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Criticism for Mid-Eastern Languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4857 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 9 of 43 23 November 2011 at 10:31pm | IP Logged |
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Stupid people. Sorry, but I have no different words that could describe my feelings about that.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ljones29 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4795 days ago 35 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Arabic (Written), Greek | Message 10 of 43 23 November 2011 at 10:33pm | IP Logged |
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Hi again! Good to see you've chosen a language, and you've made an excellent choice.
As to your question, I must be honest here - I haven't actually received that many negative comments about learning Arabic. My Tunisian boyfriend was just impressed and thought it was nice that I was learning his language. My family and friends generally know that I'm somewhat eccentric so they never really thought twice about the whole Arabic thing. Sometimes strangers seem to think it's a little bit strange or unusual, but they don't really say anything negative either. One of my more conservative, religious friends did tell me once that she didn't really care for Arabic and that she'd rather learn Hebrew. But to each his own, right? :) I think the thing that struck me the most wasn't so much how Americans reacted, but how Arabs living in my city or ones I talked to online reacted. When I speak French to native French speakers, they are usually kind of disinterested and unimpressed. Not in a bad way, of course. Maybe they've just heard it before and it's not really anything new to them. But when I speak Arabic to Arabs, they get instantly excited! They praise me and offer to help me and tell me I'm doing a wonderful job even though my Arabic is very much beginner. And like someone else mentioned, they always seem to ask if I am Muslim. I don't know why that is. But yeah, generally, nothing bad has come of it and I've gotten mostly positive responses. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AccentClipper Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4753 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Portuguese Studies: Persian | Message 11 of 43 24 November 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
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Interesting comments. I'm glad that most native speakers are thrilled when one tries to learn one of these languages. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5066 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 12 of 43 24 November 2011 at 10:26pm | IP Logged |
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I've never really received much criticism for learning Arabic. However, I suddenly started learning it on my own when
I was 15 (it was actually the beginning of my love of languages!) and some people were a little suspicious, but the most noticeable thing was that people suddenly knew who I was and wanted me to speak Arabic with them. So, Arabic is actually the language that has given me most praise. Nevertheless, as previous posters have pointed out, I've often been mistaken for being both an Arab or a Muslim, even though I'm neither. Esperanto on the other hand seems to give people the impression that you're a revolutionary or just plain eccentric. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AccentClipper Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4753 days ago 13 posts - 15 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Portuguese Studies: Persian | Message 13 of 43 27 November 2011 at 3:06am | IP Logged |
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I'm curious: how do natives react to Hebrew and the languages other than the ones that've been mentioned?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Anno Triglot Newbie Israel acquiringkorean.word Joined 5627 days ago 29 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 14 of 43 27 November 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged |
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I'm studying Hebrew, and so far natives have been really positive about me learning the language. They do ask
questions though -- why are you studying it? Non-natives ask even more -- why are you studying Hebrew which is only spoken by six million speakers and not Arabic which is spoken in so many countries? I like Hebrew though, so I don't really care how many people speak it. . . 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5172 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 15 of 43 27 November 2011 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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There's a lot of encouragement for Diaspora Jews to learn Hebrew. In fact, I was asked
why I waited so long to get to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TalkativeHoopoe Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 4745 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: Spanish, Persian, Pashto*, English | Message 16 of 43 27 November 2011 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
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This makes me want to study Arabic even more!
As for Persian and Pashto: I'm a native speaker, and I personally always find it interesting when a non-native decides to learn it. My mom's side of the family (where that part of my heritage comes from), always gets overjoyed when they learn about a foreigner learning their language, especially if they're native to a Western country. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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