<p>I feel sympathy for those abnormal geniusy people.
Like, I heard that this guy got accepted to some college at the age of 13.
He didn't want to go.
His parents made him go!
Yeah so parents love all the attention they get for having a child prodigy for a son.
How the hell would he fit in with a bunch of 18 year old freshmen? What would he do in the weekend? drink and have sex and other collegy stuff? And even if he went to watch a movie with couple of freshmen friends, would they even accept him as 'normal'? I certainly wouldnt.. I would be nice to the boy but I wouldn't befriend him (as in best friends: lets do everything together!)
And how would his love life go?</p>
<p>These parents with genuisy children should rethink what they are doing. They may think that these kinda stuffs are benefiting the child.. but is it really?</p>
<p>clearly these prodigies do not get to their level being pushed, in fact, i would sympathize for the parents of these kids. How would it feel to have a child who 's education could not be met at school? who finds school boring but has extreme interest other subjects?</p>
<p>in a way, college may be too extreme for some of them, but it may also be the only place suitable for them. </p>
<p>these people were given gifts, and the best thing to do with them is not to waste it, but to develop them further. you have to understand that they view many things different than us. learning to them may be as equal if not more fun than say, playing video games.</p>
<p>ive had several international math olympians at my school, and i can tell you they all love math. nobody is pushing them except for themselves. likewise, these kids probably have a thirst for knowledge that is unsatiable</p>
<p>Take a look at Seamus Farrow (aka Satchel Allen), the 18-year old son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. He graduated high scool at age 11, went to Simon's Rock College for 4 years, was a UN ambassador for 1 year, and is now at Yale Law School. Plus, he got his mother's looks. My first reaction was "Talk about good genes," but from what I've read, he's been in therapy since he could talk.</p>
<p>To know a language is impossible in the fullest term. One can never know every single word in a language. It is always evolving. For someone to become fluent in a language in one day...I think that is an exageration. Was this ever documented?</p>
To know a language is impossible in the fullest term. One can never know every single word in a language. It is always evolving. For someone to become fluent in a language in one day...I think that is an exageration. Was this ever documented?
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<p>It is entirely possible to learn a language that quickly (Though probably not for normal people ;)), I wouldn't be surprised if Sidis did that. He had a good grasp of many languages, and it's much easier to learn a new language if you know.... say 30/40+ other languages. In addition, Sidis was a genius :). </p>
<p>I'd like to note, I used to know an autistic girl. She went to France for spring break and came back speaking French fluently (she had no prior experience). So it's entirely possible.</p>
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Take a look at Seamus Farrow (aka Satchel Allen), the 18-year old son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. He graduated high scool at age 11, went to Simon's Rock College for 4 years, was a UN ambassador for 1 year, and is now at Yale Law School. Plus, he got his mother's looks. My first reaction was "Talk about good genes," but from what I've read, he's been in therapy since he could talk.
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<p>haha, that therapy could also have something to do with the fact that his dad married his adopted sister..</p>
<p>No actually watson it is possible to know every word in a language....do you have any idea what you are talking about? Not all languages are evolving, hell Latin is a dead language among others. Do you have any language education at all? </p>
<p>Isn't it funny how people will act like they know stuff they no nothing about?</p>
<p>Say the average working vocabulary is about 50,000 words. (I've seen this as an estimate for English, including related words like different tenses of the same verb. Perhaps it's lower in other languages, but vocabulary size varies widely anyway.) And let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's possible to master every nuance of the grammar and pronunciation rules, etc. of a language in... oh, say instantaneously. And let's say it's possible to learn a new word and incorporate it into one's working vocabulary in a second or so, given a brief definition. (The fact that we're considering think/thought/thinker/etc. as separate words makes this a bit more believable, since realistically you need an example in context - not just a definition - to really be able to use a word in the same way a native speaker would.)</p>
<p>Well, 50000/3600 means about 14 hours to learn a language, even if one learns it pretty darn fast :) Not unreasonable time-wise, although most languages have so many idiosyncracies that you'd really need to read actual texts and listen to actual conversation to call yourself "fluent." Which would significantly add to the time and probably - even with extremely fast reading assumed, and perhaps tapes of conversations at double speed - push the count over 24 hours for a good understanding. And let's not forget that it's probably a good idea to eat and sleep a bit each day, so we don't even need to get too close to 24.</p>
<p>So I'm thinking "fluent" might be an exaggeration, unless one already knew a very closely related language - though even if you <em>recognize</em> words from a similar language, you need to be able to use them with confidence, which means knowing exactly what the differences are. But then perhaps 1 second per word added to one's working vocabulary is just too high... =P</p>
<p>Spets, I concede that Latin is not evolving now as it did throughout history. Mainly because it is not a spoken language anymore. However, it is safe to say that the majority of languages are evolving. Yes, there are exceptions which I failed to indicate. I should have defined language better. Secondly, no one has yet documented the success in learning a language fully in the time of one day. Nor has anyone documented a person who knows every single word, definition, grammatical rule, and speaking pattern for a language. </p>
<p>So here is what I am thinking now. It is possible to know a dead language fully, but not a living language that is evolving every day. It just does not seem plausible for a single individual to keep track of newly emerging words. Also, there can be no single source that details EVERY SINGLE word of a living language, so long as it is a living language that is changing. Geography further breaks the unity of a language. Spanish for example is spoken in many different countries. To know everything about Spanish one would have to include the discrepancies found in each country. To know everything about English one would have to know American English and British English.</p>
<p>How can one even prove that he is fully erudite in a language? There is no test that can show one's ability to recognize and understand every single facet of a language!</p>
<p>i myself speak 4 languages, 2 fluently, and 2 that are ok</p>
<p>to me, being fluent is to be able to express yourselves effectively and naturally like a native speaker of the language</p>
<p>a language becomes fluent once you can naturally respond to questions without translating the words in your head. when learning a new language, one usually uses another language to learn.</p>
<p>example, soleil = sun, in french</p>
<p>someone who is not fluent, when asked a question in french like: What does the earth revolve around?</p>
<p>would probably translate the question into their native language, answer it in that language and then translate it back to french to reply</p>
<p>a fluent person in my opinion, would just answer the question without the previous steps</p>
<p>It's also very possible to be non-fluent but able to think in a language. I actually have trouble translating from German to English or vice versa - it's much simpler just to think or write directly in German, and I stopped mentally translating after a year or so. So I can carry on a decently-paced conversation with a native speaker, and get him/her to ask me if I'm originally German :) But I'm by no means fluent, mainly because my vocabulary's pretty small auf Deutsch.</p>
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William Sidis was definitely more intelligent than any child prodigy nowadays. He could learn a language in one day!
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<p>Yes, I know that that is claimed in his biography, which I have checked out from my friendly alma mater's library, but that claim is baloney. He was crazy in his adult years.</p>
<p>More generally about language learning and fluency in a language, it is very important to consider who has tested a purported genius language learner's actual language proficiency. I was tested in interpreting proficiency in an acquired language (not cognate with my native language) before beginning many years of work as a consecutive interpreter between that language and English. Note that I said "consecutive interpreter"--it is generally harder still to do simultaneous interpreting, and indeed there are hardly any people in the whole world who do really good simultaneous interpreting work in certain language pairings. I'm pretty familiar with what it takes to get paying work as a translator of writings or as an interpreter of speech, and I am absolutely sure that Sidis had nowhere near that level of ability in any of the languages he supposedly learned in day--maybe he forgot them in a day also.</p>
<p>It is said that Sidis' parents were both geniuses themselves. If two geniuses copulate and have a child, I am going to assume that the child has a great chance of getting their genes. Sure he studied copiously, but it takes more than that. A retarded person can study for his whole life and not remember any of it.</p>
<p>Yes, but when you are really young your brain is still forming connections. Because of this, it is possible to train someone to think in a certain way which can raise their intelligence (as compared to not "training" them).</p>
<p>True, but I don't think that could be the ONLY thing to attribute to Sidis' intelligence. I am now biologist but I do know that traits for intelligence are hereditary. His parents were both geniuses. Special training in learning as a child is important but not more important than the fact that a child has a very very high IQ. </p>
<p>It is this relationship: Nature and Nurture.</p>
<p>Nurture can help maximize one's inherent intellectual faculties, but it cannot do as much without the given intelligence by nature. So, Sidis was born with a very high IQ and a great great great mind. His nurture as a child helped him maximize his potential. Which is more important for a person, special education at an early age or a very high IQ? Well, they are both important. So important that schools place those with high IQs in special schools at times. I know, I was one of them.</p>
<p>IMO, I care more about the contribution a person makes to academia more than how old they were when they contributed it. 10 year old Calculus students are impressive, no doubt, but what will they do with the knowledge? How will they involve themselves in other peoples' lives? The point of living, after all, is to interact with the world. It's great if you can write a symphony for others to hear, or create theories to help make sense of the universe, but simply 'being smart' means little. A 50-year-old's hypothesis that he developed for 30 years is equal in value to a 5-year-old's who did the same thing.</p>