Are women better at learning languages? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Are women better at learning languages?
Tags: Talent \| Gender \| Foreign Languages
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

76 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 3 ... 9 10 Next >>

tarvos
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Message 17 of 76

08 October 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged

beano wrote:

If I may be permitted to paint a stereotype, scientists and computer
programmers are not always the best
communicators, at least in oral form.

Oral communication is a skill. It can be taught.
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I'm With Stupid
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Message 18 of 76

08 October 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged

cathrynm wrote:

For me, it's not women or men, but it's the Chinese and Korean speakers. They come in class, and they just blow all the English natives away at Japanese -- progressing from nothing to massively fluent and literate (though often heavily accented) within a few years. So, what can you do? Some people are going to be better at this. Life isn't fair -- deal with it.

Yeah, but if it was French or German class, chances are you'd see the opposite.
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schoenewaelder
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Message 19 of 76

08 October 2013 at 12:52pm | IP Logged

Yes. But try challenging them to a game of table tennis or arm wrestling in the break,
then you will be able to use your iherant strengths to your advantage.

I think I detect a bit of political correctness in some earlier comments. We are all the
same, it's just that women are more interested in social interaction, they learn in
different ways, they work harder or whatever. To me that simply translates as, "better".
That's in the classromm situation of course. It's possible that all the talented boys are
at home tapping away on their computers
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Serpent
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Message 20 of 76

08 October 2013 at 1:05pm | IP Logged

Gemuse wrote:

Two of the women dont really have any professions.

I'd hate to contribute to a stereotype, but are they maybe married to native speakers? If so, this would explain a lot. (otherwise what are they doing in Germany? or is it a short-term class for people who don't live there?)
Also, are they native English speakers or not? Any idea if they are in a native/fluent language bubble or not?

Besides, intelligence comes in many forms. Maybe the women read a lot (even in their L1) or have a background in music/arts or there's something else about them that you don't know. All of these things can be beneficial. You just seem to think that they're less intelligent than you or other men in the group.

That said, I tend to assume HTLAL members are female if the gender is not clear from the username or posts. Outside of this forum I know very few male language learners.
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schoenewaelder
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Message 21 of 76

08 October 2013 at 1:08pm | IP Logged

I don't really know much about stats, but I believe when you compare two normal
distributions, even though the arithmetic means are only very slightly different, it tends
to make a big difference at the tails. So even though women occupy all the top spots, the
male/female class averages may actually be quite similar.

(Might be completely wrong on that though)
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Serpent
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Message 22 of 76

08 October 2013 at 1:20pm | IP Logged

schoenewaelder wrote:

I think I detect a bit of political correctness in some earlier comments. We are all the same, it's just that women are more interested in social interaction, they learn in different ways, they work harder or whatever. To me that simply translates as, "better". That's in the classromm situation of course. It's possible that all the talented boys are at home tapping away on their computers

Not that political correctness is bad, but this is just about being open-minded, imo. We all know plenty of successful learners that are very different from one another. (and unsuccessful, too! we see that all sorts of people can succeed and all sorts of people can fail)

Also, it's easy to just consider someone better, talented etc. Usually you have no reason to assume that you really work as hard as they do.
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James29
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Message 23 of 76

08 October 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged

Women are better at everything.
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Bao
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Message 24 of 76

08 October 2013 at 2:41pm | IP Logged

James29 wrote:

Women are better at everything.

I'm the first one to admit: I rather suck a peeing my name in the snow.

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