>look up any famous thinker from 150-300 years ago >they

>>9839746
>Engels
Just forget the Young Hegelians, they were all great erudites who studied intensively for their whole life.

>>9839755
They were still people though.

Sucks being an anglo-languagelet

>>9839763
They were people who devoted their life to erudition. I'm sure no one here on /lit/ has done so. Also most of them were actual geniuses.

>>9839746
>>look up any famous thinker from 150-300 years ago
>they most likely could speak 8+ languages
No they couldn't. Polyglots aren't very common. The vast majority of people who have ever lived, including the most famous and intelligent people from the past were not polyglots.
Also I bet most of the languages these people know are related. Say for example someone knows Italian. To get to a point where you can read French well enough to count as a language towards polyglotism would take less than a year of even relatively lazy work because of how similar the languages are.

>>9839746
It usually came with the job. If they were rich kids they were forcefed Greek and Latin in school. Following some kind of intellectual pursuit necessitated French at the time. If you're not a frog, that's four already. How well they actually spoke in contrast to reading the language is another thing. I mean, I can kinda read French due to similarities of vocabulary and structure, but I couldn't hold a proper conversation if my life depended on it.

>>9839746
but could Engels beat Banjo-Kazooie 100% in under 2:03:12?

>>9840198
So long as you can use the language it counts towards being a polyglot. So if you can read a newspaper in that language it counts. It has a pretty low bar.

>>9840219
Great, I'll start wearing old-fashioned suits and composing tractates with archaic-sounding titles starting with "On the..."

>>9839746
Engels, and plenty of the writers you're talking about, were rich as hell and largely were taught multiple languages (French German English Greek Latin) since they were little boys. People now don't have tutors or fancy ads professors teaching them various languages from childhood.

What's really impressive is the middle class Russians like Lenin and Trotsky being not just fluent but masters of prose in like three languages minimum.

>>9840236
Lenin spoke 9 iirc.

>>9840236
I was once surprised by the way Cioran could switch to German and still sound like his usual flowery pessimistic self. He studied German philosophy in a time when there probably were no such thing as translations into Romanian, of course, but still not bad.

>>9839746
Doubt most spoke that many, besides as anons noted, it's not that hard when the languages are related. From practical sense, there isn't much of a point either.

Though if you can barely maintain 2 ... you either don't really try or are really a brainlet.

>>9840236
>What's really impressive is the middle class Russians like Lenin and Trotsky being not just fluent but masters of prose in like three languages minimum.
This contradicts your "rich kids" theory. If we're talking about just 3-5 languages, being in the environment where these are commonly used and using them is enough even for the average person. Mastery of prose is just practice. It's not like they did much more than think, talk, read and write.

>>9839746
I think that, aside from many famous writers being filthy rich, translations weren't widespred then, so they they needed to learn another language to read them.
And even if translatiosn were available, thye still wanted to read books in their original languages. I know Borges taught himself german by reading Schopenhauer with a dictionary.
>>9840161
I agree. My native language is spanish and i can speak all the major romance languages sans romanian, and yes, they are all very similar. Once you learn basic grammar and phrases, you just need to read more to increase your vocabulary, and also practice speaking it to improve pronunciation. Learning languages is very easy nowadays, but we are lazy

>>9839746
> Why are we so retarded.
In order of importance:
a) Pornography.
b) Miscegenation.
c) Social media. (Including 4chan.)

>>9839746
E-experts say we have higher IQ and are MUCH smarter OK? Back off!!

>>9840273
>Though if you can barely maintain 2 ... you either don't really try or are really a brainlet.
Maybe. I'm from the anglosphere. Bilingualism is exceptionally rare.

>>9840308
Sounds like a shitty excuse. Even in Murica they teach you a second language, and there are quite a few people to practice on. Besides, there are tons of people from the anglosphere, who are polyglots.

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We're not retarded.

Those people OP are talking about were incredibly (uh oh, here it come) privileged with good educations and plenty of free time. Many though not all of us could conceivably achieved what they achieved under the proper guiding conditions.

We're actually smarter than the average prole from past eras because we have the world's knowledge at our fingertips.

>>9840319
>Besides, there are tons of people from the anglosphere, who are polyglots
>from the anglosphere, who are polyglots
> anglosphere, who
>,

>>9839746
>no internet
>no tv
>no cars
>you had to make an effort if you wanted to watch a play or attend to a concert
>only real distractions were booze and prostitutes
Our material conditions aren't conducive to patrician geniuses.

>>9840319
>Even in Murica they teach you a second language
Is it mandatory?

Anyways I'm Australian. Second languages are optional, only available at a highschool level and even then when completely you will by no means be anywhere close to fluent.

Aside from foreigners and a few rare individuals who teach themselves, people who can speak 2 or more languages are exceptionally rare.

>>9840354
>Is it mandatory?
In my state it was. From junior high (about 12 years old) onward we were required to take a second language.

>>9840349
Judging from the amount of STD ridden drunkards among writers, those were splendid distractions.

>>9840346
I woke up like an hour ago, be gentle, anon.

>>9840354
About 80% of the country is monolingual and the 20% who are not only speak their second language at home.

>>9839771
F A T A L I T Y
A
T
A
L
I
T
Y

>>9840354
When in Australia is probably trickier since it's not really part of your culture and there are fewer foreigners and especially lack of huge communities like the latinos in US of A. Though don't you have quite a few Vietnamese?

>>9840236
>what's really impressive is the middle class Russians like Lenin and Trostky being not just fluent but masters of prose in like three languages minimum
Since when is Lenin a master of prose? I've read his "Philosophical Notebooks" and it was laughable; he failed to understand every single philosopher he referred to which results in incredible oversimplification, i.e. banalization.

>>9840646
not really. the biggest migrant population is australia are british immigrations, followed by nz immigrants. both speak English.

>>9840664
Wasn't simplification the point? Whether he overdid it is debatable, although not a fan of his prose either.

>>9839746
back then "speaking" a language meant you could talk about the weather and translate a page of text per hour with the aid of a dictionary

>>9840646
only in the north afaik

>>9840210
Truly a question for the ages.

>>9840685
Es muy caliente, senior. Me hablo Espanol muy bien. Viva, Fidel!

>>9840685
Hier ist sehr cöld, Herr. Ich spricht Deutsch sehr gut. Heil Meinhoff!

You can speak 2? You're already better than most of the people here.

Will giving up pornography (and jerking off) make me more focused or is this pseudoscience?

>>9840928
Just like any other source of passive entertainment or pleasure like sweets, it's all about the balance and your personal situation. If you manage to get shit done with your current consumption levels, stick to it. If you feel like it distracts you from getting things done, cut it off.

Personally it didn't do much of a difference for me, had weeks of no fap (due being too busy with more fun things, not some pseud meme) and had weeks with 5 times a day fap. My focus was pretty identical as far as I can tell.

>>9840210
Banjo-Tooie was better. You may quote me.

Engels was a rich dickhead with a trustfund who could just spent all his time backpacking around Europe. If you thought Schopenhaur was an ungrateful son of a bitch to his mom, just check out Engels. His dad starts up a factory so his son can live comfortable and what does the kid do? Team up with a fucking Jew to attack capitalism, all while living off money from the factory.

>>9839746
>Why are we so retarded.
we've been corrupted by the electric jew

>>9841455
That's like bitching when kids of dictators object the dictatorship.

Most of them were neets or losers needing their parents money to live

>>9840354
>>9840362
>Is it mandatory?
Yes but most people don't take it seriously so for all intents and purposes they are still monolingual.

>>9839746

The education system.

Are you in a similar position to the vast majority of those thinkers in terms of class and free time? If not, then it isn't even worth comparing.

>>9840724
wut??

Check out American presidents:
>Jefferson: six languages
>James A. Garfield: could write Latin with his left hand and ancient Greek with his right
to:
>Bush: could give speeches in Spanish, provided it was written down and used the same stock phrases again and again
>Obama: "I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing."

It's a bummer, dude.

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>>9840646

>tfw over 25 so nearly impossible for me to be fluent in another language because my brain is deteriorating

>>9839746
>we

speak for yourself

>>9839746
Probably just a random pic but FYI Nadia is sort of a laughable speaker of English for someone who has dipped into American political activism.

Related: Language acquisition is (in most cases) cultural. Most young Russians on the college track speak English decently (at a level that I wouldn't call fluent, but able to say pretty much anything we'd say from day-to-day) and also study another language. I have a good friend who studies in Russian university and is fluent in Russian, English, French, and is getting to an OK level speaking Arabic. She isn't some sort of ubermensch, it's just because it's integrated into their educational system over a long period.

That said: it's really never too late. There are cases of older people learning languages well through good training and persistence. I started from nothing, but after four semesters and a couple months of immersion study, I'm probably about a year of immersion study away from expressing myself damn well.

OP, what is your first and second language?

>>9840646
We will be forced to learn Chinese when the chinks take over.