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Urban legends about languages... | ||
Tags: Stereotypes | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| proudft Senior Member United States Joined 5200 days ago 124 posts - 156 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 49 of 81 20 January 2013 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
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It's also something English-language learners say when they start out and learn that 1)
word order for very simple sentences is pretty much the same as in English and 2) the language has no genders, conjugations, and basically no plurals (people adding -men is the only one I can think of) or tenses (words don't change per se, just other stuff gets added in to imply something is complete or hasn't happened yet). Shorthand for 'wow this is pretty much just like English, but even simpler, no grammar yay!' However, once you get beyond the simple I LIKE BASKETBALL type of sentences it begins to diverge, and as sentences get more complex and have more ideas in them (and they seem to commonly get quite a bit longer than English sentences) they really start to turn into something that is completely different from English. Almost like it is a whole other language. :P 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5971 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 50 of 81 20 January 2013 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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My personal favorite urban legend is still "English is very hard to learn, so it's amazing that any foreigners even bother with it at all." There is also the belief that "English is the easisest language to learn, so everyone everywhere should be able to speak some English."
The next one is that English and German are simply dialects of the same language and therefore I should be able to communicate effortlessly with German speakers without learning German. Edited by mick33 on 21 January 2013 at 6:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4698 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 51 of 81 20 January 2013 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | ||
You wouldn't believe how many times I heard this one at my university. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6404 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 52 of 81 21 January 2013 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
"Rosetta Stone, the fastest way to learn a language, guaranteed!" ;-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5933 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 53 of 81 21 January 2013 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||
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"Attending language classes is an essential part of learning a language".
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| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4669 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 54 of 81 21 January 2013 at 12:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just go and live in the country where the language is spoken. You will automatically "pick it up"
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5318 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 55 of 81 21 January 2013 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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These are myths/misconceptions/stupidities I have heard around me:
-If you learn Arabic, you're probably joining Al-Qaeda or suddenly you become an expert on Middle Eastern politics and oil industry in all others eyes. -Real men don't learn or speak French. -English is the only foreign language you need. -French is very hard and impossible to learn, because the pronunciation and spelling differs a little bit. -You can only become fluent by drilling vocabulary lists in your head and reading a grammar book as a novel. -Scandinavians (and also Finns) want to talk only English and don't respond in their native languages if you try to speak it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4686 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 56 of 81 21 January 2013 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here are my favourite myths:
- If you major in languages from University, your only career opportunity is as a language teacher. - Russian is very difficult to learn because it uses a different alphabet. - Eskimos have 100 words for snow. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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