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Should you learn slang? | ||
Tags: Slang | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 51 21 November 2012 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do you know what's wonderful? Hearing one of my Polish coworkers say 'Ja nee, ne'.
It tells me 'I've been here for a long time and even though I speak with an accent, I'm not a foreigner. I have all the cultural competence that you would expect of a native speaker in this situation, so can we get to the point, and not worry about negotiating discourse structure?' So, yes. Of course you should learn slang. But also when to use it and when not to use it. And only use it when you are pretty sure it's appropriate, and communicates what you want it to. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 18 of 51 21 November 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||
I generally agree with Bao, although I'd add that some people are too concerned about using inappropriate slang. You should be aware what is slang and what isn't, to avoid using inappropriate expressions in official/fairly formal situations. But where slang is appropriate, most of the slang is appropriate. At least most young people won't mind...Chances are they'll even consider you cool for learning not only from textbooks, even if some things you learn don't sound appropriate. The only time I was disgusted with a foreigner swearing in Russian was when an American member registered here with an offensive username. I wouldn't mind if he just used the word but he made it part of his identity, although it wouldn't be allowed on a Russian forum. It felt as if he was using a loophole because obviously the mods here can't speak all languages! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4666 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 19 of 51 22 November 2012 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Knowing slang may convey authenticity. In Latvia during Soviet times, everyone was fluent in Russian, but it was sometimes said that male Latvians had a better command of idiomatic Russian than females because they had served in the Soviet army. Basically they learned to swear there. This was a joke but it may contain a grain of truth.
Now there are Latvian units in Afghanistan – I won’t speculate on the possible linguistic impact of this however. Klimovics Afganistana 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4444 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 20 of 51 22 November 2012 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Hong Kong where many of my relatives came from there is a lot of slang words being used on TV. Not the
Bruce Lee movies but the ones for local audiences. Police stories and Asian crime in Cantonese has always been popular in HK in the movies and on TV. Many of these words are never used in everyday speech, especially in workplaces. But on TV many slang phrases are included in the dialogue for the sake of entertainment. Some of the movies from HK have English subtitles. You hardly ever pick up a phrase that is translated as a slang as compared to someone who can listen to the original Cantonese. There is someone on YouTube: Carlos Douh who lived in Hong Kong and teaches Cantonese by making videos of mainly slang words. His slogan "Hear It, Speak It, Memorize It". Most of these are not used daily but on TV people find these funny. Personally I wouldn't use some the the phrases on his videos such as "Chok 樣 (Yeung)" or "Gung Jyuh Behng 公主病". I tend to pick up a lot of Chinese 4-character phrases 成語 (chengyu) from watching TV series & movies from China, Taiwan, Singapore. These are considered proper Chinese once used by the educated to show off they are above the peasants and labourers. 俗語 (suyu) in Chinese refer to colloquial speech. But when you're using 粗口 (cukou) you are swearing with all the bad words... Edited by shk00design on 22 November 2012 at 5:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 21 of 51 22 November 2012 at 7:10am | IP Logged | ||
This makes me think that many movies and television programs, especially the police and crime shows may sound realistic but do not reflect how the language is really used. But it makes for good entertainment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5051 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 22 of 51 22 November 2012 at 7:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I was once speaking to a Québécois on facebook. As the conversation turned to heritage, he told me that he could trace his family back to the 18th century. I replied, very matter-of-factly, something like, "oh, I guess that makes you pure laine," which I thought was the French version of old-stock Americans who came abroad the Mayflower. His reaction was quite negative; he said the term was derogatory and offensive to the people of Québec. I had no idea that it was a politically loaded term, but then I recalled that I had to read a short story for my French class about the immigrant experience of a Spanish girl in 70s Québec, where she had to face the xenophobic attitudes of Québécois pure laine... I guess that term acquired its negative connotation from situations like that.
So yes, certain words and subjects should be handled with care if you don't really know your TL and its culture. Edited by espejismo on 22 November 2012 at 7:43am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 23 of 51 22 November 2012 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Last week the 15-year old nephew of a friend of mine was suspended from high school for a few days for swearing. For what I gather, a teacher had asked him to stop swearing at another student. The nephew, it seems, turned around and swore at the teacher, I don't know what words were used, but I can assume that it was a mixture of profanities. The interesting thing about this incident is that my friend thinks that this young man picked up this swearing from his parents who use a lot of profanities around the house.
This incident made me think of the fact that some people use a lot of vulgar words in their everyday speech and others don't or only in certain circumstances such as in a moment of anger. I think there's an age, usually adolescence, when we discover the power of words to shock adults, especially our parents. But most of us grow out of this. But others don't. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4639 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 24 of 51 22 November 2012 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is important to distinguish between slang and swearing, they are not at all the same thing. To me slang means colloquial or informal language, used by sub-cultures, specific age groups, minority groups etc, while swearwords are simply taboo words which normally are shared across a language community. Slang can of course also have swearwords, but not all slang is swearing or taboo words.
Slang words sometimes become so widespread that they enter the dictionary, e.g. "grass" or "weed" for cannabis. So my answer to the question is, yes, of course you should learn slang, but as others have said, you should take care to understand if/when it is appropriate to use it, and the same goes for swear words. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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