[POLL] Self Actualization linked with how many Languages one speaks?

[LastThursday]

@Tim R you're right. There will definitely be a skew towards the States - as Leo is American. You're not negating my main point though, in that bilingualism is not that surprising. Saying that however, being taught a language in school is in no way indicative of having any level of fluency (I guess that wasn't the question though). Mon French c'est terrible. So I wouldn't count my French as a second language.

[Bojan V]

I speak 3 languages. Slovenian, croatian and english. I also speak few local dialects but that is becose i live in Slovenia, on the border with Croatia.

Also i discovered that many english speaking americans are just to lazy to learn other languages. They think all people should know english, which shows their inperialist mindset. Some americans even think Usa=world and either they don't know other countries with different languages exist, or they simply don't care.

Also i am neither left wing nor right wing. Some people think if a person knows more languages he or she is most likely left wing. Not true!

 

 

 

[Striving for more]

@mmKay Choosing to learn an extra language (Spanish) is one of the best personal development decisions I have made recently. 

I am far from fluent, but I plan to keep studying. It's amazing how enriching life becomes when you learn a new language, especially a global one like Spanish 

[PurpleTree]

7 minutes ago, Striving for more said:

@mmKay Choosing to learn an extra language (Spanish) is one of the best personal development decisions I have made recently. 

I am far from fluent, but I plan to keep studying. It's amazing how enriching life becomes when you learn a new language, especially a global one like Spanish 

yea i want to learn spanish too

Hola senor, que tal?

[Kundalini Cataclysm]

I speak:

German (Mother tongue)

English

Finnish (Still learning, but quite fluent within my vocalubary)

 

Plus I know some rudimentary French, Swedish, Spanish and Latin. Would love to learn a slavic language like Polish or Russian some day.

[mmKay]

Bump

[LoneWonderer]

4

Spanish, english, Portuguese and Russian. I understand some french.

Edited January 6 by LoneWonderer

[Staples]

Just English for me. I've no desire to learn other languages unless I wanted to move to a non-English speaking country.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Just Merican or English,,,

I have a good deal of respect for those who speak more than one language. I've noticed that some people are quick to look down on others who are speaking a language besides their native tongue. Not realizing that they are speaking a second or third language besides their primary language.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

It's a travesty how many Americans only speak one language.

[Schizophonia]

I don't speak English very well, but I understand it well and I can communicate, at least in writing.

[not-a-faerie]

You know what's really interesting? Everyone in the leo gura community is on the internet. 

[Davino]

Fun facts:

The more languages you learn the easier it is to learn a new one.

Learning your third language is easier than when you started the second. Learning a fourth language is easier than when you tried to learn your third language.

This is specially so with languages that share the same roots and alphabet but translates very well even across different languages. It's the same "muscle" in the brain.

When learning a new language, in the beggining faces your other languages will be distorded and enhanced in peculiar ways but in the beggining your level will decrease, as there is some kind of neurological rearrangement.

Another fun fact, probably arround my forth language I started getting very conscious about the labeling of reality with words.

What is a language or words? It is defining a part of reality symbolically.

You will become aware that some parts of reality are not labelled by one language but maybe another does so. This means that just by the construct of a language it literally creates blindspots very hard to shine light to, we are going deep within the software of the mind here.

It's also cool to learn the musicality of each language, they all have a song, a sonority, a range of vibrations and unique sounds.

You will also become sharp aware of the different fabricated links between symbols, sounds and image recalling, that monolingual people will never discover.

Why limit ourselves to human languages? Try learning the language of a machine! Programming helped me a lot to contrast human syntaxis and framing vs machine inner workings. How does a machine speak? There are high level languages like c++ and python but also lower level like Assembly, which is the hardware's language, Wow. I mean it's not that existing if you do all of this in university but it really connects deeply with many other facets.

[dudts]

I'm from Tunisia (North Africa), an arab speaking country so arabic is mother tongue.

But we've been colonized by France, and so they still teach us french since primary school and we study the sciences in French.

English is third language: also a mandatory class in our schools curriculums.

I also took italian classes in high school but that was optional (I could've chosen a different language, or art, or music). 

In college, I took German lessons, but since I wasn't exposed to it outside of class I forgot most of it and lost it. That's too bad.