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Reasons for studying some small languages | ||
Tags: Norway | Rare Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6679 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 33 of 39 11 February 2012 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have a friend who's a physicist, and who also studies languages. He's good with both. However, whenever he ends up in a humanities class that is not about languages, he is unable to finish it. If we were to ask him what he thinks is most difficult to deal with, literary analysis or physics, I think he'd say literary analysis ;) And philosophy is damned difficult... I think it's all about where your interests lay. If you study engineering without being interested in it, it will most likely be more difficult than... psychology, that you're secretly passionate about but too afraid to study.
Now, about the Norway question, I am part of the work immigrant group, and I have more or less gotten every job I've applied for since moving here - it must be 6 or 7. I'm a member of Norway's no 1 favourite group of immigrants, so that helps, but my Russian friend is never ever without a job either! She has been clever enough to learn Norwegian to the point where she can function fully in society without using English. Because of the extensive Polish immigration (I hear Polish daily on the streets of Oslo), I think Poland has Norwegian classes and networks available for those who want to go to Norway. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 34 of 39 11 February 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I didn't say philosophy is easy to study but 99% of humanities students don't or barely
touch it, it is like assuming that all science students deal with high level nuclear physics. But the philosophy is still an exemple of a field which can be very enriching to you as a person and to your education but is very unlikely to give you a job either in your home country or abroad. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 35 of 39 11 February 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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and what is easy, Cavesa? History? But you have to learn enormous amount of material by
heart. Language and literature? But here there are a lot of things too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 36 of 39 11 February 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Whether you've seen it or not Марк, there is a perception among university students in "Western" universities that physical sciences are more difficult than humanities and social sciences. Of course this doesn't quite mean that it's objectively true and I suspect that there's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy going on. All the same, the perception exists and is also carried over in hiring managers, many of whom toiled under the same thinking (the difference is that these hiring managers had gained work experience and also did relevant extra training on their own time through certification exams or similiar thus partially making up for not having studied the relevant material in university).
A related problem is that graduates of humanities (not quite as much as those of the social or natural sciences) tend to have a tougher time finding their first job than their classmates in physical sciences. This is partially because of the sheer volume of graduates with humanities degree (a result of more students having gone on the "simpler" humanities track) which then leads to very fierce competition for the limited quantity of jobs not requiring a background in the physical sciences. There is also the problem that the relevance of the skills or knowledge gained from a humanities degree to most jobs is either too general or inapplicable (e.g. I've seen new graduates of history try to convince me in interviews that their analytical abilities (from reading textbooks or debating in lectures?) would serve them well in a sales or industry analysis job that I was trying to fill. The problem is that virtually every other applicant can say or do the same and so they need to try harder or offer something that is unique to them yet relevant to my business requirements. The unspoken truth is that they often can't). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 37 of 39 11 February 2012 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, I agree with you.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 38 of 39 11 February 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks Chung, that's quite what I was trying to say but probably not too well.
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| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 39 of 39 12 February 2012 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's a bit of both. There are disciplines intrinsically easier, especially at the lower levels, but these levels change over time, and being able to sit through different kinds of activities comes in levels too. I could study law, but I wouldn't unless I had stronger reasons to do it than the one I have not to: I hate memorization with little logic behind it -- I must and can do that to speak a language, but for studies I'll opt for something that suits me better. Everything must be taken into account, and that is definitely not easy. Simplifying a bit, every subject has a reasoning part and a memory part; f.ex. primary or high school maths are reasoning-intensive while History is more memory-intensive. For the memory parts you can cram, pass exams and forget, while there's no way around it for the reasoning. Students quickly discover this at the lower levels, and many drift towards disciplines where one type is predominant. Sciences look harder in the common perception, well, because until the high school level they are -- you can't escape the reasoning part, and the amount of stuff to memorize in the humanities isn't really that much. But at higher levels, reasoning ability requirements are mostly set within any given discipline even if they still grow, while the requirements for memorising do nothing but grow, grow and grow regardless of subject. This holds true for languages as well - a 'language talented' person will be all the more impressive as a youngster than as an adult, because talent can't make up for hard work (basically memorisation) beyond a certain point. Even if the 'easy vs hard' distinction were true at the beginning, it's toned down to 'very hard vs goddamn hard' tops by the time university-level studies are to be considered. Still, perception of easy vs hard areas pretty much carries over unchanged in my experience as well, no matter that logic tells us this is no longer so. As time goes by, life and education progress and professional career prospectives come into play. Then we face another chasm between reality and perception that further muds the waters and creates problems -- bigger, deeper problems:
Maybe humanities graduates make things harder for themselves going a track that's perceived as easy, but why do they do it? Because in theory (or perception) all university degrees are equally considered when the time to apply for jobs come. It's only natural to go the 'easy way' if you think you'll get there all the same. And then we wake to reality. But even if to a lesser extent, this holds true for science graduates as well. Different areas exhibit slightly different symptoms (as we should expect) but the underlying problems are the same: The labour market is quite inflexible in its demand (suppressing and inventing needs fringes the impossible, so this evolves on a larger time scale pretty much on its own), and no matter how you spin it, jobs with a real requirement for university-level studies will always be outnumbered by far by those that actually require concrete skills and little else, regardless of area. Still, we've been buying that a university degree will get you the best jobs within its area, just because it's a 'top-level' achievement that speaks for your potential. This creates all sorts of curious phenomena that feedback each other in even more interesting (and less predictable) ways: -The supply of graduates is artificially inflated, leading to ferocious competition for job niches, just as Chung said. -Emoluments for 'easier' jobs like plumbing or machinery operation sky-rocket when virtually nobody opts for these 'lesser' careers. -'Lesser jobs' start requiring university degrees for absolutely no reason. -Universities start to offer degrees that are little more than job training in disguise. -Graduates with 'great potential' have little skills that are only developed through experience. ... So, studying something 'difficult' like Physics, or Philosophy, gets you... where exactly? Most Physics graduates I know stay in the university circles (another world with its own problems and vicious circles), or end up working in diverse types of energy stations or IT. Now, studying Physics may make expand on abilities you'll need there, but it sure won't magically make you very knowledgeable in the concrete stuff you'll be doing. I can't speak for Philosophy graduates but I gather they'll face a similar dilemma: university or recycling -- learning even more, different stuff. Studying something difficult, you may well end up lagging behind others who got 'easier' but more to-the-point degrees. Everything could work so much better if we only tried harder to stay real from the beginning, because everything has its place and knowing it is half the work. No big surprise here, though, just another chapter in the long history of the planet of the apes :(
Even doing the right thing can't guarantee you to succeed, but doing the wrong one (moving to another country with no language skills and no money) is almost bound to make you fail. In this interconnected world of today there are native language bubbles in many places -- we've gone over immigrants not learning a language and we concluded most people won't learn a language without need, and these bubbles ease that pressure. But that's something you should check first, not take for granted! Given the video I gather there's no 'Spanish bubble' in Norway, but what about English? Sure, these guys shot themselves in the foot not speaking it either, but I'm curious if I could still get by there with no Norwegian. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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