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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kronos77 Groupie United States Joined 6750 days ago 78 posts - 81 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 9 of 41 24 September 2006 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In my opinion, his criticism is justified. Learning many languages takes up
a lot of time, which could be used to educate yourself or in other sensible ways. I partially agree. Spending too much time learning languages and reading silly dialogues about finding the airport bathroom can be mind numbing. I make certain never to spend more than half my free time studying languages and the rest working through my reading list of books in English. The part about the mind having limited capacity to store information is not true. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7157 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto | Message 10 of 41 24 September 2006 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was immediately reminded of a passage from A Study In Scarlet where Dr Watson meets Sherlock Holmes. As Watson gets to know Holmes (he doesn't know his profession) he is puzzled both by Holmes' depth of knowledge in some areas and complete ignorance in others.
"My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it." "To forget it!" "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." End of quote. Holmes, and probably Doyle, believed there is just so much room in the human mind. We have to be careful what we store in it as it will take up space from more important information. It must have been a commonly held view back then. Edited by fanatic on 24 September 2006 at 8:33pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6879 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 11 of 41 24 September 2006 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
I need to start doing this more often. Much of my reading for fun has been suspended because of the time I've chosen to learn languages instead. So it makes reading for fun become a treat I usually don't have. I miss it. So therefore maybe I should think about shifting my learning methods. In another thread it was discussed how giving yourself time off from study is healthy in the way of language learning. I think the mind is a bit like a muscle. I don't know if there is a limit or not, but I think somehow that there is no limit that we'll ever have to worry about. Exercising it, even if that means looking up bits of "useless trivia" which could be quite fun (like how the Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as the national bird) I think can be a healthy exercise, provided it's not the only exercise (the same goes with language study, meditation, and so forth, I think). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 12 of 41 25 September 2006 at 12:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes! Balance is everything. I need to try this more often as well. There are other things I like doing besides studying languages, but lately, everything besides listening to music and playing my guitar (and randomly surfing the internet) has taken a back-step to listening to online radio, working through audio programs, and otherwise trying to learn Ls as quickly as possible. Perhaps it would be wise to impose a 'speed limit' on the number of hours one spends per day on anything language-related, so as to keep it from becoming one's sole hobby. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6779 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 13 of 41 25 September 2006 at 3:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I disagree with Holmes's brain-as-an-attic theory (although outlining it in that instance was essential in helping the reader understand Holmes's character).
I think the brain is a self-organizing storage unit which improves and adapts with use; the more you learn and memorize, the more you are capable of learning and memorizing. The more you play logic and reasoning games, the better you become at thinking in general. I probably have a dozen hobbies besides languages, but I'm not worried that my studies will crowd other useful skills or knowledge out of my head. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 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 14 of 41 25 September 2006 at 4:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is difficult to disagree with the preceding posts.
The "brain-as-an-attic theory" is of course sheer nonsense, - it has been amply demonstrated in scientific research that 'exercising' your brain with lots of facts opens it up for learning even more facts. The fact that some cultures in spite of being effectively monolingual have produced literary masterworks do not prove that you have to be monolingual and xenophobic to produce great works (not even in literature, and even less in other art forms). Very few authors have been able to produce real masterpieces in anything but their native language, but there is not a shred of evidence for the supposition that knowledge of other languages have been a hindrance for any author. The only issue where you could defend the claim that learning languages is a waste of time is the question of time spent on learning simple dumb phrases in textbooks versus time spent on learning vital knowledge. But 1) linguistics and languages is in itself an area of vital knowledge (and one where monolinguists are by definition less capable and less thrustworthy), 2) the intellectual content in soap operas and magazines about silly filmstars is fairly limited, and that would be the alternative for many people if they stopped learning languages, 3) as soon as you are beyond the beginner level you can start reading valuable material, both fictional and nonfictional. Reading an original literary work will almost always be a more satisfying experience than reading a translation. Of course an English-speaking monoglot will have more material in his/her native language in any given area of human knowledge and may survive happily on that, but every language learnt opens up a new world. Saying that one language is enough (even English) is as dumb as saying that reading one book is enough, or that your home village is all you need to see in this world. In a forum for aspiring polyglots a theory that promotes monolinguism is not likely to get much support. Which in this case is justified. Edited by Iversen on 25 September 2006 at 4:13am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6788 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 41 25 September 2006 at 7:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, a commonly held view for small-minded people! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6776 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 16 of 41 25 September 2006 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||
I do not agree. There comes a point where you should stop reading "silly dialogues" and start thinking about yourself more as a user of the language than merely a learner. If you think about yourself as an eternal beginner, you can and will get bored. For me, there's nothing more rewarding than reading books in the languages that I have learned; it's like language learning business and pleasure combined. As you become more and more competent in a language, worrying about your mind getting numb becomes unnecessary because you gain access to much more varied, interesting, and authentic materials in your language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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