Are today's language learners better than those who lived before the computer age? Are polyglots more skilled? This is all a matter of personal opinion of course, but I'm interested in yours. I think there probably isn't much of a change. I'm guessing the lack of tools in the past meant that natural skills were better, and people were more diligent. Of course I can't prove this, but the stories from previous times don't make it sound like there have been huge gains in overall language learning.
I have the same opinion, I guess there were less wannabe polyglots though, because as you state, people who really were interested, had to be more diligent because info was scarcer. Thus their level of knowledge would probably have been of the same standard as the true die-hard polyglots today. On the other hand, the abundance of information leads to more people having access to language learning tools and that's a good thing, even if they are wannabe polyglots, I believe they have an edge compared to the wishful thinkers in the past because sometimes we just can't ignore the other languages around us. In the past "regular" people lived quietly in their villages, minding their own business, but now with TV, radio, Internet and the ads on those channels... Not to mention the effect of globalisation on language itself (more loanwords than ever), it just can't be ignored anymore. In short, I'd put it this way: - In the past: They knew more of less. They were also the rare specialists. - Now: We know less of more. We in general are more "general knowledge" kinds of people, with less focus on specialisation but more on broad knowledge.
Yeah wow great article! I perfectly get what they're saying. Just from my personal experience when I was a child, I look back at phone numbers... I used to know every phone number by heart of my family when we were still using landlines. But now with cellphones/smartphones and computers, the use of remembering phone numbers has completely become irrelevant and so today's kids don't use that "skill" anymore. It's just a simple example but it illustrates what you mean. I hope we get some more people involved in this thread, it's pretty interesting.
