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Someone with absurd views on language learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Niomi Diglot Newbie Japan ioet.com Joined 7044 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 33 23 January 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you have to take into account the general view of the Japanese toward learners of their language - it's hard to comprehend why you're in Japan in the first place!
Even more so if you aren't Asian, but, as you say, English... they may be able to grasp that people want to go from India, China, Thailand, etc. to Japan, but why would someone already living in the "height of civilization" want to come to Japan? Of course we think differently, but in my experience, the Japanese people I meet always (and I mean ALWAYS) ask why I am here. The situation can get really tricky... I'm sure you know what I mean! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Enki Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5835 days ago 54 posts - 133 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean Studies: Japanese | Message 10 of 33 23 January 2010 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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You mentioned that she studied English. Quite a few people learn English out of pure necessity (pass the TOEIC, get a better job, government pressure, ect.) and as such don't have a very pleasant experience learning languages. That someone would want to learn beyond what is functional and absolutely necessary is surprising for people who don't learn for the fun of it.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kveldulv Senior Member Italy Joined 6955 days ago 222 posts - 244 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian* | Message 11 of 33 23 January 2010 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't think you need all these obscure words to be fluent. Do you use them in your mother tongue? Do you talk about medical, philosophical and legal stuff? I almost never do, and I actively use just few everyday terms when it comes to these fields. In order to use all this stuff you have to know what it actually means. I know what a beech is, but I don't know what it looks like, why it is better/worse than other trees, what it is used for, in a forest I wouldn't be able to spot one and say "Hey that's a beech!". When will I utter this word? In my mind, beech->tree. That's what's important, making this link. Same for obscure diseases. I may know the name because I hear it constantly but not what the disease actually is. Why would I want to talk about legal and philosophical stuff? Maybe I'm just plain boring (and not ambitious?) ;) 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 12 of 33 23 January 2010 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I think I should comment only the words said, not the context. This seems innocent to me. She just expressed her concern about your benefit/costs of learning Japanese up to that level. Your is a great achievement, but question whether it's really needed is a legitimate one. hombre gordo, I may be wrong but it seems that the reason you make such a deal of this is that you don't like that she disapproved of what you do. I can't be certain - maybe you were writing this and having fun with this story, but the way you put it makes me think like this. I hope I'm wrong. I had such an issue just 3-4 years ago: I expected that the knowledge would be impressive, but apparently it wasn't at all. Well, not in short term. In the long term people will respect you a lot, but at first, they'd say: "You know 3 languages? WAAAAAUUUUW! Incredible! ...What do you need this for?" Or in everyday life they'd joke on me: "hey, have you already learned Chinese? Bwahaha!" It took a while for me to stop caring what others say of me and to get rid of the temptation to try to impress others with my achievements. When you don't care what others say, you don't waste time thinking: "aaawww, they are speaking of me in clichès, they're completely wrong!..", and have more time to think how to encourage and help others to learn. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5593 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French | Message 13 of 33 23 January 2010 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why do you care what someone else thinks? You need not justify yourself to any one. If you enjoy what you are doing, more power to you.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 33 24 January 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
This is so true. Sometimes you have to ask yourself: Do I really know what this word means or have I just heard it a lot or do I just know its general category (tree, flower, pejorative adjective, etc.?). It really does not do much good to know that XXXXXXX means YYYYYYY in XX language, if you don't know what XXXXXXX means in the first place.
Edited by translator2 on 24 January 2010 at 12:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 15 of 33 24 January 2010 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes I'll run across an unfamiliar word in my target language, look it up, and find that I don't know the word in English either! I either learn the new word in both languages at that point, or if it's something obscure I've never seen before and likely never will again, move on. However I do like to learn specialized vocabulary for the things I am interested in or talk about a lot in my native language. Whether it's philosophy, medical trivia, video games or martial arts, your interests are part of who you are and how you express yourself!
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5925 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 16 of 33 24 January 2010 at 5:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think the pay-off is that great for having a ridiculous vocabulary unless your job entails it. I have a pretty obscure cultural vocabulary in Spanish which helps me understand colloquial conversations and get where the people are coming from. Legal, medical and especially engineering vocabulary is useful for translations but I don't retain it, it's more functional.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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