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"I can’t learn foreign languages" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5569 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 1 of 47 16 March 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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A lady overheard me listening to Chinese dialogs today, and sparked a conversation about language learning by declaring that she was simply unable to learn foreign languages. She claimed she tried learning German and French but "just couldn't get it". Now I don't believe this for a second. Anybody can learn any language, with enough time, effort, exposure and motivation. My guess is that she simply lacked some combination of those things, and she seemed to have fallen into the trap of believing she could learn a language just by attending language classes. I didn't engage her in conversation for very long (she seemed like she had work to do, and I wanted to continue with the dialogs), but her comments got me thinking. How do you respond to people who believe they just can't learn languages? Is there more we could be doing to dispel this kind of attitude in general?
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| nescafe Senior Member Japan Joined 5411 days ago 137 posts - 227 votes | Message 2 of 47 16 March 2010 at 3:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Too funny story! How to respond?
A lady "just couldn't get it" N: "Look! That handsome guy seems to be a German is looking at you passionately!" 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5969 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 47 16 March 2010 at 4:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting, I had a very similar conversation earlier this year. I was at a local thrift shop buying a few foreign language books, and started talking to a lady about learning languages. I mentioned the ones I study, and she became a little sad-looking and told me she had tried language learning many times but just could not do it. I said, oh, yes, you can, you just have to be consistent and patient and find the learning methods that work for you and bla bla bla etc. etc. etc. and so on (if this subject comes up in conversation I get REALLY chatty!). Well, I mentioned a certain excellent language-learning site we all know and told her how much it had helped me and wrote the URL on a card for her. She probably thought I worked for the site or was an undercover language spy or something like that.
But anyway, I think you can only encourage people to keep trying, tell them what has worked for you, give them some good resources and references, and the rest is up to them. Successful language learners can serve as examples or mentors, but you can't recruit people. Too bad. The world could use more Language Armed Forces--armed with words and grammar, of course--making the world a more interpretable place! 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 47 16 March 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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I too am enclined to think that anyone can learn a language. If anyone is able to learn a
first language, it would follow that you could put these people in an immersion environment and they would also learn. But to play devil's advocate, I have seen examples of people who simply couldn't get it at all. In particular, I can remember two students I had who simply couldn't utter a single sentence. To be honest, I think these people had some kind of mental blockage, as if subconsciously, speaking French was such an act of betrayal that they couldn't bring themselves to do it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Blaz Senior Member Canada theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5602 days ago 120 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto | Message 5 of 47 16 March 2010 at 4:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ya my ex-girlfriend would always she she just couldn`t learn languages. Her experience
was a several years of elementary school French and a year of university Spanish. I always tried to tell her she could learn languages, but she always interpreted it as that I was saying she just didn`t try hard enough. Well you know how relationships are. From now on I`m only dating bilinguals or better. That`s right, I`m looking for some bi girls, or maybe some polies. Edited by The Blaz on 16 March 2010 at 9:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5424 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 47 16 March 2010 at 5:16am | IP Logged | |||||
I believe this is the dream job of most people on this forum. That sounds like an awesome job :D Anyone, back on topic. I've never had that conversation (yet), but I'd respond like everyone else on this forum. Tell them they can, tell them some good resources, and tell them about this site and Omniglot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5811 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 7 of 47 16 March 2010 at 7:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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The worst thing is when people say that you have a gift for languages, as if you didn’t put any effort in learning
them... 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 47 16 March 2010 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
This. I was so annoyed once by some American ladies who kept telling me I "must be gifted at languages" because I speak Japanese. No, I just worked really *@#$ hard for years and years at it. Edited by Captain Haddock on 16 March 2010 at 7:30am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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