Korean Job Discussion Forums

[maximmm]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/people/2013/05/178_136458.html

'New Zealand teacher on Jeju speaks 28 languages

These include Portuguese, Japanese, Italian and Dutch. For the rest of the 28 languages, he knows a few greetings or reads scripts without understanding their meanings.'

So.... how many languages can you 'speak'?^^

[NohopeSeriously]

Korean because I'm a Korea-born gyopo
Russian because I used to live in Moscow for 2 years when I was a kid
English because I'm a Canadian citizen
French because I used to live in Montreal and am an Anglo-Quebecker who used to act like Napoleon in the movie Napoleon Dynamite

Yeah, that's about it.

[maximmm]

[NohopeSeriously]

[CentralCali]

If you read the article, you'll notice that the man really doesn't speak all those languages; he's conversant in a handful, can communicate some basic things in a few more, can understand somewhat a few languages that are similar to ones he knows well (speaks Spanish, understands but cannot speak Portuguese), and for the rest can simply read the script.

There are polyglots who are actually conversant in quite a few more than a handful of lanuages. This gentleman really isn't. The headline is a draw. On the other hand, this gentleman is a notable polyglot.

[tob55]

I figured it was just Korean news outlets doing what they do best by attempting to bloat the facts into some tremendous, over the top claim about the abilities of someone. I suppose if I spent a few hours I could probably learn enough about 10 to 15 different languages to be able to produce general greetings and some limited casual conversational questions, but nothing near fluent. Great claims by the media, but mastery and fluency are quite different skills sets that I know would require a significant amount of dedication. Nothing against the guy, he looks sincere enough, but media is just being media in this case.

On the bright side, it was a good advertisement for the International Girl's School located in Jeju-do.

[Steelrails]

Bah. I have a friend who can speak Elvish, Klingon, and Jive.

[Fox]

[Underwaterbob]

I have room in my head for 1.5 languages at any given time. When I started learning Korean, my knowledge of French declined in exact proportion to the amount of Korean I'd learned. I like to think I make up for lack of versatility by using the one language I know really well really well. Yeah...

[maximmm]

[le-paul]

i can understand and converse in swiss, french, german and english (swiss and german are not the same).

my korean is ok, i can read, write and get my point across in most situations.

i can understand dutch and american english but i cant speak either of them.

i can sometimes understand 'woman' though it passes from situation to situation.

i understand 'jargon' though i refuse to speak it.

but going by his logic because he knows some phrases or some crap like that, i can speak, Chinese, japanese, dirty knees, what are these, italian, spanish, gaelic, croatian, russian, thai and arabic.

[young_clinton]

[maximmm]

[metalhead]

[maximmm]