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"Slang" is it really necessary??? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6374 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 17 of 27 27 February 2009 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Slang is extremely important. If you do not know the slang you do not know the
language properly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stephen Groupie Australia Joined 6413 days ago 61 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 18 of 27 27 February 2009 at 8:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Possibly. However, I think one may be knowledgeable about the local vernacular without having to use it themselves. For instance, in Australia, I know the meaning of She'll be right and Fair Dinkum but I would never use them myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 19 of 27 27 February 2009 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what either of those phrases mean; if someone wants to claim I don't know English properly as a result, well, I suppose I can give him/her an odd look... Being able to understand most of the slang of where you are (and the groups you spend a lot of time with - if you're 50 and don't understand teenage slang in your L1, I don't see why it's more necessary to know it in your L2 - and vice versa for teenagers and the slang of 3 decades ago), whether or not you choose to use it, is moderately important if you're living somewhere long-term, or translating/interpreting/needing to understand sources that use a lot of it. If your main goals are, say, basic (or even advanced, but not near-native) fluency and reading classical literature, I think it's ok to declare slang almost irrelevant to 'properly' meeting your goals. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stephen Groupie Australia Joined 6413 days ago 61 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 20 of 27 28 February 2009 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well She'll be right means something like <It will all work out ok, dont worry about it> and Fair Dinkum means something like <Genuine> or <true>. I'm not an aussie and the terms are not natural to me and so I don't use them, although I hear them all the time especially the former. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6082 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 21 of 27 28 February 2009 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I havn't been able to read the entire topic so sorry if I repeat myself.
Slang has much place in language as what you call the 'proper' language. Its not a separate entity - it IS the language. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| roncy Pentaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5919 days ago 105 posts - 112 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Latin | Message 22 of 27 28 February 2009 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you can't be bothered to read a thread don't bother to post either. Especially if you haven't got anything intelligent to add. Edited by roncy on 28 February 2009 at 1:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5714 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 23 of 27 12 April 2009 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think some of the posters here are not correctly discerning slang from vulgar or profane terminology. As has been mentioned here, there is a difference. The Old English word scite or the Old Norse word kunta have both deep etymological roots and a clear relation to modern English words (which are real words), which I won't mention. ;)
That said, I think knowing slang is completely subjective. If I just want to read the classics in their original I can think of better ways to spend my time. If I want to live in the country I think it would be a necessity, etc. In any case, I do think that if you plan on doing all these things and plan on completely immersing yourself in the language you should at least 'know' slang so as to have the ability to differentiate it from proper speaking, if that's your goal. That's why it's great having educated friends in the language your learning to tell you the difference! Thanks, J 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| guilon Pentaglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6194 days ago 226 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Spanish*, PortugueseC2, FrenchC2, Italian, English | Message 24 of 27 13 April 2009 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Besides all the reasons already claimed, I think slang sounds extremely amusing in a rather awkward way when
foreigners use it. Listening to Spanish slang or even standardized profanities used by a nonnative speaker causes me discomfort. You hardly use any determinate slang properly unless you belong to the social group where it originated. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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