Asklemmy

48238 readers

357 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

Do you have to be fluent in these languages to be a polyglot, or am I considered one? (thelemmy.club)

submitted 2 days ago by relation_anon4238@thelemmy.club to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I can confidently say that I speak Portuguese, Spanish, and English to varying degrees. However, at a beginner level, I know Norwegian, Italian, and Polish. I also am probably at a very beginner level in Russian and French, both of which I’m learning and getting better at. I’m conversing with French people.

My fiancé says I’m a polyglot, but I don’t know if I’m just trilingual or not.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Honestly, I only speak two languages, and to me, someone like you is definitely a polyglot. I get that you don’t wanna sound full of yourself or anything, but calling it what it is isn’t arrogant—it’s just being accurate. You speak four languages! That’s amazing, and you should own it. I'm bilingual, and sure, my native language is stronger, but that doesn’t mean I downplay the other one. Give yourself some credit, seriously.

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

This is true not many people can say they can speak so many languages.

[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 4 points 2 days ago

The thing is, it doesn't matter how many languages you speak somehow you end up not being able to communicate anyway because of the language. Some anecdotal evidence:

I speak Polish, German, Swedish and English. Me and my siblings went to Morocco for vacation, my sister was vegetarian and we wanted to order something without meat. The guy at the street food stand didn't understand and then he asked: Do you speak Arabic? No, Do you speak Spanish? No, do you at least speak French? Also no. None of the languages helped even tho the other guy also spoke 3 languages.
After speaking 4 languages fluently I moved to Korea thinking it'll be easy to pick up another language. After 4 years of living here I still can't even have a very simple conversation. The language is so different that even after trying hard and spending money and time the learning doesn't move forward. And me working from home mostly with Europeans makes it even more difficult, but I can't get a local job without the language, chicken and egg problem.

Every language is good to know, and I kind of agree with my grandfather that every language is like another hand you have to disposal, but somehow you end up in situations that even 6 hands are not enough ;)

[–] relation_anon4238@thelemmy.club 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Agreed! What language do you speak that’s not English? :)