does being bi-lingual, tri-lingual etc influence your natural language skills. Does it work against nature....

Answer 1

nope,,it makes you more universal.....

Answer 2

If anything being bi-lingual or tri-lingual will probably enhance you language skills.

Many languages come from the same roots - French and Spanish and Latin are very similar and English borrows from many languages.

Knowledge of other languages will help with your English vocabulary.

I think for most people who are brought up in an environment that is multi-lingual, I would say that it would be easier to at least understand other languages. Idionsyncracies in syntax may make it confusing when speaking but these people would have a much better chance of making themselves understood then someone who only speaks one language.

Answer 3

Depends on the person, I guess. Some people have a natural flair for languages. Some people have a pretty hard time with it. I have known a few people who learned English as a second language but had such difficulty with it( even after living here for years) , that they had to drop out of college, or even high school. I did read an article that said learning another language(in particular, I believe it mentioned Greek), can help ward of dementia in the elderly. I am learning my third language and I don't think it helps with my natural language skills. I also don't feel it deters them.

Answer 4

I think I interpret your question differently to most other answerers. I assume that by bi/trilingual, you mean someone who grew up with 2 or 3 native languages.

People like this are often thought to be 'completely' natuive in both languages. I am bilingual (English and German) by birth and, like most such people, although I feel greatly privileged, it is not quite all that it's cracked up to be. For a start, most bilingual - and presumably even more tri-lingual people - do not always have the same 'skill' areas in both languages. For example, with a German mother, I did most of my 'fairytale/story' stuff as a child in German. However, I went to school in England and did most of my education in English. I am sometimes reduced to a stuttering wreck with frustration when having to discuss, for example, politics in German (as all my political discourse practise has been in English). I remember arriving at school in England, though, and feeling humbled through not knowing what a 'dwarf' was because I had only read Snow-white in German.

Many kids of immigrants growing up in one language environment and speaking another language at home, become linguistically divorced from their parents. Although I was lucky to escape this, the language skills of one language are not always immediately transfereable into the other. Being bilingual can 'divide your language world' into two.

This is, of course a different matter from having a single native language and then learning one or more - even very well - as a foreign language.

Answer 5

in Europe almost everybody speaks minimum three languages .
in the Dutch schools they teach ,French,Dutch,English and German ,standard.

in Marocco street kids in Tangiers can get by in 5 or so

most kids in South Africa ,speak,Africaans,English .their own language ,and often that of their neighbouring country as well.
in England most people speak only English

my Father spoke 7 ,my mother 5 .i speak 4 .so i am the stupid one.

what goes against nature ,Human Nature is only speaking one,this can be very limiting if you intend to travel .or do business with foreigners.

Answer 6

I know 7 languages (not all fluently but understandable) and for me it helps with business and especially on holiday when people talk to me in broken English and i make the ambience more comfortable by talking in theyre native language.

Its only failed me once, in Acapulco, when the guy offering to take me and the wife to a restaurant he owned and he said "Ingles o Español?" and i replied "Español". I still have no idea what he said and im fluent in Spanish.

Answer 7

Being bi-lingual is supposed to activate more of your brain, which gives you a larger learning capacity.

Answer 8

I am septilingual and my native tongue skills have improved with the learning of each foreign language. I am now a writer, proofreader and editor.

In respect to writing, my broader views of cultures associated with the languages have broadened my base.

Answer 9

" insegrievious " that is an adjective coined by using Gary Owens, a l. a. radio and television character whom you have seen on the main present day Emmy Awards application. He grew to become into the announcer from snort-In with the great deep voice. The "coolest" element approximately this word is that it could recommend regardless of you choose it to characterize and that is cool sounding too !

Answer 10

No .You can communicate with more people.There is good scope for employement as translators/accompanying business men for foreign tours etc.It is money spinning if you know English,Chinese,japanese and Hindi.I know a person who knows 14 languages.

Answer 11

i was told that being bilingual made me twice as smart as the next person who is monolingual because i know everything in two different languages. obvioiusly i know this is not the case but i benefit greatly from having the background and scope of two languages so seemingly different.