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Stereotypes of language learners? | ||
Tags: Stereotypes | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 33 of 42 02 September 2010 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ok, I'll give it a shot. If you're a native English speaker learning Tamil, you doing it because your English is very poor
or you're a religious fanatic
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| tais Newbie United States Joined 5198 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 34 of 42 03 September 2010 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I didn't know it until I started but I was the only guy in high school to take french that semester. I guess it's not manly
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| Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6209 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay | Message 35 of 42 04 September 2010 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Here are the stereotypes that I perceive for learners of specific foreign languages.
*** Japanese - monstrously intelligent, extremely handsome and debonnaire. Always in demand wherever they go *** French - supersophisticated, witty and intelligent. Considered charming by everyone there is *** Spanish - universally well-regarded and well-liked. Considered sophisticated and worldly-wise, likely to know a good deal about everything, much in demand at parties *** Mandarin - jolly good chap and all-round good egg. Very very intelligent and likely to make a lot of money in the future. Able to fit in easily to most situations. Of considerable sporting prowess. Handsome *** Korean - very very handsome people learn this language, also tall and physically in good condition. Usually people learning this language are top-notch. *** Malay - charming, mysterious, a little dangerous, good to know. Always able to act well in a crisis and usually considered a handy person to have about. In my view, people learning these languages are universally seen along these lines. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mashmusic11235 Groupie United States Joined 5499 days ago 85 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese | Message 36 of 42 05 September 2010 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Okay, a few of my own stereotypes. I'm trying to be both realistic and creative here.
Russian: Wants a logical but impressive language. Likes ballet, classic Russian literature, or has visions of living in Moscow among the architecture and light snowfall. Mandarin Chinese: Wants a language that is simultaniously easy (in grammar) and insanely difficult (writing and pronunciation). Also wants an impressive language. Wants to be able to make as much money off of the larges population in the world (a good portion of which DOESN'T actually speak Mandarin). Cantonese: Wants a language that is simultaniously easy (in grammar) and insanely difficult (writing and pronunciation). Also wants to cash in on the big Yuan sign which is China, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore. Also wants to be a little different by not learning Mandarin. Other Chinese dialects: is either ethnically a speaker of that language, is related to one, or is insane for wanting to learn a language spoken by only a few thousand people and is usually not mutually intelligible or in any way helpful to learning another Chinese language. Japanese: Is either an Otaku or someone who wants to be up on all the latest technology, because most of it comes from Japan. Also, practicioners of some styles of karate, such as Isshinryu, may want to learn Japanese. Korean: Either likes K-drama or practices Tae-Kwon-Do. There aren't very many other reasons to learn Korean, as far as I know. Vietnamese: Practices Vovinam, is interested in the Vietnamese war. Hindi: Likes Bollywood movies, wants to cash in on the (mostly poor) second-largest population in the world (again, most of which DOESN'T speak Hindi). Any other language spoken in India (except Urdu... don't try to cheat): I applaud you. Polish: Is a Slavophile or a Slavic History buff. Also might have Polish ancestors. Ukranian: See above. Arabic: I don't see why the most preveland Arabic learner stereotype here is 'terrorist'. An Arabic learner is, to me, a slightly insane person who wants to learn a difficult, somewhat controversial language. Someone who's either converted to Islam, going to convert to Islam, or is interested in the history of Islam. Is thinking WAY ahead into the future when we just might be able to make peace with the Middle East and have immense business opportunities there. Hebrew: Is either Jewish, has Jewish ancestors, or wants to live in the Middle East, but is something of a sissy and wants to live where the Middle East's best living standards (as well as Uzis and lots of people who know how to use them) are. I might post more later, but this is freakin' long! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 37 of 42 05 September 2010 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
A few thousand people? Not helpful to learning another Chinese language? I hope your being facetious here and I'm just misunderstanding, but you did say these were your personal stereotypes... If so, I'd say that stereotype would be incredibly far off the mark. Each of the major dialect families have speakers numbering in the millions. E.g. Wu has 90 million speakers—which is more than the speakers of about half of the languages on your list, being the 13th most spoken language in the world (by native speaker count). Min with 46 million, Xiang with 36 million, and Hakka with 30 million aren't anything to scoff at either.. Furthermore learning one of them is helpful in learning another one at least as much as Romance languages. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5922 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 38 of 42 06 September 2010 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world.
Hindi is the 4th most spoken language in the world. "Bollywood" is the biggest producer of movies in the world. http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SilverAU Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5617 days ago 7 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Italian | Message 39 of 42 06 September 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've perceived certain traits in the groups of people at my high school taking certain languages. Of course, these do not apply to everyone, so please no one be offended if you're taking these. (Also, I could see how a serious language learner like someone on this forum would have a different attidude towards the class than someone who's taking it in high school to get into college, so I don't think these stereotypes apply to people here as much.)
Japanese: This is the first foreign language I took at my school. I'm now in my fourth year of it. There are like, two white girls in my current class (including me) and two black boys, almost everyone else is at least partially Asian or Filipino. Some of them have studied other Asian languages before and speak them really well, though I'm not sure if we have anyone who natively speaks another Asian language. A lot of people in the class like Asian pop or Asian dramas, anime or manga and drawing in that style, and Japanese video games. When Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver came out, everyone was connecting their PokeWalkers in class. lol. Spanish: The "default language to take to get into college" for those who don't actually want to learn a foreign language. Half the class already speaks it. Most of the class hates it and can't wait to drop. A third of the class failed Spanish I even though it was the easiest class ever: almost all of our tests were open-book and we spent most of the class time doing coloring pages and watching movies. The teachers are also fairly unenthusiastic about the language compared to other foreign language teachers I've talked to. There are also a lot of ghetto people and trouble makers... I could go on and on about how no one taking Spanish cares about Spanish, but I won't. I mean I got the weirdest looks when I told people I actually wanted to learn. Haha. XD And I was also kind of the teacher's pet. Italian: The teacher is crazy, and a lot of the students have attitude and basically mess with the teacher all day trying to make her crack. Some people mildly care about the class, but most don't. There are a lot of... um... "popular girls" types who keep up with their work but don't care about learning. Mostly girls take Italian, but not so few boys that they stand out. French: I've never actually studied French, so this is just based on those I know who do take it. Honestly... I don't like a lot of the people who take French. They're the kind of people who think they're "mature" and "sophisticated" but are in reality a lot more angst-y, bitter, negative, and snobby than the average teenager. It's mostly girls. Oh, and they claim to love the language and culture but end up doing poorly and spending forever ranting about how hard it is, and expecting people to treat them like martyrs for taking (and failing) such a hard class. Again, this is just some of the people from my school, and I won't automatically make these assumptions about anyone who is studying French. No offense to any French-studiers. ASL: I liked the ASL-learners a lot when we had ASL (the teacher quit so we don't have it anymore); most of the people who took it genuinely wanted to learn. It was the only language, besides Japanese, that you actually saw students practice outside of class. Most of the students were smart, independent, somewhat nonconformist, political-minded (though not just left-wing as one might except) and interested in deaf culture. Anyway... just my observations.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5271 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 40 of 42 06 September 2010 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For the last weeks I have been asking some people for some of the stereotypes. I actually asked them more the fun and ridiculous ones, so here's my list:
French - likes wine or either wants to hook up with an rich French lady. Dutch - wants to go to the Netherlands and smoke some weed. Finnish - wants to get drunk with Finns while fishing or likes heavy metal a lot. German - obsessed with WWII or wants to hook up with a Swiss mountain girl. Hungarian - wants to involve in adult film industry. Italian - Da Vinci wannabe or the next pope. Spanish - wants to understand what the hotties in Mexican telenovelas speak about. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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