29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6272 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 25 of 29 18 February 2010 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
Depends what you mean by "educated". To some people, basic literacy and numeracy would be enough to qualify for the title.
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 26 of 29 18 February 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
William Camden wrote:
Depends what you mean by "educated". To some people, basic literacy and numeracy would be enough to qualify for the title.
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Still, for some adults in America, that would be a challenge. Not trying to bash my country, there are stupid people everywhere, but sometimes I wonder...
1 person has voted this message useful
| Paskwc
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5677 days ago
450 posts - 624 votes
Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English
Studies: Persian, Spanish
| Message 27 of 29 18 February 2010 at 11:21pm | IP Logged |
Without digressing too far, what constitutes an education in some arenas is, to borrow a
particularly colourful expression, a glorified process of jumping through hoops. There is
a big difference between mental absorption and mental stimulation.
Accordingly, a large number of very well educated people are a far cry from being what
could be considered "enlightened" or "tempered".
Edited by Paskwc on 18 February 2010 at 11:22pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
| mustwander
Triglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5399 days ago
8 posts - 9 votes
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish
| Message 28 of 29 19 February 2010 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
bravo, the education systems could do so much more to make learning an exciting and fulfilling experience. Unfortunately there are many professors out there who really do not have a passion for their work, nor the ability to properly teach to various learning styles.
1 person has voted this message useful
| GauchoBoaCepa
Triglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5419 days ago
172 posts - 199 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish
| Message 29 of 29 20 February 2010 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
hombre gordo wrote:
How many members here have an intense drive to learn languages for the purpose of eradicating ones inferiority complex?
I am certainly one of those people.
I suspect a lot of people of this forum who were raised in monolingual environments may feel this way.
I was raised in a monolingual speaking home and before I had success with language learning I had a terrible inferiority complex which was eating away my heart and preventing me from being happy.
I always saw monolingualism as a great shame for my country. I was always intimidated by the rich multilingual environment when we went on vacations to continental Europe. I always felt inferior to Europeans who had a good or excellent control of 2 or 3 languages (some even more, but quite rare). I knew that I had to get my act together and invest some serious time into studying languages.
On top of that, in the past I took a sociology class (I took it because I was told it was easy to pass) before I got serious about languages. I soon realised that sociology is a subject usually taught by incredibly biased left-wing, liberal progressives who pass off their opinions on how the world ought to be as facts and continually preach about how wrong England, English culture and English values are somehow wrong and how everyone else is somehow better and more cultured.
I know that I see some room for criticism for my country, but this sociology teacher was just over the top. Anyway, he would always make out that we as a nation/people are somehow uncultured, ignorant, even barbarian-like because of the nations poor foreign language ability. At the same time he would give 20 minute speaches in class praising the superior language ability of supposedly more refined continental Europeans, who according to the teacher, are all fluent in at least 7 or 8 languages! With a teacher like this, no wonder I ended up with an inferiority complex! Being told that I am somehow a barbarian just because I dont speak French or German! Of course now looking back on that class, I understand that the teachers views were just silly unpatriotic rants. However, back then, they contributed immensely to my language inferiority complex and made my hate myself more and more.
Well, I felt this strong soul-eating inferiority complex for several years and even suffered depression as a result. I am sure pleased I got into languages.
As you may see from my profile, I am studying some of the 5 cacti languages (Japanese and Korean)including character based languages and hope to add Chinese at some point. My choice of these languages which are believed to be immensely difficult is no surpise. I admit that my decision to study them was to fill in or eradicate my raging inferiority complex, a scathing wound left in my heart by people like that sociology teacher.
Although my inferiority complex has largely been supressed and brought under control since gaining fluency in Japanese and mastering its writing system, it still sometime comes back and hurts me from time to time. I always feel I want more fluency in Japanese, want to add more languages, etc...
Do I no longer have need to feel an inferiority complex?
How can I overcome it completely?
Sorry for the long post. I just needed to get something off my chest.
Hombre Gordo
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As you've overcome part of your inferiority complex, the hardest part right now is when you'll realize you're satisfied with the number of the languages you're learning....sometimes ambition may prevent us from drawing such conclusion.
Nice thread, Hombre Gordo....parabéns
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