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It hurt me being multi-lingual | ||
Tags: Native Language | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 25 of 49 27 September 2010 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
On the basis of my (limited) experience and (equally limited) knowledge, thought exists outside of language. Your ability to communicate may be hindered by a lack of vocabulary, but not your thinking ability. When I speak in a language, first or otherwise, my thoughts exist before I select a way to formulate my thoughts. I can also formulate the same thought in several different ways, including simpler ones that require less vocabulary (depending on who I'm speaking with). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AeOeUe Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5218 days ago 16 posts - 31 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Dutch Studies: Russian | Message 26 of 49 30 September 2010 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe kowalskil makes a very important and valid point: The problem with multilingualism is that you may never achieve the same level in any of your languages as other people do in their one native language. We can see this with immigrants everywhere, for example lots of Russian Germans or Turkish Germans do not speak either language at a satisfactory level.
It is also true, and has been shown in various studies, that the use of English as an international language conveys a huge advantage on native English speakers. Many people today are forced to work in English, a foreign language to them, which not only hampers their ability to present and argue convincingly, but also their creativity. In addition to that, native speakers of English have huge advantages when it comes to jobs, lots of international companies need native English proofreaders or editors, not to mention the many translation jobs from other languages into English. Some people should think a little before complaining about broken English, and remember that we do not purposefully hinder them from learning our languages beyond "Hände hoch" and "Nastrovje"! 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 27 of 49 30 September 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't like poetry. I don't find any personal value in reading it. That being said, I've written poetry, as a means for an emotional outlet. Has this seen the light of day? Sparingly. Not for it being particularly bad, but because it wasn't written for anyone else, I wrote it for myself. A lot of poets are like that.
Don't fret that you can't enjoy poetry, or that you can understand that latest book on Quantum Dynamics. I sure as hell don't and can't. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fireflies Senior Member Joined 5181 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 49 30 September 2010 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
If given those 2 choices I would pick the poetry everytime. :) Some poetry is good if I am in the right mood but I am never in a frame of mind conducive to learning Quantum Dynamics. Edited by fireflies on 30 September 2010 at 9:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FM_Moltke Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 6619 days ago 54 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, German, French Studies: Polish, Latin | Message 29 of 49 01 October 2010 at 4:04am | IP Logged | ||
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The question is a valid one, and applies to myself. There has been a notable stagnation in the flippancy and ease of my English in the four years I've been abroad. Due to the traits of my hosts I can still write with gravity, but rarely with my former levity.
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 30 of 49 01 October 2010 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
I disagree with this. I have little to no trouble understanding someone who is speaking English as a 2nd language and I think I do a very good job of making myself easy to understand. I can't see how a non native speaker would ever have an advantage over me when speaking English. If they communicate better than me it's because they're smarter, not because they learned English later in life. That being said I will agree 100% that an uneducated native English speaker can have difficulty speaking to non native speakers. If a native speaker isn't self aware of idioms, slang, and cannot grade their language or slow their speech then it just doesn't work. But this isn't due to their speaking English as a native, rather it's due to their ignorance of language in general I'd say. If they studied a foreign language up to an intermediate level it would make a world of a difference. Of course this is my opinion. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 31 of 49 01 October 2010 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Regarding the OP. I think it's interesting that the you would think that speaking several languages hinders your overall thought process. Of course, not going through what you did I can only speculate. To me it doesn't seem that it would hurt the overall thought process and would give you a world of insight into culture and human nature. But at the same time if one of your goals was to be a poet or a strong writer then it could be a bad thing as you wouldn't have the native "ear" for a language that others would have. Reading your post however, you write English very well and do a great job of expressing yourself. It's hard for me to read your post and think that you're handicapped linguistically in any way. Regarding reading poetry or literature, I don't see why you couldn't just use a dictionary to look up new words. In German my vocabulary is not so good but I can read a book and even literature and I can tell the difference between what is good and what I like and what isn't so good. Heck, even rating professional German speakers reading a passage from a book my rating was similar to most native speakers (I was really pleased when I found this out heh).
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| carlonove Senior Member United States Joined 5986 days ago 145 posts - 253 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 32 of 49 01 October 2010 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Google Translate has virtually destroyed the argument that looking up unknown words takes too long. It can translate isolated (and inflected) words and many phrases accurately enough, and near-instantaneously if you're using the mouse-over application in a web browser. GT isn't available for every language, and isn't equally accurate in all languages, but it works well enough in all of the languages mentioned in this thread.
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