Also, is it possible to anyone to become a polyglot?
In: Culture
From what I know, most people learn new languages by ‘mapping’ them to their native language; this means that they basically learn how to quickly translate words and patterns from their native language to a foreign language, and the other way around.
Polyglots, on the other hand, don’t really use a mapping from language to language. Instead, they learn the rules – and not just common patterns – and words, and map those to (linguistic) concepts. In effect this means that they don’t have to do any mental translation exercises; instead they can simply switch ‘modes’ depending on the language they want to use.
Yes, it is possible: learn yet another language…
As polyglot simply means that you need to speak at least two additional languages, you start (or already have started) by learning your first foreign language. I guess it’s easier to start with a second foreign language a bit later, so the first one had time to “settle” a bit. E.g. in school we started with English (which is not my mothertongue) when I was about 10. French classes started two years later. …any language after that I more or less picked up by living abroad. Coming back to your original question, no, for us the learning process was pretty much the same. Only sometimes you have an overlap between languages, which makes it easier. E.g. almost all French and English word that end in “…ion” are the same in both languages 🙂
Potentially. Some research suggests that children might acquire languages more easily in part because they’re not concerned about grammar (they aren’t even concerned about the grammar of their native language – thats why small kids will say things like “him get him shoes” when they really mean “you get your shoes” and they’re talking to a female. They get the point across just fine – get and shoes and a person. Communication success) so they just focus on vocabulary. They learn vocabulary very, very quickly and then work on putting it in order. Then on putting it in order correctly. The other part of child language acquisition is thay their brains are little language sponges.
In comparison, a normal adult learns a language by memorizing vocabulary *and* grammar (and spelling and accents and maybe even a new alphabet). If you’ve ever taken foreign language class, you probably memorized long lists of articles, verb tenses, etc, while you’re trying to learn basic vocabulary. Adults sort of try to acquire an adult-level of proficiency from day one.
In the same amount of time learning a new language, an adult might be able to introduce themselves formally and ask about the other person’s day with perfect grammar and nothing else, while a kid can communicate quite well, even if what they’re saying is kind of a mess.
Assuming a polyglot didn’t learn the languages as a child, then its possible they learned then in the same order as a child. Think of an immersive situation – where you move to a new country and dont speak the local language. How do you order food? You might start by pointing at menu pictures or pointing at items along with a “please”. Then you might progress to just being able to say those things. Then you might progress to being able to ask for those things in a proper sentence. And so on and so on. But the primary focus is always to communicate first and foremost, even if it isn’t totally “right”, and then refine. Just like kids.
Worth noting, some languages might always be out of reach. For example, tonal languages (where the vocal tone might completely change the meaning of an otherwise identical-sounding word), like Cantonese, might not be reasonable for you to learn if you’re very tone deaf.
At around age 12, on average, our brains stop “acquiring” language and begin “learning” language. These are seated in different parts of the brain. There’s an interesting case where an anglophone man who learned Spanish later in life was in a terrible car accident and had brain damage. He stopped being able to speak his native English but could still speak Spanish. So there comes a point where you can no longer become a ‘native’ speaker of a language and are instead translating in your brain. Many languages are related though. I speak French and English myself but I can easily understand spanish and some Italian as they are both very similar to French – Latin-based. The more languages you know, the easier it is to understand and learn another because it’s likely related to a language you already know.
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