Your environment and your language study (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Your environment and your language study
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

30 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Maximus
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6751 days ago
417 posts - 427 votes

Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Thai

Message 25 of 30

19 September 2006 at 9:56am | IP Logged

I am pleased that someone brought up the idea of social acceptability.
My parents were really encouraging when I began to learn Spanish. They believe that it is logical to learn Spanish for vaciations and the importance of Spanish too. But when I began to learn Thai my parents didn't like the idea and thought it was a stupid idea and actually opposed the idea. But I went ahead with Thai of course but my parents still think that I am strange but I see it as good to learn more "strange" languages. My father of course tells people that I now learn Thai, he shows off to nhis friends because his son learns Thai and those people are all like "wooow" and think that I am some kind of oddball
1 person has voted this message useful

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 26 of 30

19 September 2006 at 10:14am | IP Logged

Thai's an awesome language, and potentially more marketable than the "usual" languages, because of Thailand's growing economy and large population compared to the number of foreigners who have learned the language.
1 person has voted this message useful

Frisco
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6858 days ago
380 posts - 398 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Mandarin

Message 27 of 30

19 September 2006 at 5:15pm | IP Logged

japkorengchi wrote:

I think it's better to use our language skills to impress people rather than frightening them away. If you show off your language skills at the right time in a right way, it can gain you some admiration and respect. But there is one Chinese idiom that if you do something too much it will go the other way round. If you show off too much of your language skills, it's not good for me to make friends.

Of course, but my friends understand I have a twisted sense of humor.
1 person has voted this message useful

gogglehead
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 6077 days ago
248 posts - 320 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Russian, Italian

Message 28 of 30

11 June 2009 at 9:40am | IP Logged

Maximus wrote:

I live in the north, So obviously it makes for a diferent environment. In the north we don't really have many immigrants neither. But I think what I say about the attitudes in the UK is pretty accurate. The UK certainly lacks language skills compared to others. I mean where I live many people have nationalist tendencies, especially the elders and they see it as unpatriotic to learn another language. That certainly makes a terrible environment. And also it seems that people of the UK are stereotyped as Monolingual which motivates me morew to learn several foreign languages in order to remove that negative label from me

Exactly. Where I grew up in Lancashire, anyone who could even speak their native language correctly was seen as some sort of linguistic scientist.
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Iwwersetzerin
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
Luxembourg
Joined 5671 days ago
259 posts - 513 votes

Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, German^C2, English^C2, Spanish^C2, Dutch^C1, Italian^C1
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

Message 29 of 30

11 June 2009 at 10:22am | IP Logged

I'm from Luxembourg, probably one of the best language learning environments there is. Everyone has to learn at least 4 languages in school (Luxembourgish, French, German and English) and it is possible to study 2 more, in most schools either Latin or ancient Greek and Spanish or Italian). Plus, there are a lot of immigrants, Portuguese and Italians being the majority, and many people from all over Europe working for the European institutions here. So, it is quite normal to be fluent in 5 languages. The unusual thing over here would be to be monolingual.
So language learning is regarded very favorably, people would only be surprised, and probably positively impressed, if you learn a more "unusual" language such as Chinese, Arabic or Esperanto.
1 person has voted this message useful

Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5768 days ago
2256 posts - 4046 votes

Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

Message 30 of 30

11 June 2009 at 11:12pm | IP Logged

Different parts of Western/Southern Germany; people usually ask me why I don't learn a more useful language like Spanish, French - of if I am that clever, Chinese.

Because I do this voluntarily, people usually seem to think I either weird or very clever/ambitious. (I'm weird.)

Oh, and my mom thinks it's a great idea to bring home mags in Russian to tease me.

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