Melissaki Diglot Newbie Greece Joined 4617 days ago 19 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Greek*, English Studies: Swedish, Turkish, Finnish
| Message 17 of 65 03 April 2012 at 9:08pm | IP Logged |
Your Finnish is quite good!
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Rob_Austria Heptaglot Groupie Austria Joined 5001 days ago 84 posts - 293 votes Speaks: German*, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Croatian, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic (Written), Turkish
| Message 18 of 65 03 April 2012 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
First, while women are usually better at languages than men, ..... |
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You really think so? I have seen both men and women excelling at languages and struggling with gaining a basic understanding of them (for many different reasons I guess).
I have not had the feeling though that women are usually better at languages as a rule. About 70 to 80 % of the interpreters I know are female but I think this is more due to the way our profession is perceived by the public than by any inherent "superiority" of women when it comes to language learning.
I have not read any studies with regard to this issue and I must admit I don't have any scientific data to back up my point of view either, so it is perfectly possible that I am wrong but I never thought that there is a gender-related predisposition when it comes to language learning.
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 19 of 65 03 April 2012 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
Rob_Austria wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
First, while women are usually better at languages than men, ..... |
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You really think so? |
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No. I thought about it and wrote a lengthy post to try to justify my claim and, in the end, I can't.
However, more women learn languages. That claim, I'd back up. There are generally more women studying or teaching languages.
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Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4621 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian
| Message 20 of 65 03 April 2012 at 9:54pm | IP Logged |
Yes, probably women on average study languages more than men, although the difference doesn't seem so great to me. It isn't one of those hobbies where there is an obvious gender predominance (like chess or some sports or knitting).
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 21 of 65 03 April 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Rob_Austria wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
First, while women are usually better at
languages than men, ..... |
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You really think so? |
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No. I thought about it and wrote a lengthy post to try to justify my claim and, in the end, I can't.
However, more women learn languages. That claim, I'd back up. There are generally more women studying
or teaching languages. |
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Which makes it reasonable to assume that your claim is right. People tend to go for what they are good at.
However many women lack the extreme ability to focus which is necessary if you want to excel, plus there
is the whole giving birth and raising a family thing that tends to come in the way. . At the University of Oslo
more than 50% are women, and they tend to get good grades too. The majority of the professors are still
men. I cannot say whether this is because women are shy, bad at self promotion or subject to
discrimination, I just observe. I guess we need to teach our girls to be strong, focused and not afraid of
criticism.
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frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6942 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German
| Message 22 of 65 03 April 2012 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Second, it takes a certain willingness to expose yourself to criticism, which tends to appeal to women less than men. |
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Women post plenty of youtube videos where they sing, and that surely opens them to criticism. It's really not that easy to pin down the true causes of some social phenomena.
Edited by frenkeld on 04 April 2012 at 3:03am
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frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6942 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German
| Message 23 of 65 03 April 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Which makes it reasonable to assume that your claim is right. People tend to go for what they are good at. |
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The choice of profession is also influenced by societal prejudices and expectations.
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
The majority of the professors are still men. |
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Is that true of the young professors too, or just the old ones?
Edited by frenkeld on 03 April 2012 at 10:46pm
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Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4990 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map
| Message 24 of 65 03 April 2012 at 10:51pm | IP Logged |
frenkeld wrote:
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
The majority of the professors are still men.
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Is that true of the young professors too, or just the old ones? |
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In Switzerland and in Germany the situation is similar. As far as I am concerned, in
Germany at least 60% of the students at medical school are female, but just around 5% of
all heads of departement/head physicians are women. So the question comes up again...
maybe just in a different way.
@Solfrid Cristin: I have to confess... the reason why I have not uploaded any videos yet,
is also because of the "technical obstacle".
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