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Your environment and your language study | ||
Tags: Surroundings | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6767 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes  Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 1 of 30 17 September 2006 at 11:42am | IP Logged |
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I was wondering, how does your environment view your language obsession (or "language learning activities", in case it's not really an obsession for you)? What are the reactions you get from people when they find out you study one or more languages?
Just to give an example of what I mean, several years ago, when I was starting out with my French and English, some people were telling me that it was just a stupid waste of time and that I should be instead looking for a job (I wasn't working at the time). Luckily I didn't listen to those nay-sayers; instead I concentrated on my studies and was subsequently able to land a nice job as a translator. It seems that now the reactions have become more positive. Some people think I'm a somewhat crazy eccentric, but I really don't mind that. Other people I'm close to accept and respect me for being a linguaphile. Most people I meet react quite positively when they find out that I speak and study several languages, and it has led more than once to some really interesting conversations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 30 17 September 2006 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
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I had a friend who lived in Israel for a year and although she studied Hebrew as a child, she really learned it in Israel. I'm curious how common bi/trilingualism is where you live?
Where I live, usually only immigrants are bilingual. Many would like to know another language if it didn't require so much effort. Most people I discuss language learning with view my endeavor with favor. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Maximus Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6751 days ago 417 posts - 427 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai | Message 3 of 30 17 September 2006 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
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Unfortunately I live in England. A terrible environment. So my environment has responses different to the european continent. Most people are ignorant to language learning and don't see importance of other languages which is totally ignorant. So most people are not bothered about conversations about language learning so I never bring up languages in every day conversation because most people don't have interest.
On the other hand, a minority of people think that it makes one superintelligent to learn languages because most people in this environment see language learning as too dificult in this mostly monolingual environment. But the majority don't even care about foreign languages and some even oppose them which is obviously a very bad environment 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6840 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 30 17 September 2006 at 5:37pm | IP Logged |
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I live in the south of England and I must say that when I mention that I love languages and that I'm fascinated by them people are either impressed or think I'm a nutter!
When I mention French people same age as me say "oh I was rubbish at school!" or another non-caring remark. Mention Japanese however and everyone is impressed! Even this guy I've mentioned elsewhere who spoke fluent German, French and Russian!! Good thing is that no-one seems to want to discourage me in any way. Edited by Felixelus on 17 September 2006 at 5:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| duffdude Groupie United Kingdom Joined 7195 days ago 75 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 5 of 30 17 September 2006 at 7:09pm | IP Logged |
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yeah, in the UK the environment is so bad it's actually good! People think you're a genius!
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 6 of 30 17 September 2006 at 10:31pm | IP Logged |
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Back in British Columbia, people were fairly supportive, but language learners were considered still a bit oddball, unless it was French you were learning.
Japan is a pretty good environment. Even though few of them are fluent in a second language, Japanese are avid language students and self-improvement enthusiasts — adults with spare time are always enrolling in classes for something, whether it's for sadou (tea ceremony) or ikebana (flower arrangement) or French. My classmate in Portuguese, for example, took Indonesian last year. Now she's taking Portuguese for something new (and not because she needs it for work or anything). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 30 18 September 2006 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
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In Scandinavia people more or less take it for granted that you should know at least the local language plus English, and then maybe one or two more. So taking in a couple more than a couple more is not something that is frown upon. At university level the big thing right now is Chinese, whereas the number of students in the classical European languages (French, German) is falling. I'm not quite sure how things are at lower levels.
Personally I have always had somewhat unusual hobbies, so the people I know just take it in the stride when I study (in their eyes) strange languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| InsanePenguin Senior Member Wales Joined 6873 days ago 248 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 30 18 September 2006 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
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I agree with the posts about living in the UK, but the upside is when you are fluent in more than one language it makes you that little bit more unique than a large proportion of the population!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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