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Learning from "uneducated" speakers | ||
Tags: Language Banditry | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4622 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 23 10 December 2012 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
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When reading posts, I sometimes see references to "educated" and "uneducated" native speakers. I'm not quite sure what that means, as practically everyone receives an education these days and is literate. I'm guessing the uneducated tag is applied to those who didn't do so well at school and perhaps work in jobs requiring no formal qualifications.
Mixing with the educated group seems to be promoted as a positive thing but I believe there is lots to be learned from "uneducated" speakers. They are the people most likely to never try and switch to English (or another common language) when you converse with them, either because the can't or they have no interest in doing so. It can actually be a great learning experience when you spend time with native speakers who don't slow down, use lots of popular idioms and treat you no differently to anyone else....they expect you to understand them. It's not easy, but it brings great benefits. Every possible learning source is a good one in my book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 2 of 23 10 December 2012 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't care whether a speaker is educated or not as long as we have a connection when
talking. People aren't vehicles to learn French - French is a vehicle to get to know people. 14 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 3 of 23 10 December 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Well said! I sometimes get the impression that some people are so enthusiastic about learning languages that they see engaging with other people as a means to meet their end (improve their language), rather than the opposite - seeing the language as as a way to knowing other people. My wife, who is a Spanish teacher, gets really annoyed when she makes new "friends" who then seem only to be interested in practising their basic Spanish with her, instead of communicating in a language they both speak well. Believe me, it happens more often than it should. Once she had enough, and when the other person started speaking in Spanish again, she answered: "I will charge you 30 euros an hour from now on if you want to continue in Spanish." That "friendship" did not last very long. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 4 of 23 10 December 2012 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can understand the situation of Ogrim's wife. And one reason that I am somewhat hesitant to use my most shaky languages for communication is precisely that I don't want the other person to feel that I'm trying to get a lesson for free. On the other hand, if I have paid 100-200 € per day to go to a country where language X is spoken then I wouldn't want to waste my time on speaking English, except in rare cases where the other person had few other visitors around to use for his/her training in English. And even then I might refer to other tourists, who would be more than happy to communicate in English.
Quite generally I see my languages (apart from Danish and English and maybe a few others) as something I learn primarily for fun, and it is just a bonus if I also can use them for communication. Back to the original question: communicating with 'uneducated' speakers is an extensive activity in my book, and I wouldn't expect those speakers to explain how for instance relative subordinates are organized in their language or even where a certain sound is used. They can tell me whether that sound is used in a specific case, but they may never have tried to formulate their wisdom in general rules. Extensive activites primarily have the goal to teach you to keep a certain momentum in what you do, be speaking or writing or reading. Besides you may pick up a useful idiom once in a while, but generalized rules and the bulk of my vocabulary come from intensive studies, not from speaking to people. Edited by Iversen on 10 December 2012 at 1:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6620 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 5 of 23 10 December 2012 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think the term "uneducated" is being used disparagingly here. Speaking to uneducated people is very useful in learning a language. Usually when we say "educated" native speaker, we don't mean in terms of having gone to school, but rather in terms of having an in depth knowledge of their language and its grammar. An "uneducated native speaker" can tell you that something you said doesn't sound right and tell you the right way to say it. An "educated native speaker" can tell you precisely why.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 6 of 23 10 December 2012 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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"educated" in the sense they know about linguistics.
1 person has 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 7 of 23 10 December 2012 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
I sometimes mention "educated native speakers" in my log, usually in terms that mix awe with a bit of frustration. So I suppose I should explain myself, or defend myself, or something like that. :-) An educated speaker is somebody who's spent 16+ years of their life reading books, writing essays, and mastering skills that their culture values. They're comfortable with academic language. They've written enough words that they can finally write well. They read quickly and easily (if they're not dyslexic or visually impaired). And at some point in their life, they may read over a billion words in their native language, or about 4,000 books. And with any luck, they've thought about those books. All those years of reading and writing and study change how people use language. Their vocabularies grow, and they become familiar with a canon of literature. They know the basic terminology of a dozen subjects. (How do you say "long division" and "integration by parts" in French, anyway? And what's the deal with Proust?) And this is why getting a university degree in France would be an excellent way to improve my language skills, if only I were younger and had nothing more pressing to do with my time. I have a lot of respect for this kind of knowledge. When I watch French authors have discussions on Bibliothèque Médicis, I'm painfully aware of just how much I don't know yet, and just how pathetic my vocabulary really is. Of course, educated culture isn't the only culture worth knowing. I'm also impressed by how standup comedians like Patrick Huard use a casual register, and the way that French people my age all seem to know who Captain Flam is. Education isn't the only kind of impressive cultural knowledge, but it's certainly an important kind. 3 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 8 of 23 10 December 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
Edited by Serpent on 10 December 2012 at 3:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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