Aspies who are good at languages?

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I've never claimed to be an expert when it comes to English--quite the contrary, in fact, as I started talking late and my mom tells me I had some language delay issues when I was a kid. I also consider myself a terrible writer and have a lot of trouble getting my ideas on paper. However, among my [mostly very, very smart] friends, I am considered something of an expert, and they keep coming to me for help when they write papers. Let me just point out that most of these friends of mine are history and English majors, while I am a music major. And I hate writing, because I've never been good at it. I can only articulate myself clearly in certain contexts, while others leave me fumbling.

But apparently I'm really good at languages. I can understand a lot of Spanish because I took a single year of Latin. I learned enough Japanese from casually watching anime to test out of the introductory levels. And while I can't write a paper or an essay to save my life, I got every question right in the writing section of the SAT (but my essay grade was 5/12). Accounting for my diagnosably bad handwriting due to poor motor control, I probably would have gotten a 6/12 or 7/12 if I had been given extra time on the SAT, but my parents intentionally avoided getting me tested for disabilities until it was too late to get an IEP.

Anyway, IEPs aside, is it common to be really good at grammar but abysmal at writing? Is it more or less common for Aspies?

In college, foreign languages were easy classes. I enjoyed them. I took French and German.

I am pretty good at writing, if it's an essay, report, or something similar (technical writing, prose, etc). When it comes to fiction, I am not good. I just can't flesh out the characters well enough with intentions and motivations and such. I seem to pick up languages pretty well. I studied Spanish for a few years and have dabbled in French and ASL. I haven't tried any that aren't Latin-based yet though.

Love languages, can learn a lot of a new one quickly then lose interest and forget it all. Oh well, fun while it lasts. Very relaxing. Currently fixated on Swedish.

Edit: can't for the life of me learn languages w/ grammatical gender. That's my downfall every time with those languages.

I love languages, and I know of another member here who has also immersed himself in them, but I'm not giving any names.

Currently learning Japanese. I know German and English.
I find it funny that I am diagnosed with a disorder that typically impairs language, but I am obsessed to the nth degree with linguistics. (I am using "impairs language" loosely; don't jump on me for semantics.)

My pronunciation is evidently immaculate in Japanese, as well as German and English (first language, so of course.) Japanese isn't too harsh with pronunciation, coming from speaking English and German... the number of sounds the language uses is a mere fraction when compared to those Germanic languages. I'd much rather be learning Japanese as someone who knows Germanic languages than the other way around.

I love languages so much, I can't even put it into words... which is kind of funny...
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH


I'm 15, and I hope to be fluent in at least 5 or 6 languages when I'm an adult.


(By the way, for background on acquiring language, I was hyperlexic. I was always interested in reading and writing, and eventually taught myself to write and got some assistance to learn how to read by the time I was 3.5 or 4. My first words came at around seven or so months of age. I had speech impediments until I was around eight years of age because I developed spoken language so early, and I have a very peculiar grip on my pencil because I taught myself how to write before anyone could get around to teaching me the "proper" way to do so. Same with typing. )

German's a b***h with that stuff.

yep, i'm very strong in languages. i can communicate in 5 languages, high fluency in 2

Which ones?

I wonder who that could be.

My main interests are linguistics and learning languages. I of course speak English, but am learning Basque, which I speak at an intermediate level. I have been interested in languages for about 3 years, but for most of the time, until last September, I was mostly switching between many languages often. As a result, I have learned a lot about grammar in languages in general, but have yet to become fluent in any other language.

I'm very good at learning to read and write languages, although not as good as speaking them. I seem to learn grammar very quickly and easily, but have a hard time learning many new words.

There are many languages I'd very much like to learn, and often I have to fight the urge to start learning another one. xP I love languages.

Strangely, I do very bad in my English classes, and prefer math and science (although I'm so not good at math nowadays), although maybe that's correlated with me being better at grammar than vocabulary.


German is very evil with it's many plurals and arbitrary genders. >_< I find Latin easier than German, because nouns only have one or two stems, and many times you can tell the gender just by looking at it.

Last edited by dunbots on 24 Apr 2011, 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've been told I have a flair for languages. English and other language-related classes were always my favorite subjects in school. Math and science were the least favorite. I also enjoy writing.

I am not fluent in any other language, but I do speak Spanish fairly well. Because I understand many Spanish words, I can also often get the gist with Italian, French, and Portuguese, because they are related. I have picked up, through conversations with native speakers, a few random Turkish words.

American Sign Language, although I have taken a course, doesn't seem to come as easily to me. Could it have something to do with being a motion language instead of a spoken one?

I was also a delayed speaker (and then regressed after that, becoming nonverbal again until I was retaught the language from scratch). I am also hyperlexic. I do well with the written word, and I am terrible with the verbal components of it. My thoughts are quite advanced sometimes, but when I speak, it comes out sounding like I am delayed (my essays for school always get high grades, always A range, but when I have to speak, people notice there is something "wrong"). Anyway, I have always been able to pick up the written language quite well. I was in French Immersion from grade 7 to 12, and was fluent in that (again, better at reading and writing than formulating conversation of course). I have a knack for the rules and regulations of languages plus I have a great memory, so it makes it easy for me to soak things in. I taught myself to read Hebrew in a week or two. I also never saw a word of German before the age of 12 or 13, but then I was reading a comic book in German and I remember being able to tell what was being said just by linking many of the words to languages I was already more familiar with.

I taught myself English when I was about 12-13 years old. People usually can't tell I'm not a native speaker. I'm also fluent in Russian, Hebrew, and French, and soon in Japanese, hopefully. Already know about 1000 characters, so only 1000 more to go to cover the basic ones.

I like language classes, writing included. I'm a Czech learning English and German and would like to add another 2-3 languages (fluently) someday.
Concerning those grammatical genders and other stuff in German, it's something you get used to. I don't complain since I'm probably going to study German studies.

Is that common among aspies who excel in language? I was the same way, but I started reading earlier. My mom tells me I was reading before I was talking to her in full sentences. By the time I started my formal education, I was throwing tantrums in school because the books in the advanced class weren't on a high enough reading level.

Did you read for content when you were that young? Until I was about 12 I never attempted to read for content unless it was requested of me (though I tended to pick a lot of it up after reading so much anyway). I mostly liked looking at the words and how they were spelled (which probably explains why I always aced my spelling tests).

I'm quite good at language, which makes sense with my big VIQ>PIQ gap. It expresses itself mostly as a facility for writing, spelling, grammar, and public speaking. (Conversations and other spontaneous communication are still difficult for me, though.)

I am the very worst person in the history of the universe at Languages (other than English). I can teleport to Mars, construct a giant flying fortress out of the ground with my mind, summon milk into a cup, multiply myself and grow over 200 feet tall, but I can't do languages.

In fact I was so bad at Spanish in school, I was the only one in my year group that was allowed to quit learning it. Screw if that makes me ret*d, I was glad I didn't have to do it.

I absolutely hate languages, probably more than anything.