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NY Times debate about learning languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4703 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes  Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 9 of 20 31 January 2012 at 3:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Learning another language isn't about mechanically translating word-for-word into your
native tongue. Very often, it entails restructuring how you think and perceive the world. This process requires a great deal of humility and patience. For my part, I find it very interesting how the language I'm currently studying (Dutch) naturally frames concepts differently than my native English. An early surprise was that "I like it" is typically expressed in Dutch as, "I find it nice." A quiet distinction but still a meaningful one, no? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 10 of 20 31 January 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, after my experiences at uni, I'm not surprised either that an individual that shows such exceptional ignorance, stupidity and narrow-mindedness (judging from that quote alone -- sorry but that really hit me) could become president of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It's depressing how little that says about the current state of things, how knowledge isn't really valued even where you'd suppose it should be put above everything else. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Acut Tetraglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4700 days ago 53 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French | Message 11 of 20 31 January 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
I think Summers couldn't be more mistaken. English is indeed a global language. But even someone with the least notion about google-translating something knows that machine translations fail. "Traduttore, Traditore" - every translator is a cheater, no translation can fully encompass all the subtleties in human language that make it *human*. Not intending to create a ad hominem fallacy and getting side-tracked, but he has shown his narrow-mindedness before, when he said women were not as apt as men in science. I am not surprised to see another nonsense coming from him. Edited by Acut on 31 January 2012 at 5:20am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5239 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 20 31 January 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Acut wrote:
Not intending to create a ad hominem fallacy and getting side-tracked, but he has shown his narrow-mindedness before, when he said women were not as apt as men in science. I am not surprised to see another nonsense coming from him. I second that! When I saw that it was Summers who had put forth this idea, I couldn't help but remember what he'd said about women and science and felt disinclined to spend any more time pondering his views. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6552 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 13 of 20 31 January 2012 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
Please look at what he actually said, the issue with paraphrased quotes, is that much like automated translation today it is inexact and gets the fine details of the sense wrong. And as to what he said about women is also often mis-quoted
Edited by zenmonkey on 31 January 2012 at 12:43pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| zonius Triglot Newbie Israel Joined 5062 days ago 12 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 14 of 20 31 January 2012 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a serious misrepresentation of what the man actually said. The correct quote was posted by zenmonkey and is very different. In fact it is hard to disagree with the original statement that it is less clear that "the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile". In other words it's obviously worthwhile for members of this forum or other language aficionados, or people deeply interested in foreign culture. Like it's said in the article, "there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language". But it's the fact that it's possible to function in specific areas (such as business or science, to name a few) using only English. And to those who are only interested in dealing in these areas the heavy investment of foreign language study is probably not worth the effort. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5729 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 15 of 20 31 January 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It isn't a misrepresentation but a misinterpretation and a misunderstanding.
I only saw the blurb for the quote but not the actual quote, and reading through the debate it seemed like that is what he said. Sorry. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 16 of 20 31 January 2012 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for that clarification and insight. Clear thinking by HTLAL members like you helps make this forum a great place. This insight probably puts you at the "elite level" of the distribution curve, at the top end (^_-) Edited by tommus on 31 January 2012 at 6:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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