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Not wired for languages? | ||
Tags: Talent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 25 of 57 14 December 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I still think the main elements in"talent" are motivation and a feeling of mastering the subject. That is what
gives you the extra urge to work on. Many years ago I started growing roses, which I at that point knew nothing about. The year I started growing roses the winter in Norway was so horrific that 75% of the roses in my part of the country died. However only 50% of my roses died. Since I figured that this must mean that I was good at it, I built a large collection, and I now give lectures about roses, have a show garden and have won several competitions with my roses. Only several years later did I discover that it was just dumb luck. Newly planted roses are more resistant than older. But since I thought I was good at it, I became good at it. Perhaps all we should do is give people enough self confidence, and they'll learn just about anything? 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4444 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 26 of 57 14 December 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally don't like to stereotype any race or nationality. A large part of learning
depends on your cultural background and your circumstance. Would make good scientific studies. Scientists say music stimulates the brain and improves memory. All of us listen to music on radio but how many of us can play a tune on a piano? Canada is a bilingual country with English & French as official languages. But there are enclaves of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Punjabi people who live in the country for many years but cannot speak 1 of the official languages. People living within their own communities where only their mother-tongue is spoken. A few years ago came across Punjabi who lived in Hong Kong for a few years and can speak fluent Cantonese. And people from the Caribbean who speak fluent English & Spanish. Being in a tourist area with people coming from Mexico & the US, you can't afford to miss business opportunities. And I've seen the video of 1 Black singer in China who speaks fluent Chinese. On the other hand, you have Cantonese-speaking Chinese people in Hong Kong who watch many films from China but not picking up many words in Mandarin. Once upon a time places like China & Japan were closed to the outside. People were not keen on learning other languages not because they lacked talent but because the locals thought someone speaking other languages too well did not fit the community. Edited by shk00design on 14 December 2012 at 8:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6493 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 27 of 57 16 December 2012 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
In Russia it's very widespread. Among the educated people who struggle just with English, I'm a lucky bastard (well, actually my example does motivate the brightest girls I make friends with. Not guys.) I'm an alien visitor in the eyes of those not from my university. People can't find much use for languages, so those who do find a passion or an interesting topic, can progress. Those who don't eventually decide it's just a gift of the chosen ones. Sure, that's an easy way to think. I try my best to talk them into searching what is interesting to them rather than grind flashcards. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6493 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 28 of 57 16 December 2012 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have to add a paragon. Many young people hate cross country skiing here because it's a part of high school sports curriculum. I hated it too until I tried mountain skiing and only later the XC. You're demanded a result (walk this many kilometers), to bore you, and you're left all by yourself, to annoy and make you desperate.
Outside of school classes, there's little use for skiing in a city. So only few people get a chance to just try it for fun. Languages have the same issue: being compulsory yet having few areas to apply them or try out. That's what is different in European countries. Edited by Siberiano on 16 December 2012 at 9:00pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hungh3 Newbie Vietnam https://tienganhmoin Joined 5799 days ago 10 posts - 15 votes Speaks: EnglishC2 | Message 29 of 57 17 December 2012 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I think this is psychologically logical as I agree with Solfrid and others that
motivation is an important factor. In the mind: Why bother learning language X When I don't see any need for it in my lifetime? --> Replying to a question: I'm incapable of learning language X 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 30 of 57 17 December 2012 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I think talent does have something to do with it - but talent is a small part of the
picture - a far greater problem is false expectations: the whole language learning industry since Hugo, Linguaphone and Assimil in the 1940s has been based on a 3 month or 6 month plan. More modern material promises more in even less time. That leads to the impression that such a period of time is how long it takes to be fluent, and when that doesn't work out, the person puts it down to the fact that they are not any good at languages. We can see this in numerous genre of post here - e.g. 'British school language learning is useless' - lets look at the facts: students from the age of 11-14 have between 1 hour 30 mins and 2 hours per week in term time learning French, in classes of 20-40 students, often using fill in the gaps and listening to audio-lingual tapes made at least 10 years back (at least that was my experience). In that scenario, there is no way the majority of 11-14 year olds, let alone adults, are going to learn enough to have a conversation with a 4 year old, let alone 'speak' French beyond 'Je voudrais.....' Then there is the 'can I self teach to B1 in 6 months' questions that crop up here on a daily basis. The answer is yes, people have done it - and that is the normal answer - but I think in our desire to give encouragement, we often fail to warn what an up- hill struggle it is. In reality (at least in my reality) B1 in a year takes a good deal (2 hours per day at least) of daily discipline and foreknowledge. It takes a huge amount of dedication, tedious repetition, SRS'ing words, listening, talking to one self, etc. If a person is not used to studying, that can be the mental equivalent of running a marathon through treacle. For a busy person, with perhaps 30-45 minutes a day (and not always every day), it is more realistic that B1 is a journey of a couple of years (and the journey is more important than the goal, especially as most people are pretty functional with an A2 level for trips abroad), but the whole industry, including us here sometimes, often fail to communicate that fact. That is maybe because we don't want to discourage a person, but it can make people rely on the 'no talent' excuse as a means of comprehending why they didn't hit the target. I personally don't think I have a natural talent in languages - if I have even a week off studying my paltry French and German I loose probably a couple of months of work, and my Latin is a joke given the number of years I have dabbled in it. My wife on the other hand (who speaks 8 languages, 3 of which she got free as a child) can pick things up in a matter of hours - which is pretty intimidating to me. But I know that if I needed (really 'needed') to learn a language, I could sit down and get it to A2 level relatively quickly - more from the fact that I have done it before, and I know the level of effort it takes. Edited by Elexi on 17 December 2012 at 11:31am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 31 of 57 17 December 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is no real culture in the UK of learning foreign languages and consequently many people have no idea of the time required to reach a good level. I presume a similar situation exists in other English-speaking countries.
There are loads of evening language classes on offer in Britain but I think part of the problem is that people sign up for, say, 12 lessons, thinking that they will glean enough Spanish, French or whatever to converse with locals on their holiday. Of course, when they get there they are totally lost, revert to English and have a ready-made excuse that they tried a language but were no good at it. I've spoken to a tutor who worked at a language school in London which catered mainly for business clients. He gave me examples of companies sending learners on intensive courses with the expectation that they could negotiate business deals in the target language after a ludicrously short study time. I often compare learning a language to learning to play guitar. You watch someone else play who is pretty decent and it looks so effortless, you think to yourself, yeah I could do that. Of course the reality is that it requires months of slogging away just to learn the basics, doing the same finger exercises over and over again until you start to develop a baisc technique. Boring repetition. Meanwhile, many people invent excuses to give up....I'm not musically talented, my hands are too small etc. People with experience on other instruments will learn faster because of their existing musical knowledge or finger dexterity. Edited by beano on 17 December 2012 at 1:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6493 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 32 of 57 17 December 2012 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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^^ @beano: besides, now there's a plenty of pseudo-learning material in the wild, like LinguaLeo in Russia, which makes you do a number of exercises and quickly takes you to complex stuff, making think you've mastered the basics. I know a bunch of people who try these courses all the time, yet are intimidated by a question in English, or Spanish and struggle, making me feel guilty that I started this in the first place.
I wanted to post on this in an IT community blog, but am afraid my karma will drop to the autoban level. :) There, being not upbeat is a bummer. Essentially, these courses are the same old "Learn Spanish in 30 days" brochures, with new vanilla cream on top. Edited by Siberiano on 17 December 2012 at 2:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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