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Thread on "Language Banditry" | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6747 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes  Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 57 of 140 20 January 2009 at 6:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe it is just me, but I think that Goindol misses Parasitius's point. Goindol seems to be thinking in a way similar to the way the language bandits which Parasitius mentions. By this I mean Goindol seems to believe that Parasitius, who is residing in China so naturally should be the one using the local language, is himself commiting the very sin which he condemns just because he speaks to, and wishes to speak to, and be spoken to in the local language, that is Mandarin. Now, this idea that Parasitius, who is a fluent Mandarin speaker residing in China thus should be treat no different from anyone else there (this one is a matter of common respect of people who deserve at least this regardless of race, or any other variables), is comminiting this kind of infrindgement of his own policy by insisting on Mandarin WHILE IN CHINA, again is an idea that is based on a premise that "one has by chance been born in X country, raised to speak X language, so must speak X language to everyone when it is demanded, even when in a foreign non-anglophone country". Somehow I don't see why this premise could be true! Consequently, not believing this ridiculous premise to be an absolute truth in anyway, I don't see why one man, just for being a white person, or for being by chance a native anglophone speaker, "owes" the Chinese, or any other people, English conversation just for being white and a native anglophone speaker or perceived to be one. Similarly, I don't believe that others should have any right to believe and act upon the belief that the foreigner in their country "owes" the local people anything regarding language conversation, etc... In short, the premise that a man somehow "owes" another man something like language practice just for being of a certain race or nationality is just unfounded and ridiculous in my opinion.
Similarly, the idea that you own someone, have superior rights than someone, have the right to control or coerce someone or anything else like that just because they are a fereigner and so see them as "I foreigner in "my" country", is again a degrading and stupid idea, lacking respect and morality. Therefore, based on this idea, I don't see why Parasitius should be expected to just give in to the hassle and the demands which those Chinese people are doing. From my own anecdote, I can say that I really disagree with this kind of "this is my country so I can do what I want with you and you "owe" me" attitude. In the factory where I have been doing a part time job for a while, some of the young English kids, of which some have no traditional sense of work ethic owed to the worsoning of our society in recent times, slack of from work and, though they are no rank superior than a mere warehouse operative, the feel that they have the right to order the foreign workers to do more to make up for their slacking while they play with this silly phones for example. Some of the immigrant workers don't realise that these lazy ass kids are not a superior rank and that they have no right to command them, so some just comply. The lazy ass English kids claim that it is "their" country, so naturally they have the right to command the immigrant workers to do for them which the immigrant workers somehow "owe" to them. See the parallel? I never consent to their unfair tactics and alway strive to work hard and treat others fairly and respectfully, regardless of origin. I have this mentality, and expect others to do the same to me. Maybe it would be common respect and courtesy if the bandits which Parasitius mentions were to start treating Parasitius with the same respect which I believe is necessary and right when treating a fellow human being. That's right, a fellow human being and not a thing or object or anyone of inferior status. Remember, we owe nobody nothing just because of the colour of our skin or for having foreign resident status! With regards to the denial of the very existence of this phenomena on part of some members, I don't see why some still feel they have to discount the idea or why some fair to acknowledge the existence of it now that in the link in the first post there is an whole load to voices of people who explain that these actions of others are causing them unhappininess, hassle or frustration. It is causing them frustration and problems, but of course others who cannot relate to this issue, maybe for not being native anglophones, or maybe for being too lazy to bother learning, etc..., still will ignorantly discount the idea of the existence of this phenomena. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5875 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 58 of 140 20 January 2009 at 6:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Whoa. Unreadable. Please split your ideas into paragraphs.
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| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5875 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 59 of 140 20 January 2009 at 6:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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OK, I have read the above. I suspect that there might be some strong drugs involved (like perhaps speed). I have only broken it into paragraphs and changed obvious mistakes (like their to they're).
[EDIT and PS: I am the first person to post things having had too many drinks. I have drunk way more than a single bottle of wine tonight ... and it is too hot to sleep here, 40.5 degrees celcius was the maximum today (105F). I post drunk on occasion myself, and regret it in the morning. I am sure Maximus will do the same ... Enjoy.] The uninteligible result of this particular binge on unknown drugs is thus:
Edited by SlickAs on 20 January 2009 at 7:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6747 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 60 of 140 20 January 2009 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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One point regarding the situations across diffrent regions. It seems that Parasitius, who is curruntly trying to conquer his language related ambitions in China, has it worse than what I had in Japan. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but according to the information I have read, China seems way worse for English Banditry than Japan. It appears that Parasitius is experiencing these unwanted hassles on a daily basis so frequently to the extent that these unthoughtful actions of others are making his life miserable. Now if they have these kind of effects on the guy, is this phenemona still not real? Living in a place where on a daily basis people will force unwanted English on a serious language learner sounds like an unfair and frustrating situation in my opinion. When we hear information which states that language banditry is stronger in certain areas, I for one am put off the language of that place knowing that I will have an hard time if I try to learn the language in that country. For that I have considered revising my language wishlist, and to decide to study only languages of countries in which English proficiency and English Banditry are low comparatively.
Well back to the point of difference in the prevelance of banditry depending on the location. Like Keith said, in Japan the phenomena seems to be less of a problem, at least when compared to, say some parts of China. I was living in the countryside, I was attending a language school in another town in the countryside, and only ocassional found myself in large cities. I the countryside where I was living, English Bandit attacks were very rare, almost non-existent with the exception of one consistent bandit who I happened to have gotten more intimate with. She was a good friend of my host family and I had agreed to teach her the fundamental of Spanish as her Spanish was bad to the extent that it was almost inexistent and also the fact that she seemed to be passionate about it. Of course finding out I was a Spanish speaker as well, she immediately took to me. I agreed to teach her using Japanese, and quite sucessfully, as the method of conveying grammatical concepts. I also demanded the agreement that I wouldn't be the victim of any English banditry and would only do her this favour under the condition that the default language be Japanese. Of course, despite the fact that her English was quite bad, she still would try to violate our agreement regardless of the fact that she said that she understood my objective and policy. I often felt I was being used by her and thought about cutting ties with her because of her attitude (all take take take, despite my generosity in teacher her for nothing in return, stemming from my kind heart and sympathy for a Japanese person who doesn't ignorantly believe that English is the only foreign language) on several ocassions, but I felt that I couldn't do anything because it would cause problems with my host family. After meeting people who are so "forward" with their English like that despite having explained that you are here to study, and after meeting people who just can't accept your explanation dispite having made it clear that my policy is all Japanese all the time, I really get put off those people. If I am in that situation again, next time I will be more assertive and just cut ties with people who seem to have painted ears, illusionary ears which don't listen, as opposed to real ears. Just cut some people off! If they don't respect your reasons, they are probably not worth your friendship anyway. Parasitius makes a point when he talks about having no need to accept 10 or 20 empty "friendships". The idea of allowing yourself to be attacked by bandits in order to get involved in other social events too seems silly when one can find monolingual people in the vecinity. Also allowing yourself to be attacked and giving in to language banditry seems too much like an act of submission and has a feeling of being dominated and made inferior. Don't be bullied around! You don't have to consent to anything you don't want to do. When in Japan, the main banditry, or potential banditry came from individuals inside the language school. In my class there were large groups of Nepalese people who knew English (though quite different from the English I know, much like Hinglish of Indian people). Also the ocassional Indonesian English Bandit was present. However, although the Nepalese group thought I would speak English with them (they really thought I would just give in and take the easy option), contrary to their expectation, I made clear from day one that I will only speak Japanese and nothing but Japanese. As a consequence, I ensured from day one that the modus operandi was Japanese with no deviation whatsoever. And I did right. The truth is I spent so much time with them socialising with them as friends that, if I hadn't made clear that the modus operandi was Japanese, THOSE HOURS OF SOCIALISATION IN English WOULD HAVE JUST ADDED UP AND MY IMMERSION TIME WOULD HAVE SUFFERED. The the moral of this story is that it is better to purge all threats and make it clear from day one, not giving in to anyone and not giving an inch. This ensures that we can maximise our immersion time. Remember, those who slack and just revert back to their native language all the time or just socialise with speakers of their native language don't usually progress as rapidly. According to my experience, the ones who have progressed the most rapidly in language studies seem to be the "total immersion extremists" who don't give in to anyone and effectively use counter-measures against potential bandits. For example the Japanese guy Kohei who I knew and have written about. Also the guy from all japanese all the time. There are others too. These people progress incredibly rapidly, some of that due to their immersion extremist attitudes. Kohei, effectivity used his anti-language bandit stategies. But for the people who are Anglophones, the speakers of a widespread lingua franca, we have it worse. We have it more tought. So having seen that our learning environment can be more hindering and infested with English bandits, and have seen the rapid development of the language skills of those who fight against language banditry at all costs not giving any ground at all, doesn't this give us more of an incentive to disdain language banditry and an incentive to take more direct and extreme measures in order to defend our interests and maintain immersion? I believe that it does! Remember, in most cases, we as Anglophone have it worse in the frequency of language bandit victim experiences owed to the diffusion of our native language. Why the heck should we have to be hassled more and take more crap than speakers of rarer or less studied languages just for being of a certain country or race? Edited by Maximus on 20 January 2009 at 7:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5875 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 61 of 140 20 January 2009 at 7:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Unreadibe, man. You are on the same drugs. Not alcohol.
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| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6747 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 62 of 140 20 January 2009 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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[QUOTE=SlickAs] OK, I have read the above. I suspect that there might be some strong drugs involved (like perhaps speed). I have only broken it into paragraphs and changed obvious mistakes (like their to they're).
QUOTE] Hey! There is no need to bring those kind of offensive personal attacks into this argument! They amount to mere insults. Drug taking! WTF! What is wrong with you! You don't agree with what I write so you just insult me personally? How childish! I thought I wouldn't find people this childish in a forum like this! As for the matter, I don't even consume alcohol ever. Yet alone speed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5875 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 63 of 140 20 January 2009 at 7:28am | IP Logged | |||||
Mate, tomorrow you will look at this and see. Are you only drunk? When I post drunk I seem like a sober person but with REALLY strong views. Your above posts are illegible. E's? Speed? Charlie? H? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6747 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 64 of 140 20 January 2009 at 7:41am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe TO YOU they are illegible! Again your unnecessary personal attacks which are mere childish insults only tell us something about your level of intelligence. Reasonable adults don't just throw out insults like that. Now, I am happy to debate ideas in a respectable manner, but these kind of personal insults are just pathetic. This forum can do without them. Besides, when one guy starts to resort to this kind of behaviour, all it shows is that they feel like they are lost and defeated in the debate. All it shows is that their argument has no basis. Edited by Maximus on 20 January 2009 at 7:42am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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