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Fem. polyglots: Too few or camera shy? | ||
Tags: Female Polyglot | Youtube Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4715 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 57 of 65 30 August 2012 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||
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There's an Italian girl who helped people with Japanese. Now she's living in Japan, so that's gotta count. Her name is Serena, and this is her Youtube channel
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 58 of 65 30 August 2012 at 7:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Women have been raised through generations to stand back, and always let men pass first, to always believe
men are better than them. Even in " equal opportunity" Norway, 60 % of a particular study field may be women, 80 % of the ones with the best grades may be women, but the ones who get the great jobs or become professors are mostly men. Women have been looked down upon for asserting themselves, where men have been looked up to. When I recruited for jobs at my department I realised that the major difference between men and women is not ability but self confidence. Where the women would focus on their short comings ( which is not the brightest thing to do in a recruitment phase) the men would claim knowledge they did not have. At this point in time I am the boss of two people who happen to be men, because It turned out that they were the best, but I made really sure they were before hiring them. I work at a company which is very male dominated, and it was not until this very moment that I realised that I am usually the only female speaker when we do conferences. Of course I have worked as a guide, standing in front of a crowd twice a day for 5 summers, and then I worked as a teacher for two years standing in front of a group 5 times a day. In my current job we have conferences perhaps 2-5 times a year only. Which I make up for by giving conferences on my free time 8-10 times a year :-) I see that I am very much the exception, and that most women need a lot of convincing. What I do see though, is that once they are convinced, they make excellent speakers. And we should not hold it against them that they are reluctant to speak. It is a result of centuries of education. You might as well hold it against the cat that it catches mice. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 59 of 65 30 August 2012 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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In England, we talk about the "glass ceiling" that prevents women being promoted.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4334 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 60 of 65 27 August 2013 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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While I might get criticized for self-advertisement (because my video contains an invitation to visit my blog) and for bumping it nearly a year after the last post, this thread inspired me to shed all self-awareness and make a first, very tentative attempt at uploading a video to youtube. Japanese is the language I feel most comfortable with for something impromptu like this (as I did this without a script) so while the audio is in Japanese, I went ahead and added English subtitles as well.
Also, partially thanks to this attempt, I realized how rusty I am at spoken Japanese(!). 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 61 of 65 28 August 2013 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I believe there are several troubles women in particular encounter when becoming (trying to become) polyglots and later when considering whether to present the skills:
1.a bit reduced options when travelling. for example, I wasn't worried about going to Berlin alone. I would go to most European countries and cities. But I wouldn't go to most asian, african or arabic countries alone (I know, the arabic countries are already part of the named continents, it's just an area by itself I believe). From what I heard from friends, I would probably hesitate before going to some south american ones. I think there are few women who would just get their backpack and go away like Benny and some others men-polyglots do. There was a very recent case of two Czech women of approximately my age who were kidnapped on their journey to India. I don't know how it ended, I think they are still there, perhaps dead. 2.I think many women, especially mums, have less time for languages than men because in many families, they still have bigger workload at home. And many, including my mom, just feel there is always something that needs to be done or the world ends. Yes, the centuries are still there. (I even remember my granny telling me how badluck it was I was not a boy with my brains. I was five or so and I still remember even though I experienced discrimination based on sex "only" once.) 3.Male polyglots make videos just to share their skills. Most women will care not only about their skills but as well about their looks and that is part of the confidence. I know far too many women (including myself) who dislike their photos or videos even though they are not that ugly. I guess that might be one of the reasons why there are less such video channels because female polyglots are still women and therefore share some of our common faults and insecurities despite their achievements. Actually, I wonder why more women from htlal, like Serpent, don't present their skills and views in a youtube channel. I'd actually appreciate such videos very much. And I live under the impression that Serpent is a very confident woman who accepts and presents herself really well. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 62 of 65 28 August 2013 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
As for myself, I'm glad I give such an impression ;) But actually I've had a lot of speech therapy as a kid and I'm used to believing that my speech is incorrect, even in my native language. (although especially an English speaker probably wouldn't tell that I have any sort of problems) I don't even participate in team Viking skype sessions (even doing it once was an achievement), partly because weekend=football and because I understand the Scandinavian languages better in writing, but also because I just lack the confidence, although this would not even be recorded or anything. I would totally love to videochat with you privately though :))) Just let me gather some confidence first :P 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 63 of 65 28 August 2013 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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In all fairness, I think people are less nasty than we think. When Richard Simcott asked me to do a video with
him to be published on YouTube I totally panicked, whining about the fact that I had put on so much weight over the last year, that I wasn't sure I wanted to go public. Richard just gave me a stern look, and I caved, mentally preparing myself to be called old, fat, ugly, and whatever else people might throw at me. Now we have received more than 160 comments, and practically all of them have been positive, some of them almost embarrassingly positive. And not one single one has been about looks. The only thing people have commented on as far as visuals go, are my roses, and I am always willing to receive compliments over my roses :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4369 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 64 of 65 31 August 2013 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
This is why I hate putting up pictures/videos of myself; when I do my videos I always have to make sure I'm dressed well, am wearing some makeup, jewelry, etc. Although it doesn't seem to happen so much on language channels, videos women post on YouTube tend to have comments regarding their appearance--positive and negative. I did finally cave in and do a few YouTube videos of me practicing my Polish, partially as a way to document my progress, and partially as a way to encourage other learners. I too would enjoy and appreciate videos from other HTLAL members (including Cavesa). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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