I was at Montreal LangFest last week, and a few hyperpolyglots I spoke to really hate the kind of articles that make them out to be some sort of wizards or gifted individuals. The truth is,...
I was at Montreal LangFest last week, and a few hyperpolyglots I spoke to really hate the kind of articles that make them out to be some sort of wizards or gifted individuals. The truth is, everybody can learn multiple languages if they work hard at it and know how.
I don't speak nearly enough languages to qualify as a hyperpolyglot (I speak 4-7 languages, depending on your definition of "speak") but the attitude irks me, too. People who express amazement at the langues I speak always act like I just have a gift. I do, but it's not genetic or God-given... It's the gift of having figured out, through trial and error, how language learning works.
My theory about hyperpolyglots is that they learn 3, maybe 4 languages, then generalize their method to every possible language on Earth.
And in each and every case, their method has two main points:
Listen to interesting material you can generally understand but still challenges your limits;
Keep your inhibitions towards language learning to a minimum, and don't be afraid of making mistakes.
Whether they speak right away or not, or use a formal method or just dive in, that's the essential of the method: expose yourself to compelling, comprehensible input, and lower your affective filter.
Most of us don't get there because 1) we don't have the resourcefulness or environment to find comprehensible input, but most importantly, 2) we have inhibitions around language learning, such as the fear of speaking poorly, cultural attitudes towards the other language, or doubt in our own abilities.
Take Spanish in the U.S., for instance. There's TONS of compelling, comprehensible input available. But there's also a bias against Latinos, as coming from a lower socioeconomic standing, and that Spanish is an "inferior" language to English as a result.
I should also point out learning your second language is pretty hard. At that point, you have no idea how to do it, and there's a lot of big conceptual hurdles to get you to fluency. (One example: understanding how to pronounce sounds that are not part of your native language.) As such, people growing up in bilingual households have a step up there because they figure out a lot of these things at an early age.
I was at Montreal LangFest last week, and a few hyperpolyglots I spoke to really hate the kind of articles that make them out to be some sort of wizards or gifted individuals. The truth is, everybody can learn multiple languages if they work hard at it and know how.
I don't speak nearly enough languages to qualify as a hyperpolyglot (I speak 4-7 languages, depending on your definition of "speak") but the attitude irks me, too. People who express amazement at the langues I speak always act like I just have a gift. I do, but it's not genetic or God-given... It's the gift of having figured out, through trial and error, how language learning works.
My theory about hyperpolyglots is that they learn 3, maybe 4 languages, then generalize their method to every possible language on Earth.
And in each and every case, their method has two main points:
Whether they speak right away or not, or use a formal method or just dive in, that's the essential of the method: expose yourself to compelling, comprehensible input, and lower your affective filter.
Most of us don't get there because 1) we don't have the resourcefulness or environment to find comprehensible input, but most importantly, 2) we have inhibitions around language learning, such as the fear of speaking poorly, cultural attitudes towards the other language, or doubt in our own abilities.
Take Spanish in the U.S., for instance. There's TONS of compelling, comprehensible input available. But there's also a bias against Latinos, as coming from a lower socioeconomic standing, and that Spanish is an "inferior" language to English as a result.
I should also point out learning your second language is pretty hard. At that point, you have no idea how to do it, and there's a lot of big conceptual hurdles to get you to fluency. (One example: understanding how to pronounce sounds that are not part of your native language.) As such, people growing up in bilingual households have a step up there because they figure out a lot of these things at an early age.