Ever been asked NOT to learn a language? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Ever been asked NOT to learn a language?
Tags: Discouragement from learning
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

zdri
Newbie
United States
Joined 6064 days ago
29 posts - 74 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian

Message 33 of 35

05 May 2012 at 9:38pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

My sister is a different story. I grew up hearing how accomplished she was,
and how lazy I was, and partly
because of my dyslexia ( and partly because she is really good with details) her written English,
French and
German is considerably better than mine. I would have understood her feelings if I were brilliant and
she
was hopeless or really slow, but neither is the case. She is really good at languages, and there is
absolutely
no reason why she should have low self esteem. I therefore still struggle to understand why she
would be
worried by the competition. In the 20 - odd years that have passed since this I think the only time
when we
were speaking Italian when we were together was a week's holiday in Italy 15 years ago.

You have dyslexia?! Please explain to me how you can learn languages despite that barrier. I
don't have dyslexia, but I have friends and relatives who have it. One of my friends literally could not
write two sentences when he graduated from high school. (American high schools have low
standards.)

How bad is your dyslexia? Are you more dyslexic on some languages than others? I believe English is
an especially bad language for dyslexics, but I have never had the chance to ask a bilingual dyslexic if
this is true. I have also heard that the kind of person who is dyslexic in a logographic language like
Chinese has a different kind of brain than somebody who is dyslexic in a language with an alphabet.

My younger sister has always been jealous of everything I do. She sometimes tells me to stop reading.
I respond by asking if she would rather have a sister who does not know anything.
1 person has voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5119 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 34 of 35

05 May 2012 at 11:32pm | IP Logged

I was saved by two things.
1. I have no problems reading (except for Russian)
2. I was not diagnosed with dyslexia until I was 20.

The good thing about that last part was that since my terrible spelling was just considered to be due to
laziness and sloppiness it never occurred to me to let it influence my carreer choice. Had I known that I was
dyslexic, I would probably not have deared to study languages. Also a lot of people who have dyslexia shun
every type of writing. I have been studying or working with languages and writing every day since I was 5
years old. I cringe when I do it, but I do it, and the insane amounts of practice I get, particularly in English
helps me a lot. Every time I write something here on the forum I see in big letters "if you can't spell it don't
write it". And I cringe again. I am a perfectionist, so knowing that every post I write here will have spelling
errors, and probably irritate the PJs off anyone who read them eats me up. Most of them will have an "edit"
for the typos I find three seconds after I post it. Sometimes I read my own post after the editing limit is past
and find the most horrific errors. When I was a teacher it was however a good thing to be dyslexic. So
many of the kids thought they'd have to give up their dreams for it, and I was there to tell them that if I
could get a University degree in three foreign languages, there was nothing they could not do. But I know
that I have been very lucky. Both because I was very good at reading, and because my mother sent me to
Spain and France so I could do those languages really well, inspite of my dyslexia. Had I been left to learn
languages at school, I would probably not have done very well, and would have felt like a failure at
everything. As it was I was the kid who was fluent in three foreign languages at the age of 15, and the
confidence that gave me helped me through the rest.
8 persons have voted this message useful

prz_
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
last.fm/user/prz_rul
Joined 4644 days ago
890 posts - 1190 votes

Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian
Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish

Message 35 of 35

06 May 2012 at 1:58am | IP Logged

You're an example proving that nothing is impossible!

3 persons have voted this message useful

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