For many self-taught learners at least. When you don’t have anyone else to evaluate your progress, going for a certificate is a great milestone. It saddens me when people are happy about passing, let’s say, JLPT N4 and they are disregarded among some language learning communities with stuff like “iT meAns shIt.” Well, it means this person took an effort to learn Japanese to an extent most people don’t, let alone remembering 300 Kanji.
Most of the stuff on CZcams is fake...
I feel like a polyglot that I watch may be fake. I feel likes he controls the conversation and he knows greetings, he knows how to ask people where they are from, tell them that he likes learning other languages (in their language), how long he was practicing and that he learns at home. It’s almost the same thing every video.
As a language learner I can vouch that realistically it is difficult to speak multiple languages at a native level. When you start learning a language it is like being a child again where you start from scratch and it takes years before you reach a college level of fluency. So with that said: polyglots are out there but they might not be able to express complex thought or hold a debate like they would in there native tongue.
mason jar agree. Rare exceptions a are countries where both are spoken. In Montreal or Ottawa ( Canada) for example, you will have native bilingual speakers in French/English.
Yeah, Luca has accomplished a lot. One odd thing with him though, he never seemed to have become solid in Asian languages. He did study Chinese and Japanese but I don't think he's even semi fluent in either. He admitted to finding mandarin difficult to converse in but I don't think he ever broke thru to fluency.
He is awesome at a great variety of Euro languages, but his Asian ones need work.
He's still awesome though!!😄
TheFiestyhick He made a video in Japanese where he got comments saying he spoke well but very textbook and not naturally as opposed to someone who would immerse themselves.
Michael2k thanks for telling me. However, i saw that before. It's obvious he's READING the text haha.....it was scripted, so even i can do that in Japanese (been studying it 23 months).
So, as i said, he can speak a little, but his Asian languages are no where close to his Euro languages. But, he's still AWESOME. I respect him a lot, nevertheless👌👌
Oh yeah I agree.
He's already got so many other languages to maintain. Most of them are going to benefit from being in familiar language families, but the Asian languages won't. He also has lived in multiple places in Europe. All in all, anyone in that situation is bound to have a more difficult time becoming fluent in Asian languages.
Joshua Blume yes. i agree and I get it. Pushing through to fluency in Japanese and Chinese takes massive dedication.
I just thought he would take on the challenge of at least reaching solid fluency in at least Chinese, since its so popular. Also, he's a world renowned polyglot, so it seemed a great challenge for him. However, I guess he never got the passion stirred up to go the distance with Asian stuff.
He's still achieved awesome things in the Euro world and his accent is exceptional in pretty much all those Euro languages.
I found this one just now wondering if i can guess your mother tongue out of your accent..
Yes, definitely !!!
I speak 5 languages and I am a teacher as well. I don't believe/skeptical in some who claims he can speak more than 7 languages. If you can communicate with a big accent that not mean you speak the langue. If speak Spanish and you think just because you can pass your message in "Portuguese" that not mean you master Portuguese. If you don't use all you languages at a daily basis, you will not maintain the same level over time. It is like play an instrument, if you played the violin when you were 8 that not mean you can play it today.
You claim you speak 5 languages but your English is trash. You can lie as well too
@@TheSkum wow you got me. You are so smart 👏................👏...............👏
The problem is that saying I can speak a language means NOTHING !!! You have to add to what level you speak a language and provide some proof. People who won’t do that are just conning you.
Where did you learn English? There's a number of competing accents at play...which makes for an interesting puzzle.
Khanh Ho With people from all over the place, I know, it’s a bit messy :)
@@LanguageBoost01 could you evaluate my method for learning languages?
First , I take an overview of the language including alphabets , phonetics , and simple context including active or most common words.Then I listen and read a compelling content , I count on repetition and use of monolingual learner's dictionary.I read grammar rules from time to time while listening and reading process goes on.
I just wanted to know if these polyglots are able to understand most of what they hear on a podcast or read a simple book like the Hobbit in all those languages.
Julio Mascoto That’s actually easier than speaking for me. I watch tv in other languages every day. What’s hard to understand are thick accents, dialects and jargon (economic, medical, technical). As far as sorts of shows I watch, police procedural are near impossible, because you miss one little thing and you can’t figure out how they found the criminal and comedy, because humor does not translate and there is so much cultural knowledge and idiomatic knowledge necessary. Action is easy because the word count is low and romance because they pretty much all use the same words. Lol.
As for podcasts, they’re easy if they are in something close to your heart, or a general topic.
What about reading Novels. Do you find it easy ?
Julio Mascoto That depends on the language. In Japanese, the Daily Use Characters list is over 2000 long. I am certified up to 1300 characters, which means I can read all the moderate-frequency words. But reading in Japanese is still study for me. It’s neither fun, nor recreational. I’m not sure it will ever be either. I read in Italian, but so far I’ve only read stories I already know, so it’s difficult to judge. But there is a gap where I won’t know/remember fairly simple words. For example, every time I read The Hunger Games in Italian, I forget the word for turkey. French and Spanish are my degree languages and I had to read for them at school. So, I can read recreationally in both, but I don’t do it often. Two reasons - 1, I don’t have francophone and hispanophone friends to tell me what’s good and 2- it’s near impossible to get foreign language digital copies from Japan. I’ve never attempted to read in my other 2languages because they are babies.
Jan, do you understand Flemish and how similar is to Dutch?
It is the same language. Flemish is a Dutch dialect. They just pronounce things a lot softer compared to harsh gutteral sounds of Amsterdammers per se and there is a lot less rolling of the Rs like in Rotterdam
Jan VandeBruik Thank you very much Jan, I wish you the best for your Chanel cause you are doing a great job.
I am not Jan Van de Aa lol. Another Dutch Jan but living in Canada! Just replied to you
Jan VandeBruik thank you Anyway mate
Depends what people class as fluent I can ask for a beer in load's of languages so I must be a polyglot.
if you dont understand what they saying they would sound like they do it very well but I would say yes to only 4-5 language fluent is possible (for the age of 20-35 ish) any languages go outside of that will just shabby and like it's ok but it's not bad for an foreigner there are mistake but understandable.
Moses isn't. It depends on what you mean for polyglot. I speak only 4 languages. I don't need 12 because for example in my case I use them to work, I am not intrigued to talk to people in the street XD
I'm having a hard enough time with French *cries*
How is your French now?
@@bigtombowski Improving but a lonngggggg way to go!
@@treygray2817 right on.
@@bigtombowski I'll upload a video in French tonight!
@@treygray2817 good stuff
if you make money using the languages you know, or someone trust your language and give you job or you solve the problems using the languages, then you know that language. to study a language couple of months or A2, B1, it does not mean you know that language. to know a language you need to work on it alot. and being a polyglot in youtube means it is just at the hobby level.
I agree with everything said in this video. My native language is portuguese from Brazil. My second language english and the others will be French, Spanish and Italian. By now, five languages is a very good way to start in the polyglot's world!
After having watched the clip, I'm even more skeptical now, and yes, I don't believe it, I simply don't buy it! But, it is just my opinion, what the hell!
Not all of them. But I agree there are quite a few wannabe polyglots on youtube.
If sb speaks ten languages at A1/2 level then obviously shouldn't even call himself as polyglot. Speaking at B2/C1 level that would be the level which enables sb to communicate in a foreign language.
I saw that video and, you and it were the reason I validate Luca as legitimate. There's is no one else who claims, especially Americans or Brits who I in the least believe are less tha complete LIARS.
I'm a 58 year old American who taught myself to perfect accent C1 level iberian Spanish. I worked at it for an average of 6 hours per day, everyday for 24 months. I can read anything modern, know 16000 active vocabulary words and I can speak from my thoughts. That's 6000 hours and that's what it takes.
His accent has changed, eh?
I am on A1-C2 level in some of languages and try to learn more.
I for one think that the term polyglot is too loose, I feel that it should be to a maximum level of proficiency. Almost every example of polyglots I see use the same few phrases and just simple speaking abilities which is not hard to do. I would also like to take into the factor of age, someone I can see at a young age speaking 20 languages fluently I think is bullshit, I can see a handful. What I would like to see if a high level of language usage such as poetry. Something that takes into an account a vast knowledge of the language.
I know. Do you think those who claim to be fluent be able to pass the HSK 6 in China, an exam from Real Academia Española in Spain, or the SAT in English?
I'm not interested in speaking in many languages, I just want be able to understand, read and write.
Good Topic: I think there is a big difference between the guys who are talented and have really done the hard work to reach higher levels (Simcott,Lampariello,Rawlings,etc) and the "wannabes" learning basics in a short period and memorize scripts. Put the wannabes in a situation with a native speaker, and the reality will be clear :) Levels: I think many people who "claim" CERF levels have not really studied the determining factors in detail. For anyone who is interested: www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/table-3-cefr-3.3-common-reference-levels-qualitative-aspects-of-spoken-language-use