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Being Multilingual: One negative aspect | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 17 of 32 13 March 2011 at 2:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was really obsessed with learning languages for a while and I didn't really have much
else in the way of intellectual interests but since then my interests have broadened and now language learning has to share time with studying math and science and reading about astronomy and geopolitics. Of course, I learn about these fields in languages other than English whenever I get the chance. I'm definitely more well-rounded now and my future prospects look a lot brighter thanks to it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JasonE Groupie Canada Joined 5071 days ago 54 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 18 of 32 13 March 2011 at 5:12am | IP Logged | |||||
Are there hubs of international crime syndicates within the Italian speaking world? It won't be worth your time to learn Italian to read books on world crime in general, but if there are international crime organizations in Italy, then there is a good chance that there are plenty of books about those groups that haven't been translated. Doing so would greatly increase your knowledge of global crime, especially compared to other English speakers interested in global crime who can't read Italian. But of course there might be similar material in Spanish that you could read as well/ instead. So if you want justification for learning another language I suggest looking for material that interests you that can't be found in your own language. Unless you find something like that, you'll just be learning a new language for its own sake. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5819 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 19 of 32 13 March 2011 at 6:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is an interesting point. Ever since I've been learning languages, I have had to
put certain other things on hold while learning them and one of them would have been intellectual pursuit. The amount of political/philosophical books and biographies that I used to read frequently, not to mention classics that I've still never got round to, but now I don't because of learning languages can be a bit of a shame. Too often I feel like I would be wasting/losing time while doing something like this. One way to overcome this though is to do the things in your target language. For example I want to read 'Around the world in 80 Days' and Napoleon's Memoirs but I'm not going to read them in English, but instead one day in French. I have a book about Juan Carlos entirely in Spanish which I look forward to enjoying when I feel that I am at a comfortable level to do so. Secondly just look for science/historical articles in your target language. Recently I came across http://www.meneame.net/ which is a Spanish blog feed (or something like that). It's got some very diverse articles on there. I've been reading about the 40th Birthday of Stairway to Heaven, a Roman use of chemical warfare, and sadly the science behind an earthquake. Using Google Chrome tools means that I never have to open a dictionary and this helps a lot. I'll leave you with a great quote from Wittgenstein that might put some of it all in perspective: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" Edited by crafedog on 13 March 2011 at 6:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5848 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 32 13 March 2011 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with the argument that learning languages needs an investment of a lot of time, which could be spent on other activities or hobbies. When you study languages on a beginner level you need to concentrate on the basiscs of such languages without having the chance to develop intellectual interests. But as soon as you reach intermediate or advanced language levels you are free to watch TV and listen to the radio about every topic you are interested in and you can read newspapers, magazines and books about every topic you like. That means that you can transfer your intellectual interests into your foreign languages.
I study Danish (and before: Turkish) on a beginner level, but I read for example my astronomy articles and other infos about natural sciences in several L2 - languages. Also my cooking activities are multingual, because why should I waste my time by using only native German recipes? Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 13 March 2011 at 10:04am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5115 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 21 of 32 13 March 2011 at 10:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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And that's the reason why I picked a degree at a foreign university, getting the best of all the worlds, haha. My English is good enough for me to understand academic writing, write lengthy essay (and get better grades than natives), yet I get to study two more languages, as well as their culture, and because my university is that awesome, not only do I study history, culture and literature, I can also pick an extra module in whatever I like. I did Politics last year, and will do it again next year, but I could also pick from Law, Economics, Linguistics, etc.
Ideally, I'd love to be able to do a masters degree at MIGMO, but I probably need a couple more years of work before that :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 23 of 32 13 March 2011 at 11:44am | IP Logged | |||||
This is a perfect example of how language stimulates curiosity. Language, politics and geography go hand-in-hand. Add to that history, law, philosophy, psychology, sociology, physical science... everything. All fields of human study are linked by lives and motivations. Take a look at a map of Europe. If you look closely, you'll see that Alsace is a relatively narrow strip of low land between two mountain ranges running north from Switzerland. The map tells you why Alsatian and Swiss German are more closely related to each other than they are to either Standard German or Austro-Bavarian. And I think the link between language and politics is pretty obvious, but the interesting thing about it is how modern progress has caused this clash. Historically, our most important means of transport was the boat. The vikings had an empire spanning much of Europe consisting of islands and small stretches of coast. Catalonia stretched a long way down the coast from Perpignan on the French mediterranean to Alicante and encompassed many fairly distant islands including the Balearics and Sardinia. Many of the old world's major capitals are built on broad rivers -- London, Paris, Budapest. But militarisation, road building and modern transport have changed all that. Now coasts and rivers are less important for transport within the country, but much easier to defend and control than land-borders. Obviously they've not split France across the Seine, but as countries have expanded militarily, the new borders were defined by defensibility. The border between France and Spain to the west follows the Bidassoa river several miles from the sea into some difficult mountains. This splits the Basque-speaking territories in two. The border than continues through the most impassible zone of mountains, cutting the region of North Catalonia off from the rest of Catalonia by land. It's quite intriguing how changes in technology have radically altered the situation for speakers of various languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| bushwick Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6245 days ago 407 posts - 443 votes Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese | Message 24 of 32 13 March 2011 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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sorry, but this "theory" is so flawed.
you study languages because it's your main area of interest, ultimately, you can handle it how you want. but what bothers me most about this is the quite skewed logic. some people study to become doctors, so they will study copious amounts of medicine, others spend a lot of their time on computer programming, I make art. ultimately, this is the case in whatever you do, so it's not "a negative aspects", just reflects that we happen to have 24 hours in a day and we be only so selective. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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