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Gender and language obsession | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | Gender | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7267 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 1 of 62 21 January 2005 at 2:13am | IP Logged |
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Both common knowledge and linguistic research confirm my personal observations as a language teacher that, as a general whole, women are better students of languages than men. However, almost all those who become obsessed with learning languages are men. Why is this? Am I wrong? Are there any lady members of this forum?
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| manna Groupie Kyrgyzstan Joined 7269 days ago 94 posts - 112 votes | Message 2 of 62 22 January 2005 at 4:35am | IP Logged |
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This is an intersting observation. Maybe it's got something to do with status and well, yes, obsession, probably. Maybe this is not really the case, I mean maybe it's just the men who talk about it more? Also, bear in mind that women and men use the internet in different ways... so probably you've got a biased sample here...
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7326 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 3 of 62 22 January 2005 at 2:55pm | IP Logged |
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I've noticed that women are better at learning languages than men on average. However, I've also noticed that when a man really wants to learn a language he can do so quickly and effectively regardless of his gender disadvantage. This is like the example given in another post about the brazilian man who learned Italian in two weeks. I've also noticed that more women are interested in language learning than men, but that men tend to be more ambitious and want to speak dozens of languages, while women are more grounded in their pursuits. This is just a personal observations though.
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| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7249 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 4 of 62 26 March 2005 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
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This is what I tend to see:
Wemon tend to get the verbal/listening skills first, while the men tend to be able to read first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7267 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 5 of 62 26 March 2005 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
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Are there any female members of this forum? Does anybody personally know any women who are obsessed with learning languages?
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| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7202 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 62 27 March 2005 at 7:16am | IP Logged |
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Are there any female members of this forum? Does anybody personally know any women who are obsessed with learning languages?
To be honest, the only language-obsessed people I know are right here on this board. But yes, we all seem to be men. The only quibble I would have with the above observation is that while women are better learners of language, they often have a harder time getting the accent of the language they are learning. A friend of mine opined that this was because the women felt self-conscious and it their poor accents are social and not a reflection of natural ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ende Newbie United States Joined 7211 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 62 27 March 2005 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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Well, I am female, and I didn't realize how much I was in a minority here. Anyway, could personality type have more to do with language obsession than gender? I can only speak for myself, of course, but I am very introverted and am much more interested in learning to read foreign languages than speak them; as KingM suggests, I do feel very self-conscious about my accent, which leads me to not speak as much as I should, so my accent doesn't improve at all.
But given my personality type, I don't really think I'm a good representative of female learners, so I don't think this helps at all, and I don't know any other language obsessed women to compare myself to. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7249 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 8 of 62 27 March 2005 at 1:24pm | IP Logged |
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That's what happens when you categorize... You immediately find exceptions. You seem to be pretty much like me Ende.
In General men are left brained (analytical), women right brained(Creative, open-ended), so women are ok if they don't say/understand something exactly. They can sort of fill-in-the-blanks. Whereas men, unless they understand every single word or know the exact grammar, the brain gives up. However, since they have all the time in the world to read every single word they see, they have an easier time reading at a higher level. Given ample time to form their sentences they can speak (near) perfectly. my 2 cents 1 person has voted this message useful |
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