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Gender and language obsession | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | Gender | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JackFrost Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 6819 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Swedish, Icelandic | Message 49 of 62 06 April 2006 at 1:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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I also see a strong tendency for gay men to learn languages than straight ones. In another language forum I'm a member of, about 25-30% of the members (mostly men) are gay or bisexuals. and it's a proven fact. O,O
As for this forum, I do not know...I haven't been here long enough. If it turns out to be true, then that confirms my theory. :p 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| n0thingness Triglot Newbie Paraguay Joined 6856 days ago 29 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese, Finnish | Message 50 of 62 06 April 2006 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard that in gay men's brain the area of language is more developed.. and that occurs also with left-handed and people with bipolar syndrome.
PD: what's that forum bytheway? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6670 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 51 of 62 05 September 2006 at 8:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's not just a language thing; many forums about other subjects draw more men than women.
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| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 52 of 62 05 September 2006 at 9:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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An interesting question. I do believe it has a lot to do with forum use in general, as men seem more likely to be members of internet forums than women. Perhaps a more effective guaging method would be to find 100 randomly selected men and 100 r.s.women who had learned or were learning a foreign language on their own (ie, out of school), and ask them which methods they used most frequently.
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| cbashara Senior Member United States adventuresinspanish. Joined 7140 days ago 186 posts - 188 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 53 of 62 05 September 2006 at 9:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just found this discussion, how interesting...I'll go ahead and offer my anecdotal experience and opinions...
1.) My husband wrote his master's thesis on the French Revolution and learned French well enough to read documents. Beyond that he had no interest in pursuing the language and has forgotten almost all of it. He prefers to do physical activities in his spare time. He is also third generation Lebanese, but has expressed no interest in learning Arabic. No one in his family knows it anymore. Perhaps all this indicates that if men feel there is no utility in learning a language there is little motivation? 2.) When I studied in Spain the overwhelming majority of the students were women. They took the experience more seriously than the men, BUT the men were the most successful actually conversing with locals. They seemed to lack the inhibitions that women have when it comes to actually speaking the language. I am terribly self conscious of my Spanish and I think this presents the biggest obstacle to my success. 3.) Most of the female language learners I know (beyond this board) have chosen to attend group classes. Most women I know don't believe they would have the discipline to learn independently. So, for some reason men have more confidence in their self-discipline. I'm not really sure why this is. For my part, I don't think a group class would really motivate me right now, unless it was a literature class taught entirely in my target language. 4.) As for the forum usage. Maybe this could also point to the lack of confidence that many women seem to have. For example, I don't think I would regularly participate in a forum like this that was entirely in Spanish. I would be much too self conscious of my Spanish, especially with the administrator's rules about proper spelling and grammar. (Note: I'm not criticizing the rules...I entirely understand and support them.) Those are my experiences for what they are worth. Chandra 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andy_Liu Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong leibby.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6797 days ago 255 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 54 of 62 08 September 2006 at 7:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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Let me tell you the situation in Hong Kong. In my secondary school life, the ones who got better grades in language subjects were girls. And, in an Arts class, there are more girls than boys. In fact, here in Hong Kong, families of boys tend to make them study Science subjects instead of Humanities subjects, including languages.
Better grades: I was also very lazy in studying English in early secondary school years. But later on, I was upset with poor results in English. (But actually the grade was on average) So I strove hard to get a better grade, thereby becoming more interested in language learning. That time, in my class, I was lucky to be praised by many classmates to be "the master of English", although my listening isn't very good and I sometimes can't pronounce few sounds correctly. A few months before the A-levels, my university choices changed drastically. Instead of Business subjects which were so boring and difficult (too many students are studying Business now, no good job prospect), I didn't follow the trend and chose a bunch of English/language-related subjects. Now, I'm taking German as part of my major. I also study Japanese in leisure time. And now, in my major class, some 30 students study German or French as part of major, in roughly equal numbers. Only five, including me, are boys. This is the same for students of English, Chinese, Japanese, Translation and Education. More "technical" subjects like Physics and Engineering tend to have very few females. However, the more-boys-at-Science-subjects trend is declining now. In public examinations, the sex ratio of the top students is quite balanced. More boys are studying History now(considered a boring subject by many). But I have to admit that social factors still affect study plans of youngsters. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6689 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 55 of 62 10 September 2006 at 9:37am | IP Logged | |||||
I could have said that exact same thing myself. And I am female. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7026 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 56 of 62 10 September 2006 at 11:59am | IP Logged | |||||
It's the same in my school, although we say that the better grades are due to the tireless efforts of the teachers rather than the gender of the pupils!
I found that this was also the case in my university. In my particular engineering class of eighty-two students, there were only four girls. Edited by patuco on 10 September 2006 at 12:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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