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What’s more important in learning? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5863 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 20 22 June 2009 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Chinese are more interested in having personal realtionships with westerners than Japanese IMO. I'm not sure if that's important to you, but thought I'd throw that out for you to consider.
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| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5738 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 10 of 20 22 June 2009 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Cainntear wrote:
The important thing is to be able to use it. If the interest leads to opportunities to use the language (through, for example, visits to the country, culture events or cinema and literature) then that's a good thing, but the brain learns only when it needs to. Interest alone won't force the brain to change." "I agree with this. If you are talking about being fluent, etc, you have to need it, not just desire it or be interested. Do you need to communicate in this language? Do you need/want to go to their country to get even more exposure to the culture?" I taught myself English when I was 17 and was fluent at it by age 19. I had never left Germany, but my (extreme) interest and curiosity helped me find ways to practice it 24-7. With French it was the same (though I still lag behind when it comes to listening comprehension). I think it's not an either or thing. For some reason people often think it must be one or the other. When you ask people for career advice (what do for a living) after graduating from high school youll usually hear these two opinions: 1) You have to follow your passions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just follow your passions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2) No, you cant do this. You need to do something that pays!!!!!!!!!!! How about trying to find a balance?;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5645 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 11 of 20 22 June 2009 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am a little confused by this sentence. I can see two ways of interpreting it:
...or...
I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I would say the first is definitely true, but the second is probably false at least when it comes to sexual relationships (and Eastern women with Western men). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5645 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 12 of 20 22 June 2009 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's funny! I learned French at school and attained fluency largely by my own efforts. This was in Australia in the early seventies. Believe me, the opportunities to practise French in Australia in those days were negligible: there were very few French-speaking migrants, there was no non-English radio or television at all, and, of course, no Internet. But I still managed, finally managing to set foot on French-speaking soil for the first time thirty years after leaving school. I think the point about balance is very important. However, where the balance lies depends a bit on your motivation and ability. In the career field, there is a saying "There's always room at the top!" In other words, if you are the best in your particular line, you will get a job. Similarly, with enough motivation and ability, you can master a language, even if it is not the most useful or easiest to learn in your circumstances. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5727 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 13 of 20 22 June 2009 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I decide to learn a language, I do it because the language itself is interesting to me. It is easy to be interested in different cultures of the world, because any foreign culture or country can be considered "interesting" from a shallow, superficial perspective. What captivates me is a language with an interesting sentence structure, idioms, verb forms, phonology, etc. For some learners, the "coolness" of a language dies out after the first few weeks of study. But learning Russian has been an adventure and the language is all the more beautiful to me now that I understand it at a higher level. And most of the knowledge I have of the country/culture comes from my language studies. Since I've started, I've listened to all sorts of different Russian music, watched Russian movies, eaten Russian food, read newspaper articles and stories depicting Russian life, etc. And I have only taken Russian language-learning classes - I have not actually taken any Russian history or politics classes in the English language.
So for me it is the language itself, then the culture and country. I first want to learn about their language (and if I am serious, how to communicate in it and actually speak it), and from there I start working on the big picture, understanding the culture. I do not care very much for government, politics, economics - for me those subjects are useful as a topic of conversation, but in and of themselves I have no interest in them. And also, for some languages like French or Spanish, there are many different cultures and countries that associate themselves with that language. And some of these have vast differences between them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5863 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 20 23 June 2009 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you studied English for many years in school, I don't think you can claim to be self taught. Of course, if you hadn't made any effort outside of school, you wouldn't have reached your level. But still, all that school work and years of exposure probably gave you a good base.
in this. Since you don't, why claim it's false? Edited by icing_death on 23 June 2009 at 3:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 15 of 20 23 June 2009 at 6:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You have no idea how much I like hearing this. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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