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Parents think I’m weird... | ||
Tags: Polyglot bashing | Teenagers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6862 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 137 of 161 22 November 2010 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
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I just started reading this thread, but stopped after page two. The thought of parents discouraging a kid for pursuing his passion makes me so mad! I'm now 41 years old, and my parents still roll their eyes at me over this pursuit of mine. They take offense to it. I've tried to hear them out but they sound more like excuses, stemming from jelousy. It's pretty ridiculous the control parents can have, even when you've long moved out of the house. I've been fascinated by languages since I was a small girl, but I had no idea how to go about learning them. To the original poster, just keep doing what you're doing, because there are so many directions you can go with this career wise, from translations to intepreting to linguistics to who knows. The world really is your oyster. Your language skills are only going to make you that much better, no matter what you do.
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5340 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 138 of 161 22 November 2010 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
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My parents have never been particularly interested or supportive when I'm doing something they don't care for themselves. They don't actively discourage my language learning but they're not very subtle in showing their complete disinterest in it either. My interests have always been a little out of the ordinary and when I was a teenager my mother once said that she honestly thought I was crazy and why couldn't I just be normal?
Well if normal means going out every weekend, watching TV and always having the newest iPhone than thanks but no thanks. I'd rather spend my time doing something a little more meaningful if you don't mind. Edited by ReneeMona on 22 November 2010 at 10:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6895 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 139 of 161 23 November 2010 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Wow... I'm so lucky my parents have always supported me in following my passions. I have the best mom in the world-- she's always encouraged me to do what I love no matter what, and she's never called me "weird" (at least not seriously!) for spending so much time studying languages. And that's besides the fact that my mom herself is monolingual and isn't interested in languages at all! I think my dad did think it was a little weird (he just couldn't understand why I would be interested in such a thing), but he never really said anything about it, and now I think he's proud of what I've accomplished. =D
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| dotdotdot Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5224 days ago 24 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Korean, English* Studies: Italian, Russian | Message 140 of 161 23 November 2010 at 5:50am | IP Logged |
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My parents weren't that supportive of me at first, since they thought that I should be improve my (horrible) Korean before looking into any other language. This started to change when I kept reading Russian classics and my mom encouraged me to learn Russian so that I would be able to read those books in the original language.
The odd thing is that (unlike in almost every other subject,) my parents don't encourage actual studying and suggest to just learn conversational stuff and start talking to people. The problem is that there aren't really any Russians in my area, just a whole bunch of monolinguals, Hispanics, and Asians. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| CommanderK Bilingual Triglot Newbie Israel melearninglanguages. Joined 5194 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 142 of 161 26 November 2010 at 8:06pm | IP Logged |
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Well, my mom isn't crazy about my language studies, but whenever someone asks her about me and my hobbies she proudly says "My boy learns many languages" :D:D:D
Totally different story with my grandpa and his wife (not my grandma - he get married second time), whenever I come to them, they start with: "Why are you waisting your time??????" "If you learn languages learn something useful like Spanish or French, why do you need Georgian, Portuguese or Esperanto" "Is your goal in life is to break world record in language knowing?" "Do you think about your future? You need to choose a profession for yourself (i'm only 15)" And especially when I said I love Arabic and want to learn it (and they're are extreme rightist - in Israel it means people who hate arabs) they turn mad and shout: "Why do you need this shit!!!!! You're a traitor!!" Also I personally think that it's a shame not to learn languages in Israel, there are so much immigrants that you can find a partner for any language. In my apartment there are about 4-5 languages, in my school there are about 7 languages, in a train I came across about 10 languages in 2 hours.... Edited by CommanderK on 26 November 2010 at 8:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5224 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 143 of 161 26 November 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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to be honest: all my girlfriends parents [and my own] think I'm weird anyway ...
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| polyglossia Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5409 days ago 205 posts - 255 votes Speaks: French* | Message 144 of 161 17 December 2010 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
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Maybe these people do think that spending hours before tv watching NCIS or the experts (like my mum), or getting drunk in pubs is a better way to spend time....
We shouldnt even care for them... Some play chess, some learn languages... I do both!! And btw, I read somewhere that struggling with languages may well be useful in order to stop Alzheimer"s disease... So.. :D :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
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