Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 10 of 202 11 April 2009 at 7:27pm | IP Logged |
I myself am a woman, by the way. I have many years of experience as a learner in courses of the adult education centre (in Germany called "Volkshochschule") and all these courses - no matter of which language - are stongly dominated by female participants. To give a percentage I would say that 90 % of the participants in such language courses for adults are women.
What really is rare, are female polyglots. Why is that so? As I know from my own experience polyglottery needs a special form of dedication or way of life. I could imagine for example that women having a job and raising children don't have enough time left to spend with such an amount of language learning. My advantage is that I have no family obligations and can organize my language learning as it fits into my own personal schedule.
When I studied Romance Philology at university 90 % of my fellow students were female. But those, whom I knew personally limited their study to only one or two languages, so nobody of these young women had any ambitions in the direction of polyglottery.
Fasulye-Babylonia
Edited by Fasulye on 11 April 2009 at 8:22pm
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Recht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5803 days ago 241 posts - 270 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1
| Message 11 of 202 11 April 2009 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
Fasulye wrote:
What really rare is, are female polyglots. Why is that so? As I know
from my own experience poliglottery needs a special form of dedication or way of life.
I could imagine for example that women having a job and raising children don't have
enough time left to spend with such an amout of language learning. My advantage is
that I have no family obligations and can organize my language learning as it fits
into my own personal schedule.
Fasulye-Babylonia |
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exactly what I was getting at
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LN Groupie United States Joined 6274 days ago 39 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English Studies: Russian
| Message 12 of 202 11 April 2009 at 7:34pm | IP Logged |
Im also female. I have been a member for a while and I come here regularly to read, but I usually only post when I think I have something to say. But honestly I had always had the impression that it was a fairly even balance here, maybe just a little in favor of males, but not in a significant amount.
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dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7013 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto
| Message 13 of 202 11 April 2009 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
On Sharedtalk.com, the English-French room is routinely 3:1 or higher males:females, sometimes even 10:1.
The #Learnanylanguage IRC channel on freenode, of 15 regulars, only has a couple of women who show up.
However, I'd say that has more to do with desire to use chatrooms rather than any particular language-learning desires or abilities.
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Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds
| Message 14 of 202 11 April 2009 at 7:54pm | IP Logged |
I'm male, technically speaking ;p. I've always suspected there are a lot of undercover females around.
The easiest way to determine the exact ratio is with a poll.
Fasulye wrote:
What really is rare, are female polyglots. Why is that so? As I know from my own experience polyglottery needs a special form of dedication or way of life. I could imagine for example that women having a job and raising children don't have enough time left to spend with such an amout of language learning. My advantage is that I have no family obligations and can organize my language learning as it fits into my own personal schedule. |
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That's because women are less prone to obsessive and compulsive behavioral patterns ;p.
Edited by Sennin on 11 April 2009 at 7:59pm
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 15 of 202 11 April 2009 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
I am a 23 year old Romanian woman currently masquerading just as a prank behind the middle-aged Canadian male "Spanky" facade I have created. Actually, truth be told, I am a 47 year old Nigerian woman. Or am I?
In other words, the anonymity promoted by unverified user identities does not readily permit gender identification, even in the case of self-identification which may or may not be reliable.
Edited by Spanky on 11 April 2009 at 8:10pm
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tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6680 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian
| Message 16 of 202 11 April 2009 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
I'm female, but that's not very hard to figure out from my nick (whereas on IRC with my other nick, people always suppose that I am a man :) and I'm very serious about language learning. I am however not overly active on the forum, I mostly keep my logs and talk nonsense on #lal instead.
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