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Gender and language obsession | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | Gender | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 9 of 62 27 March 2005 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||
Children are supposed to be the best at distinguishing the sounds in non-native languages, followed by women, and then, at a much lower position on the scale, men. However, it's not always the case that women develop more authenicate sounding accents than men. As I mentioned in another thread, I think everyone has the potential to mimic native-like pronunciation, but there are certain psychological factors that get in the way.
You can get a native-like accent in Mandarin on your own with cassettes/CDs. If you try to make your voice sound as "un-English" as possible, chances are it will be very close to the native pronuncation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7329 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 62 27 March 2005 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel that a lot of my female classmates try to talk very softly to avoid criticism to their accent. They seem to feel that if they talk softer, nobody will hear them, and nobody will worry about their accent. It sometimes has the opposite effect because the teacher asks them to speak louder and louder.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7267 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 11 of 62 27 March 2005 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Please let us not stray far from my original point: given that a majority of students in any language class are likely to be female, and that the average female student of language is likely to be better than the average male student, why are there so few female polyglots?
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| Ende Newbie United States Joined 7211 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 62 27 March 2005 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps the lack of female polygots is similar to the women's lagging career advancement: so many have children and no longer make the time for intensive language study. Of course, this is just theory.
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| zack Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 7220 days ago 122 posts - 127 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 62 28 March 2005 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a woman and occasional go through phases of foreign language `obsession' wanting to learn lots of languages for which I don't really have any immediate use either professionally or for travel. Maybe somewhat perversely, I really enjoy exploring the grammer of a language and like the feeling of getting to `know my way around' a language.
What exactly do you mean by `polyglot'? I have met lots of women fluent or near fluent in several foreign languages (say 2-4), though most of them (not all) had learned the languages because they had to for some reason or other (this includes professional linguists and women who'd moved around a lot for professional reasons). But then again, I have't met (in person) any men who (were not professional linguists yet) were learning languages just for the fun of it. I think it would make sense to distinguish between someone who is a polyglot in the weak sense that s/he knows many languages (for whatever reason) and someone who is a `language enthusiast' actually interested in languages for their own sake. Well, I suppose you could draw many more distinctions as there are many reasons why people may become interested in learning one or several foreign languages. Anyway, someone conjectured in an earlier post that women's pronounciation of foreign languages ususally isn't as good as men's. In my experience this is not the case. The `polyglot' women I have met had, on average, neither better nor worse pronounciation than the multi-lingual men. I personally ususally pay a lot of attention to getting the pronunciation right and don't have much trouble with that (which is not to say that it's perfect!). And I know other women who are very concerned about proper pronounciation (for instance, my Chinese conversation exchange partners). This is certainly not to say that there *are* as many female polyglots as there are male ones. It's just that outside this forum I haven't seen any evidence for that. [Edit: After seeing the new `Polyglot-Forum' I realize that none of the people I know qualify.] Edited by zack on 29 March 2005 at 5:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7387 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 62 28 March 2005 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although perhaps not the most feminine female polyglot ever, I think Madeleine Albright does qualify:
she is fully bilingual in Czech and English, learned French by spending a year in Chexbres, Switzerland, studied Russian like crazy, learned Polish to interview Polish journalist at the time of Jaruselski and she even seems to speak some Serbo-Croatian, picked up when she was living with her father at the Czech embassy in Belgrade. Edited by administrator on 28 March 2005 at 11:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7218 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 15 of 62 01 April 2005 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||
For a Slavic person it musn't be very difficult to know Czech, Russian, Polish, and Serbocroatian. I have a Polish friend who can talk to Russians, Yugoslavs, and Slovaks with no trouble at all. And he also speaks Spanish, English, and German. By the way, the Pope also speaks a bunch of languages and he's also a Pole. I think what is more remarkable about Ms Albright is the fact that she learned English and French. Edited by administrator on 01 April 2005 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7387 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 62 01 April 2005 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is quite hard to speak several languages in one group correctly. After all, there are many English speakers on this forum and few who speak many Germanic languages or even all the main Romance languages. I stick by my guns and still consider that Mrs Albright's linguistic achievement is worth of consideration.
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