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Should you learn slang? | ||
Tags: Slang | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5728 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 25 of 51 22 November 2012 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For me slang meant something like Cockney or Verlan, a kind of spoken language that can be unintelligible even for some native speakers, but if we're talking about informal speech then I think it should be introduced fairly early on. For me it's far more important to understand all registers of a language then to be able to produce it.
Also using colloquial expressions (just as cultural references) and swearwords is like a cherry on top of the cake. Failed attempts at using them sound awful (just like older people trying to sound cool, although foreigners are forgiven more) if combined with poor grammar and sloppy pronunciation. Uttered by an advanced language learner at the right time and place show how well they know the culture and the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 26 of 51 22 November 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| HMS Senior Member England Joined 5107 days ago 143 posts - 256 votes Speaks: English* | Message 27 of 51 23 November 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My thoughts:
Slang is something that should definitely be learned - but not always used. Unless one is 100% fully aware of the various nuances and contexts slang is used in a language. There is a grave risk of appearing as 'trying too hard'. Imagine how a Japanese would appear to a londoner if he attempted to make a purchase using cockney rhyming slang?! Here in the UK there is also a growing trend of certain demographs trying to adopt what they perceive to be American slang and 'gangsta talk'. Some of the results are hilarious. Has anybody here listened to the excellent Icelandic course created by Alaric Hall? Therein lies one of the best examples of somebody using slang terms out of context in order to appear "down with da kids". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6447 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 28 of 51 24 November 2012 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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You don't have much of a choice. A successful
language learner will pick up the most frequent expressions. And slang does not need to involve obscenities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5408 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 29 of 51 24 November 2012 at 10:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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You sure as hell better learn what they mean, but you should probably not use it for yourself unless you're extremely comfortable with when and where to use it.
True story ... when I was going to graduate school we had an extremely intelligent student from Denmark ... a very solid speaker of English normally, but there was a day he was assigned to give a presentation and he dropped the F-bomb numerous times without really realizing how taboo it was in that situation. He had a general sense of it, and was clearly joking as he did it, but didn't realize how easily something like that could've blown up in his face. Without being a native it may take an extremely long time before you're able to "go off the grid" and be sure of using these terms in their appropriate cultural context. Not that we had any clue of it beforehand, but luckily our professor was a pretty good sport about it. I think every language is probably riddled with hundreds of terms with extremely fine degrees of subtlety, especially slang, that we might want to steer clear of using for a while. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 30 of 51 24 November 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You can't avoid slang in the real world at all. TV, Music, etc. I can read novels in Spanish but when I go to a party it's like kids speak an entirely different language.
Personally I love slang, it makes the language much more usable to me because the speakers I talk to are my age (20's) so slang is very common. You just have to know when to use it and when not to :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5532 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 51 24 November 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My goal is to speak like my French friends and family. If I hear them use a piece of slang a hundred times, of course I'm going to go ahead and use it in similar circumstances. Anything else would be weird and artificial, or even anti-social. Of course you have to pay attention to social context and you might make an occasional amusing mistake.
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| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4778 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 32 of 51 25 November 2012 at 1:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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In the US, in some circles, "I don't give a sh*t" has been replaced by "I don't give a whack".
Slang and profanity are not synonymous. A good example of American slang involves the use of the word "rip" in ways having little connection to its literal meaning... Let 'er rip! That's a rip-off! That dude is ripped! Most Americans would have no problem understanding this slang, which is unlikely to be found in any phrasebook of American English. Now many whites are incorporating Ebonics into their use of slang. Even in areas with few minorities, like Butte, Montana, for example, you might overhear someone saying "Mack Daddy be trippin'" or "My boy done got played". Without knowing the slang, you have no idea what they're talking about. I guess there is no harm in at least understanding the slang if not using it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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