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Language and Culture | ||
Tags: Cultural Identity | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| DarrenDaka Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4771 days ago 28 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 24 09 June 2013 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey guys!
So I was wondering learning a language to a high proficiency is fine , but what of the culture. Many people don't have the money to go and live in their chosen country for a long time to get in tune with the natives. I like learning culture as I go along on my day to day language learning but , it is hard to get enough . It can be especially when watching native films that reference the history and culture of your given country, so you may understand the words but get lost in the references to culture. So how are you guys tackling this problem? All advice/ feedback welcome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4704 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 24 09 June 2013 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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They are one. They do not separate. Learning a language meaning putting that language
(and its culture) on a pedestal. They are right, unless they violate human rights or other basic principles of human decency. Your language is a pedestal. They are who you are associating with. Who you are blending with. Also, if you have an iPhone, then you have the money. In fact, if you have a smartphone, you have the money. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5259 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 24 09 June 2013 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Darren, you ask an interesting question that is relevant to a lot of learners. Some learners get so focused on the language itself, on studying, that they forget that the language is used by people to communicate with other people and that the culture comes along with the language and informs its use. You're right, a lot of folks just don't have enough money to go live in a TL country for a long period of time, as you would traditionally think. There are, indeed, ways around this. Don't look for reasons why you can't do something, look for reasons why you can.
First, you don't have to treat your time in a TL country like a traditional Brit holiday where you hop on a charter flight to somewhere in the Med and get an "all-inclusive" stay. Obviously, that would eat into your cash considerably over the long term, and you wouldn't have much interaction with the culture anyway. In order to learn the culture you have to consciously keep putting yourself in a position to where you interact with the culture in the target language. You have to think outside the box. In your case, as a British subject, you are also a citizen of the EU and can live and work legally in either Poland or Italy, if you so choose. There's almost always a demand for teachers of English. A short course in teaching English as a second language is available all over the UK. You won't make a lot of money but you can probably make enough to pay for your stay. Barring that option (maybe you have family or job commitments), even a short stay can be highly useful provided you don't go as a traditional tourist and focus on interacting with people. Couchsurfing.org is a great way to meet people and live as a local. I once met a local Mexican English teacher in a small town in Mexico, she asked me if I would be willing to come and speak to her high school class. I did and had a great time. I was invited to a local wedding celebration over the weekend, met loads of people, spoke for hours in Spanish and picked up some culture along the way. I wouldn't have had that experience in a traditional holiday situation. You don't even have to travel yourself. Join couchsurfing.org and host couchsurfers from your TL countries. Barring that, in the UK you are never too far from someone who speaks Polish or Italian. Volunteer for agencies that help new arrivals. Go to a church service in Polish or Italian. Do a language exchange with a person face to face. Search online for immigrant associations (not enough people search within the TL for what they want) and go to meet them. Find their pubs and hang out. Make friends with native speakers. Where there's a will, there's a way. Barring all that, even online is helpful. Skype exchanges help you learn a language and maybe even make a friend. Get a twitter account and follow people in the TL countries. You don;t have to tweet to follow. Join an online community of people in something that interests you. Follow blogs in the TL. When you read, try to steer yourself more towards contemporary native content. Try to avoid translations from English. I could have filled this post with links, but I don't have enough time today. Still, here's a couple of links from Benny that you might find useful. Remember, think outside the box. If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to make it happen. You have to make an effort. If you're not willing to do so, if you find reasons why you can't instead of reasons why you can, it won't happen. Do you need to be rich to travel the world? FI3M How to travel the world on the cheap FI3M Edited by iguanamon on 09 June 2013 at 5:05pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4775 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 4 of 24 10 June 2013 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The best way I've found to immerse myself in the TL culture is watching stand-up comedy. From watching comedians like Galkin, Schiffrin and the late Evdokimov, I have learned more about the culture of Russia than I could from the standard-order sightseeing tour of Moscow.
My definition of culture is not limited to ballet and borscht. I'm addicted to watching Russian and Armenian TV news. I'm often shocked at what I see, things seared in my mind forever--mental institutions, juvenile prisons, children's homes, etc.--but to me it is all under the big umbrella of culture. As for your desire to become bi- or tri-cultural, you are definitely in the minority in the English speaking world, because you have already inherited the dominant culture and there is no need to immerse yourself in another. If you live outside the English speaking world, unless you live in a Mongolian yurt somewhere, you are probably already bi-cultural to some extent. Eritrean refugees wear Michael Jordan T-shirts, women in the Ecuadoran Andes read Hollywood gossip magazines, but there is almost no reciprocal interest in their cultures here in the US, so my gravitating toward another culture is quite unusual. Edited by tanya b on 10 June 2013 at 2:38am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 24 10 June 2013 at 3:32am | IP Logged | ||
I've been doing basically what iguanamon has described: Use Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club when traveling, and seek enclaves of the relevant speech communities in my home town with Meetup.com or sometimes even language classes offered primarily for people of that ethnicity and wish to learn a language of their ancestors. At the same time, I've come to observe a slightly greater division between language and culture than sometimes espoused even though the concepts are indeed related. Coming across enough pluricentric languages will do that to you. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4251 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 6 of 24 10 June 2013 at 9:05am | IP Logged | ||
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If you really can't live in the culture, the UK is a good place to be for learning languages and culture. There
are many Italian and Polish people in the country, if you make friends with them. Also, I don't know what your commitments are at home, but a cheap way to live in a country would be volunteering. Try workaway, where you can find plenty of volunteer opportunities in different fields that would only require you to pay for a ticket there and out-of-home activities (i.e room and board is included). You'd live with a family, and certainly learn a lot about the culture in the process. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gomorritis Tetraglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 4275 days ago 91 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French Studies: Greek, German, Dutch | Message 7 of 24 10 June 2013 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Embracing the culture is an important part of my language learning: I have grown a beard to learn Greek.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 24 10 June 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I have travelled a lot, mostly on my own, and during these travels I have bought my food in the local stores, read the newspapers, walked in the streets, studied the museums and read books and homepages about the history and present situation of my destinations. But I have never lived abroad, and I haven't deliberately tried to establish friendships during those travels - my expectation is that I when I talk to somebody in a foreign country then I won't ever see that person again, and that can be both slightly sad and a relief, depending on the person - but that's how things are, and having unrealistical expectations would just lead to grief and sorrow.
You could say that this just scratches the surface, but I'm not really interested in the private life of people, and I have never felt an urge to move permanently to other places just because I study their language AND culture - I just want to explore the surface in greater detail and with better sources. For me the ideal situation would be to travel around for half the time and staying at home studying hard the rest of the time. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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