Am I a freak?

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I tend to wonder this, I have been labeled as a linguistic savant and even a prodigy at some points simply because I can pick up languages at an alarming rate out of constant curiosity and pretty much being a human parrot at times, I even learn some languages in a matter of weeks that it takes many decades for most to master and in my case Mandarin, I even sound like a native from mainland China and give off a Beijing accent even though I am not Chinese.

....does it matter? It just sounds like a bunch of useful and impressive talents to me.

I mean, honestly, someone could look at general "normal" society and see LOTS of freaks there, depending on their viewpoint; usually, this is how I perceive things. Doesnt mean those people are bad or stupid though; I just think they're bloody strange. Of course, at the same time, I know they think that of me usually, so that balances out well enough.

Either way, if anyone is saying that about you.... try not to let it bug ya too much.

This math savant learned Icelandic in a week. So maybe you aren't too freakish.

You said it yourself, you are a savant, not a freak.

No, I don't think so.

Linguistic intelligence, or any kind of intelligence for that matter, doesn't make you a freak. By definition you are not a savant because savants are people who suffer from an intellectual disability that possess skills like that.

Daniel Tammet is an amazing person, but I wouldn't say he is a savant because he possesses no intellectual disability.

I wouldn't mind being a "freak" like you....godurnit!! !!

Only in so far as "freak" may be used to indicate a statistical outlier.

Your unusual ability is very enviable. I wish I had it. Did you find it much harder to acclimate to the Cantonese tones than the Mandarin?

You're not a freak.....you're a Superfreak, Superfreak........

Lots of aspies, due to our analytical nature, can have savant-like abilities concerning linguistics... English or otherwise.

Why would you want to be mediocre? Being mediocre is the norm. You have talent that people could kill for. Accept it

You are a freak, but a good one!

There are polyglots and hyper-polyglots and it is a wonderful talent to possess.
How many languages do you use @ this point?

From what I have read about savants, that they must suffer from an intellectual disability is a common misconception. Alto a significant portion of them have an IQ that would qualify them to be considered such, there are also those who do not suffer from such a disability.

Savant do have mental disabilities (as so defined), which is broader then only intellectual ones and can include ASD.

The tones are a little more difficult to acclimate with Cantonese than Mandarin indeed, i had a little difficulty with Cantonese and discarded it for Mandarin since Mandarin uses less tones and is a much more widely used language in China and Taiwan. I can understand some Cantonese but not as much as Mandarin I might learn more Cantonese in the future as it is rather fun and fascinating to learn new languages, same goes for Vietnamese and Japanese. I can understand quite a bit of French, Tagalog, Hindi and Spanish as well, I just seem more drawn to Mandarin at this time. The great thing about the SF bay area is it is so linguistically and culturally diverse and my curiosity of wanting to connect, communicate and learn tends to get the best of me.

Sounds like a useful talent to me!

That seems pretty useful.
In my case it's me that learned English better than most of my classmates, without even putting extra efforts to it. I didn't read textbooks, didn't take notes, didn't study for exams, yet I excelled and achieved perfect score in tests.
I learned languages mostly from video games, cartoons and films, and computer stuff. (Tell me: these things are normal, right?)