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Disliking your native tongue? | ||
Tags: Native Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4865 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 17 of 94 13 January 2013 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like my mothertongue very much, but I'm not proud of it because there is nothing to be
proud of. I would like to know other languages too because it is interesting and broadens possibilities. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4865 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 18 of 94 13 January 2013 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Try to answer questions of foreign learners about Russian or Ukrainian. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4167 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 19 of 94 13 January 2013 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I love my language very much, and I feel lucky to know it. Having said that, I am sure I'd feel lucky nomatter which my native language was. As native speakers we are fully aware of the depth and beauty of our language, and we can only hope that, learning other languages, we will ever reach that level. At least I do.
How can anyone think their native language is stupid? Maybe it's not an aversion towards the language, but some other deeper issue with the culture, the lifestyle or whatever. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4512 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 20 of 94 14 January 2013 at 1:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Ehh. When people put down their own native languages, I always get the sense that it's
like some people's attitudes toward a younger sibling. You can see all your little brother's flaws and get to tease him about it, but if anyone else picks on him, they're dead. So I would take any claims of disliking one's own native language with a grain of salt. A Dutch person may take pride in how good their English is and insist on speaking it to foreigners, but that definitely doesn't make it okay for you to say that yeah, Dutch is useless. In fact, if you did, you'd probably get a very cold reception. As for my native tongue - I feel neutral/good about it. Can't deny it's useful. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alanjazz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4624 days ago 65 posts - 129 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese | Message 21 of 94 14 January 2013 at 4:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Though I don't hate the English language, I hate its status. English is an expected skill for people the world over to
simply have, whereas other foreign languages are relegated to being someone's personal interest, culturally interesting, but never comparable to the overwhelming global reach of English. It generates the discussed-to-death cultural phenomenon in the UK and the US of a cultural attitude towards monolingualism being enough, which is a vicious cycle. Sure, I may be exaggerating a little, and I can definitely see how arguments can be made for Spanish, French and Portuguese (or even other languages) as having a similar status, but English really seems to take the cake. What I see happening is that the language is too big learner-wise - there are thousands of interesting and beautiful languages out there, and all this attention on just this one is ridiculous. People on HTLAL have made really good points about how many more languages could be being learned if it weren't for the dominance of English. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5934 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 22 of 94 14 January 2013 at 6:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I do meet learners now and then who are appalled by the encroachment of English loan words into Japanese. With Finnish too, I did read someone complaining about English slang creeping into that language. On this, personally, I don't really care so much -- really, Japan and Finland can basically take care of themselves.
What's more of an actual thing to be upset about, I think, was the oppression of American Indian languages up to about the 50's or so. I can't really 'hate English' for this, but spreading of English is the result of some destruction of culture. This maybe is a bit of a political opinion, but now that most of the native languages are on the verge of extinction or in decline, I don't think the tribes are really so much better off with English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4909 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 23 of 94 14 January 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like English alot, I'm just frustrated by it's dominance. I hate that words like "jogging" and "shopping" have infiltrated French. I probably won't study Swedish very seriously for simple reason that so many Swedes speak English so well.
At my job, I once spoke with a client who is German (and who taught me a word) and she said that her two daughters often prefer to speak English because it's easier. Edited by Darklight1216 on 14 January 2013 at 5:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4448 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 24 of 94 14 January 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is sad when people make political issues influence their view of a language, whether it is their own mother tongue or not. I am actually surprised that native English speakers deplore the fact that the English language has become a lingua franca for most of the world. Sure, as a native English speaker it might mean that you have less of an incentive to learn e.g. Swedish, because most Swedes speak English well. Still, if you are really interested in Swedish culture, literature or whatever, what does it matter?
If it wasn't English it would be another language that dominated - it is just impossible to imagine, in this day and age with modern communication tools like internet, that we could live without one major world language. For one, it would have made communication here on HTLAL much more difficult, one just has to see how often there are posts in the non-English subforums to appreciate the fact that we have English as a common language. Personally, I couldn't care less if it is English, French, Swahili or Latin that is the lingua franca, but that being said, I think English is a beautiful language and I appreciate its many varieties, whether American, Australian, Scottish, Irish, Yorkshire or RP. Edit: And by the way, I love my own language, Norwegian, too. Edited by Ogrim on 14 January 2013 at 5:37pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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