Paul R
Posted 04/07/10
Reply with quote #1
Last week I heard a radio spot for Incredible Edible egg in which an 8-year old “child prodigy” is said to have spoken 11 languages fluently since age 5: English , Vietnamese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Cantonese, and Portuguese. http://www.incredibleegg.org/incredible-people/meet-incredible-people/wendy-vo. I was intrigued so I watched and listened to her on a YouTube video. She’s a cute little girl who reads English at the beginning of the video and then responds to some basic questions in the various languages, four languages to which I can attest (what is your name? how many brothers and sisters do you have?). My wife, who is a native Spanish speaker, listened to her Spanish and remarked that the little girl has no accent.
On this website, I read that “Just as a reference, researchers suggest that a child needs to hear a language 30% of the waking time to learn to speak with ease.” I, for one, would be surprised to find that the little girl could actually carry on a conversation with the fluency and range of vocabulary of a native or near-native speaking 8-year old in each of the 11 languages. As much as I’d like to believe it, i s anyone else out there skeptical about the claim she speaks 11 languages fluently?
1. USA
2. English, Spanish, French, German
3. 7, 5, 3.5
4. OPOL Plus
Hamish
Posted 04/16/10
Reply with quote #2
Well Charles Berlitz is said to have spoken 8 from childhood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Berlitz), I don’t know about 11 but there’s no discounting the abilities of a prodigy – some people live in a country for 30 years and struggle with the language, I have a friend who can speak a language fluently without much of an accent after a couple of months of immersion, so there’s a huge amount of scope there.
soultravelers3
Posted 04/18/10
Reply with quote #3
Cute & talented kid!
Paul R
Posted 04/19/10
Reply with quote #4
With more research, I found a list of polyglots, who claim to speak 10 or more languages, with one person claiming to be able to speak 100 languages with knowledge of 200+. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism . It boggles the imagination. I can handle informal conversations successfully. I can begin, continue, and bring to completion a variety of communicative tasks. I can handle most everyday social conversation with some confidence, but not with facility, including casual conversations about current events, work, family, and autobiographical information. I can narrate and describe events occurring in the past, present, and future. I have control of everyday vocabulary sufficient to discuss general topics of a concrete nature.” “I speak the language as well as a highly articulate, well-educated, native speaker. I can use the language with complete flexibility and intuition, so that my speech on all levels is fully accepted by, and equivalent to, a well-educated native speaker in all of its features, including breadth of vocabulary, colloquialisms, and pertinent cultural references. My pronunciation is consistent with that of an educated native speaker of a standard dialect of the language.” http://www.ncsconline.org/d_research/fcice_exam/FCICEExamineeHandbook2010.pdf
Paul R
Posted 10/04/14
Reply with quote #5
Here we go again. Now comes word of an Austrian man who allegedly speaks 30 languages fluently and with no accent. He didn’t start until he was 14 years old. But what is more amazing – to the point of unbelievable – is that he’s learned European languages in 4 weeks and Asian languages in 2-6 months. C’mon, man!
