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Language Learning & Introversion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4307 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 33 of 61 11 May 2014 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Re "gaining energy" - who gains energy from anything except eating and sleeping? Hands up anyone who
doesn't feel tired after a long party. These feelings of wanting "me time" are universal. For me, the person ceases to be an introvert when she ceases to show typically introverted social hang- ups. This is the same reason that I would stop calling someone a drug addict if they gave up their drug for an extended length of time. One other striking fact is that those typically labelled "extrovert" and presumed to have special in- born "energy gaining" powers in social situations are ones that developed a social life at a younger age than self-regarding introverts. We may as well wonder why children who study languages from a young age gain their skills without painful effort as an adult. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 34 of 61 11 May 2014 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's not about feeling drained after a party, but about feeling drained as soon as it starts. It's about needing more "me-time" than other people.
That's really basic stuff. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 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 35 of 61 11 May 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was going to say that but Serpent beat me to
it. For your information, Retinend, there is such a thing as mental energy and focus, besides physical fatigue. Part of the lethargy of depression is not in physically being unable to move but in mentally not being capable. That is why it is called depression - you are so distraught nothing seems interesting any more. It's not that you couldn't move your body to get out of bed - it's that the sheer thought makes your stomach revolt. A large social event makes me very uncomfortable and I rather not go. I hate networking events for example. But in smaller groups and with sufficient me-time I function perfectly okay. I can handle them if I am forced to, but I will never enjoy it. Edited by tarvos on 11 May 2014 at 9:56pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4307 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 36 of 61 11 May 2014 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Apprehension, nervousness: also a universal human emotion. "Needing more me-time" is the negative of the statement that you don't desire much time in the company of others. Naturally it's a relief to shy away from tasks which are daunting. This is why people shy away from any big commitments of effort for skills that they currently lack. "Oh, I'm just not cut out for it." They'll sometimes say some things about psychology as if the guys in white coats have proved that our personalities and skills are of some narrow subset to the exclusion of others "I'm a visual learner" "I'm an introvert" "I'm left brain" "I'm thinking-intuiting." The Myers-Briggs test has been discredited and learning styles too. Tarvos: your talk about depresssion doesn't explain to me why you want to believe in vague new-age sounding "energies" which are depleted or restored based upon some immutable personality orientation. Are you implying that introversion is somewhat like the tendency towards depressive behaviour, now? Finally, it's clear that natural talent exists for all things including social aptitude. I never said a word to the contrary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 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 37 of 61 11 May 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Introverts could be defined as people who feel drained by the company of other persons, whereas extraverts feel invigorated by their presence. It is not quite that simple since the type and content of the conversations are important too, but the energy flow seems to run mostly from the introverts to the extraverts, and that could explain why the introverts rather than the extroverts are pushed into a defence position.
However there must be some cultural differences too. I don't have problems speaking to my collegues and to people I meet as long as we have relevant things to talk about. But they also know that they are more likely find the Dalai Lama than me at their Friday bar, and they know that I may accept that I have a minority opinion about something, but unless I see some extremely good arguments they can't change my opinions just by being in the majority. And maybe because that is so evident and I never have tried to hide it we get along splendidly. If they speak about football then I speak about Serbian grammar or travels. I have not had those experiences with nagging people who try to make me more sociable or more mainstram. They have accepted that they can't change me, and I don't try to change them Which reminds me of some experiences I have had during travels. For instance I passed Connaught Place in Delhi twice during a trip to India. That square ( or rather circle) is full of beggars, and when I passed it with my mother they were almost crawling along the ground to look as miserable as possible and attract alms. When I passed alone a day or so later day saw me, but hardly reacted. Maybe the point is NOT to look like you really wanted to be a nice and humanitarian individual who could be pressured into giving money to the poor. And maybe those introverts who also are shy and feel insecure are attracting meddling extraverts who see chance to manipulate them into something the themselves find more natural. But the point is that introverts don't necessarily see themselves as unhappy people looking for a saviour, and then they should make that clear to potential knights on white horses. It is quite possible that extravert behaviour is a plus for your language learning if you hit upon native speakers of your target languages. but when I see people - and not only youngsters - with their nose buried in the mobile phones I doubt that they are speaking to people who could teach them foreign languages or other relevant things. My guess is that they are doing smalltalk or small SMS-ing to their friends or family, and that's a part of human interaction I would like to minimize. But let's discuss travels or paleontology or astronomy or history or music, then I can definitely pretend to be a social being. Edited by Iversen on 11 May 2014 at 11:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 38 of 61 12 May 2014 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Also, this thread is supposed to be a space mostly for (self-identified) introverts. If you don't ruin threads about Harry Potter or football by saying these things are useless, pointless and a waste of time, why come to a thread for introverts to say how great it is to be an extravert? Or the best example of all, you don't go to a thread related to the Bible to say it's all lies. Edited by Serpent on 12 May 2014 at 1:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4325 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 39 of 61 12 May 2014 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||
Retinend, the fact that the Myers-Briggs test has been discredited doesn't necessarily mean that the concepts of introversion and extraversion are wrong. The Wikipedia article about this topic, for example, says that "Virtually all comprehensive models of personality include these concepts in various forms". Regarding the differences between shyness and introversion, I recommend this interview to the psychologist Louis A. Schmidt. He says that, in the scientific community, they know that "conceptually or empirically, they're unrelated" and he even talks about people that are shy and extrovert, and introvert people who are not shy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4233 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 40 of 61 12 May 2014 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I am both shy and introvert and this affects me much. First of all it is visible in my reasons for study: I
picked up German and Swedish because I want to read and understand them in first place. I was sure that I'll end up studying German in complete silence, but only after some time spent on learning I realised that it would be nice if I'll be able to speak too. I am studying English since I was 9 years old and I had absolutely no intentions of speaking it until a few years ago. I wasn't able to formulate my thoughts for years cause I had no reason to do it. I barely spoke Russian, let alone English! I guess that is the reason of my weak motivation when it comes to studying. Whenever I bump into hard things I can always say "Nah, I give up, I don't need it anyway" and dump my studies. P.S. I have problems with audio stuff though I don't think it has to do with me being shy and introvert. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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