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Languages and inferiority complex | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 29 15 February 2010 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | ||
To be honest, with a teacher like that I would have immediately felt superior (to him!). Back to topic: I have lived now in 12 different countries (by which I mean I have spent at least a year in each) and have learned that there are indeed some cultural things I prefer in some over others. However, the preference is entirely personal, and until you have lived in some place you can get very starry-eyed about how you imagine it to be. A good example is the city I live in now (Prague) which attracts plenty of young adults from around the world who believe it is full of creativity and artistry which will rub-off on then on their road to being the next Kafka. After a few months here, many of these people go home realising the magic in the air was imaginary. I would recommend very strongly this life of living in several different countries. In my experience, it both increases your confidence and at the same time makes you quite humble. That is, you see the good and bad everywhere, and decide that you are perfectly normal and so are most other people. Through this process, you lose feelings of inferiority and superiority and end up happy being yourself. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5583 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 10 of 29 15 February 2010 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you very much for you response nescafe. I love Japan so much. However, like you mentioned, I deeply lament the way that nowdays Japanese youngsters are taught to to have no pride and feel sorry about some invasion that happened decades before they were even born! I have an admiration for Korea too and I have had very good Korean friends. However, what school history classes dont tell you is that Korea has invaded Japan at least on two ocassions. But that is all in the past. Nobody should be made to feel sorry for something that their ancestors commited decades or centuries ago. I certainly love the beautiful country of Japan and hope that it can restore its pride. Little do Japanese people know that many people from around the world hold Japan and its culture in high regard. Well, I dont care anymore about what my ultra left-wing sociology teacher preached or what left-wing Japanese school teachers are instilling into their students, I am proud to hold right wing views (please dont misinterpret this a meaning fascist though. I took a political views test and was only slightly to the right). You said that people in Japan are made to feel inferior for not knowing English! That is not fair at all. I always had an inferiority complex because my native language doesnt use characters! However, now that I know Japanese I feel that I have great pride in accomplishing a personal goal! Mastering Japanese writing was a turning point which brought about great confidence in me. I am so thankful for having been given the oportunity to learn Japanese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 11 of 29 15 February 2010 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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The first time I felt inferior about languages was when I met a Ukrainian guy who could speak English, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish... The next time I felt such way was when I met a guy who spoke English, Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, Latin, and Farsi and had pretty much the whole IPA table memorized.
Then I told myself that I can be as good as them in many languages, and decided to just take it slowly and steadily. And that's what I'm doing right now... Edited by chucknorrisman on 15 February 2010 at 4:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5553 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 12 of 29 15 February 2010 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I'll disagree with that! I learned Finnish entirely on my own with no help from others until very recently when I lived in Finland. If there's a will, there's a way. If you want to learn a language, especially one with as many resources as Finnish, you will. As for the topic, I just learn and dabble in languages because it's fun. I am indeed quite ashamed of the US's widespread monolingualism and ignorance of the outside world and to be honest I plan on getting out of this country whenever possible, but that's not for any reason why I study languages. I'm just a nerd, that's all! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 29 15 February 2010 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I learn languages because of an inferiority complex, and I learn languages because I want to learn to talk to people better. I also like learning languages as when I'm not perfect at a language I can't bore people as much or make jokes that are too obscure and aren't funny.
However, I recall a certain Hombre_Gordo telling this forum a short while ago about how he likes to go to sites and write about pretend problems he has, as a language learning exercise, which makes me a bit defensive as it makes me suspect that this is another one of those. It also doesn't help that hombre_gordo continues to pretend to be a native English speaker when he is quite clearly not. (If the grammar alone doesn't give it away, the fact that he tries to imply he's English while using US vocabulary certainly does.) Hombre_gordo: Lots of people here are learners -- it's nothing to be ashamed of. However, those learners look to posters who have "English*" in their profile to provide a model of native English. By claiming to be a native speaker, you risk teaching other people your mistakes, and that's unacceptable behaviour in my book. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| victor-osorio Diglot Groupie Venezuela Joined 5432 days ago 73 posts - 129 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian | Message 14 of 29 15 February 2010 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Now, this is funny. Has Hombre Gordo a real inferiority complex? Was he born in the UK?
Does he really exists in the first place? Is normal to be aware of our own limits and lacks, and it's ok as well to develop our advantages and skills in order to equilibrate ourselves. Other than that, one has to learn that sometimes may be less skilled than some people as one is sometimes more skilled than some people. It's tough, I know, but come on, you will eventually have to do it because there will always be people more skilled than you in certain things. Anyway, is big a lie that outside of your country everybody is a polyglot. I believe that most people in the world speaks only one language with real fluency. Studying a language in high school doesn't mean to speak another language, we all know there you would most likely learn to say hi, good by and my name is. Edited by victor-osorio on 15 February 2010 at 7:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 29 15 February 2010 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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To be frank, Hombre Gordo, your teacher was a douchebag.
I would have engaged him in an argument at every chance. But I don't feel inferior, I'm just interested in other languages. I could give a list of reasons, and I still feel I wouldn't have fully explained why I started having an obsession with languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 16 of 29 15 February 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Haha, true... People 'round the would have problems with their inferiority complexes, but we are unique (see? we're unique) with our "superiority complex". Happily, there is a simple cure. All it takes is a short period of living abroad, whereupon the "superiority complex" transforms either into inferiority complex, or into profound realism. Needles to say the latter outcome is more desirable ^_^. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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