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Disliking your native tongue? | ||
Tags: Native Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4181 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 49 of 94 17 June 2013 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know that I could say I like or dislike my native language. It's simply the language I grew up using and the language of daily life for me. I don't consider that to be good or bad. But I have no trouble admitting that I dislike its status. I've almost stopped learning languages on multiple occasions because seemingly every European I meet speaks English and there's very little point in continuing to learn German. I can't avoid it; if they're around my age, they've probably been learning English for 10-15 years, I've only been learning German for 5. They will likely always be ahead of me. So sometimes I think there really is no point in learning languages as an English speaker, because really, no matter where I go, somebody will be able to speak English. There are some definite advantages to that obviously; with few exceptions, I'll be able to travel anywhere, but I do wish I had grown up in a multilingual environment.
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| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4671 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 50 of 94 18 June 2013 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Try Hungary. A cultural shock guaranteed (I say it from my experience).
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| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4715 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 51 of 94 18 June 2013 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I dislike my mother tongue English. A couple things I find stupid about English
1. Stupid orthography, like to the point where native speakers can have serious trouble. 2. not phonetic (like #1) 3. Terrible stress patterns Elevator vs elevAtor how are we supposed to know the difference (Accent marks needed at least) 4. Conjugation is not very regular (is, are, to be= same base, different persons) 5. Irregular vocabulary, such as words from different languages that mean the same but sound different. (Vocabulary is so extensive its complicated) These are just some of my complaints about English. But the thing that really grinds my gears about the majority of people who speak English is that they are so arrogant that they question why anyone would want to learn a language inferior to their own when everyone should just learn English. Don't get me wrong a universal language would be cool, but not English for the reasons I listed above. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4671 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 52 of 94 18 June 2013 at 8:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Ad. 4: je suis, tu es, nous sommes, être; jestem, są, być; as you can see, it's not that strange thing.
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| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4065 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 53 of 94 18 June 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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What I find annoying about English is that all online translators translate everything via English, so singular you in a sentence almost always ends up as the plural you in the target language, even in verb endings. Also, the irregularity in verb patterns is very complicated and the lack of grammatical reflexivity really grinds me.
This is not solely a problem of English, but it's one of my favorite things about Finnish: oppi - doctrine oppia - to learn opettaa - to teach (make someone learn) opettaja - teacher oppilas - pupil opisto - institute, academy opiskelu - studying opiskella - to study opinnot - studies opetus - teaching, lesson (as in "we've both learned a lesson today.") also in Finnish the word "opettautua" (reflexive of opettaa, 'have oneself be educated') can be understood even if you've never seen the word before because the morphological rules for this are regular (same with many other languages that have reflexivity.) English is still a good language even with all the problems and shortcomings it has. I think it would actually have been great to have been born a speaker of some minority language, having learnt it from my parents, then having learnt the major language of the country later and then English, however I'm still content with what I have. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 54 of 94 19 June 2013 at 9:17am | IP Logged | ||
When I began learning Afrikaans in 2007, I would sometimes think that any language would be more interesting than English. My attitude has changed and I now appreciate English as my mother tongue and the one I still use most often at least for now.
Edited by mick33 on 19 June 2013 at 9:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4434 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 55 of 94 19 June 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
Most Europeans don't grow up in a multilingual environment. Those that speak good English (or any other language) have to work hard on it. Whenever I go to Germany, I always meet lots of people who, if pushed, can get along in English but much prefer to speak German if possible. You just have to know where to look. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4519 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 56 of 94 19 June 2013 at 9:55am | IP Logged | ||
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And even those who do speak English really well often still prefer to speak their native
tongue. For example, whenever my ex-gf visited me here in the Netherlands, we spoke English as a rule (her Dutch wasn't good enough for proper conversations) so that is what happened. Now, this wasn't problematic from a logistical point of view; my family have spent time in Canada and learning English here is pretty much mandatory; if you examine my brother's English he would still be classified as "very, very good", especially when it comes to speaking and understanding the language. However my current girlfriend is Dutch, and he much prefers this because he still feels more at ease being able to communicate in Dutch (even though his English is definitely up to par). This is despite the fact he understands everything you can throw at him in English except for complicated jargon. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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