How To Register For Polygot Gathering

Yesterday saw twenty-four hours 1 of the first Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. #polyglotber

It was fantastic to encounter so many people who are passionate about language learning, and I too had the opportunity to run into lots of people who I've previously but known online.

At that place was a big range of people, from those who speak a couple of languages, to those who know significantly more…!

Information technology's fascinating how y'all tin can get to know someone from their online personality and so when you meet them in the flesh you feel like you already know them. Richard Simcott, Benny Lewis… to proper name but a few!

I also met lots of readers of this blog, and I was really happy to finally put some names to faces and run across some of the people who have interacted with me on my blog posts and videos.

Lots of people asked me about my upcoming move to Cairo and mission to larn Standard arabic, which has given me renewed motivation!

The sessions

Subsequently an entertaining opening address to the conference from organiser Judith Meyer, I kicked off the whole result with my introduction to Cantonese, which saw 50-60 people crammed into a minor room.

The talk was great fun, and I gave an overview of the history and geographical reach of the language, a comparing with Mandarin, and they gave everyone some practice of the 6 tones of Cantonese and a few lines in Cantonese that they could employ with others in the conference.

After wrapping up the talk, I headed off to watch some of the other great speakers who featured during the residue of the twenty-four hour period.

Here are some summaries of the primary takeaways for me from their talks.

Jan Van Der Aa

janvanderaa.com

How Learning Chinese Can Exist Fun

Whist his classmates in Red china were busy studying and preparing for tests, January headed out onto the street.

A Chinese girlfriend, haircut and a foot massage were his recipe for speaking with people in a natural mode and getting lots of practice.

"Learning tones comes as a result of repeated exposure to words and phrases through speaking," he says. Chiefly, this is language in context and what we shouldn't be doing is learning words in isolation. This is why speaking from the start is so of import.

The aforementioned goes for Chinese characters – by going out and meeting people you can afterward arrive touch with them past text and e-mail – this way you can acquire only the words that you demand, and in a natural way. This is exactly how you acquire in my courses too.

Ellen Jovin

ellenjovin.com

Polyglottery at Piece of work: Across Translation and Didactics

"I'd rather beverage a milkshake made of gunpowder and malaria than teach languages."

This is what a student of Ellen's told here recently.

Information technology's truthful – translation, teaching and interpreting are non for anybody.

So if you happen speak 10 languages – now what?

Do you attempt to make a living from language learning, or should y'all treat it as a hobby and try to become by in other ways?

Potential earning opportunities for polyglots.

Polyglots looking for gainful employment need:

Language skills
Social skills
…and ideally one further field of speciality

Examples of places to find multilingual work are as follows:

Health intendance providers need people with multiple languages
Hospitality and tourism (e.grand. tourist info or Nike store in downtown New York)
FBI, NSA looking for many language specialisms
Localisation is providing a lot of opportunity for linguists.

All the same, there is a departure between chore that you notice and task that you make.

You shouldn't necessarily await to observe jobs that are tailor fabricated for polyglots. Why should monolingual Hour heads create posts that are tailor made to exploit the skills of multilingual people?

Instead, take up a new job and brand information technology your ain – bear witness your value to people and brand yourself indispensable by deploying your language talents in unexpected ways.

David Mansaray

Mind Command when Speaking a Foreign Language

Equally I walked into David'due south talk he was in the middle of a story about a search for a morn-later on pill one pelting-filled morning in Spain, and how he establish himself lost for words when he eventually found a pharmacy and was face to face with the chemist!

Just every bit I was starting to wonder if I'd wandered into the wrong talk, he went on to talk nearly how experiences like this helped him gain a newfound respect and appreciation for the differences betwixt languages and cultures.

We shouldn't worry near existence the best in a language. Information technology'south all virtually the experience and the growth we undergo during the learning process.

What can languages do for you equally an individual? How can you grow as a result?

Languages are not virtually words and sentences only nigh connecting with the hearts and minds of people.

Eryk Walczak

UCL profile

Polyglots' Brains – Neuroscience and Language Learning

Eryk gave a detailed talk about neuroscience and language learning, in item request: What and who is a polyglot? It was an interesting, detailed talk which I won't effort to replicated here, but here are some notes.

Why report brains?

Considering brains are the "cultural centre for language". By studying the brain we can better empathise the procedure of language and language learning.

What is neuroscience?

A good example of what scientists might expect for would be: What happens in the brain one millisecond after a certain stimulus?

The standard way to undertake a study of the brain is by using a technique called brain mapping, and this tin be done in two ways:

structural (how does the brain expect?)
functional (what is activated in the brain?)

Do multilinguals accept unlike brains from monolinguals?

Yeah.

But that's not so surprising; anyone who does any repetitive activity has a unique encephalon. 🙂

Schlegel et al (2012)

This study found that the plasticity of white matter plays an important role in adult language learning.

Mandarin students' brains were analysed over 9 months. Over the course of this period, several regions of their brains changed, with white matter density increasing.

Their gains weren't limited solely to language learning though – these aforementioned students also went on to achieve higher grades at school.

Why exercise outcomes vary so much between linguistic communication learners?

Eryk was quick to say that there is no clear scientific answer to this question. However, in his feel, major difficulties in learning a language are probably nearly likely to be based on…

inappropriate input (which is why the StoryLearning® method is devoting to education you through interesting input at your level)
generic predisposition (although this is rare)

What are the benefits of learning multiple languages?

One demonstrable benefit is a delay in the onset of dementia.

In Summary

It's complicated!

Learning languages creates changes in the encephalon's construction and functionality, although no one part of the brain can be said to be responsible for linguistic communication learning.

Importantly, at that place is ample bear witness that learning multiple languages is within the range of the boilerplate person'due south power.

And that seems like a good, positive note to end on!

Were you at the Polyglot Gathering? If so, click here to tweet this study out to others!