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Weird Things Language Learning Teaches | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 13 20 August 2013 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry.
1. I didn't believe it until I got my own experience. Seemed like one of the thousand myths I heard and that proved to be nonsence. 5. Practicability? I highly doubt it costs the same money to send something from France to the Czech Republic as to Venezuela or Japan. And I highly doubt it costs twice as much as sending the same thing from Spain to the CR than from France. And how can you speak of practicality when it comes to purely online services? It would cost them nothing. It is just a stupid "law" and its friends who prefer to keep people thieves instead of allowing us to pay reasonable money for good form of the serve. So discrimination is the correct word. When some eshops distinct clearly (by multiplifaction by 2,3 or even 5) between old and "new" members, it is. When a "law" leads to serious disadvantages for people from smaller countries, it is discrimination. 7. It does have a lot in common. The language textbooks full of colourful pictures and photos usually have the less actual content. How do I know? Used, tried or leafed through dozens. And learning foreign languages is where the dumbness of "modern" and "fun" teaching approaches is expressed the most. 3.I noted it applies to much more languages than just English, that is why I mentioned it. It is a bit of an exagerration (btw have you ever heard of something called humour?). You know, let's forget about use of the weird as "something not expectable, even defying logic, often funny" and let's get back to weird as "a cliche I found true". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4253 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 10 of 13 21 August 2013 at 6:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Learning foreign languages makes someone like myself appreciate other cultures and traditions. My
parents always assumed their culture and country of origin is superior to everybody else's. 1 thing you tend to be analytical at times comparing 2 languages. In 1 language this is the subject, in another this is the object, etc. Today while listening to a radio program on learning Chinese came across a simple phrase: 左转 for a left turn. In English one would use in a sentence "to make a left turn". The "left turn" would be used as an object to the verb "make". If you turn the 2 words around you'd have "turn left" The word "turn" becomes a verb and "left" becomes the object of the verb "turn". "Turn left" & "to make a left turn" means the same thing but the 2 words written in reverse. In other words you assume the same would apply in Chinese: 左转 used together means "left turn" as an object. Reverse the 2 you have "转左". The "转" becomes a verb and "左" becomes object of the verb. A few years ago started to learn to type in Chinese on computer with various input software. Now I'm can do it easily in English as in Chinese. A friend who recently started joining the online community sent a type letter. Found some common mistakes picking the wrong character from the list that have similar Pinyin phonetics such as: 是 & 时 (entered as SHI), 已 & 以 (entered as YI). To enter a character in Chinese you would type in the Pinyin phonetics and pick from a list of matching characters on computer screen. Sometimes you pick the wrong one so you need to proofread your text after you're done typing. The Chinese language is 1 of the few that can be entered on computer but without the aid of a spell check or grammar check. Because of the way sentences are written without word separation like European languages, a computer won't be able to distinguish 1 word from the next. Edited by shk00design on 21 August 2013 at 6:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5016 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 13 21 August 2013 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Another one along the lines of Cavesa's list:
People tend to just assume that you know Spanish, even if you don't. This is addressed in the HTLAL Spanish guide ("And if you speak many languages, people will just assume you speak perfect Spanish anyway"), and in my experience it's true, even though my languages aren't exactly "many". I've lost count of how many of my friends and people I meet just automatically assume that since I speak a couple of other languages, I must speak Spanish too, and don't seem to believe me when I say I don't. Edited by garyb on 21 August 2013 at 11:32am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Theycalme_Jane Diglot Newbie United Kingdom theafrikaanschalleng Joined 3934 days ago 28 posts - 48 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 12 of 13 21 August 2013 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
But don't you think that highly comes down to where you live? Say I know people from Finland usually speak Swedish, and it makes more sense to me, because of geography. People in Asian countries are more likely to learn languages from their neigbouring coutnry along with English, because English is good for business. Even in Germany, as far as I know, as it's been divided for a while, not everyone is expected to know Spanish, even if it's a language with a lot of speakers. In the former GDR people were more likely to know Russian. In the rest of Germany, they'd speak English and French above all. I believe Spanish came into the curriculum much later and is not really a must. I haven't really needed it much despite the fact that there are a lot of speakers. I think this comes down to what actually makes sense in business relations and everyday life. As for that previous post on "practicability", I'm sorry, I really don't understand the entire argument. Call me stupid, I'm fine with that. 1 person has 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 13 of 13 22 August 2013 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||
I've learned that throwing money at language learning is absolutely unnecessary for a popular language (here) like French. Yep, I'm looking at you Rosetta Stone. You can potentially get everything you need from your library and free websites like Sharedtalk.
I've found that they also tend to assume that you know more of the language than you actually do (well unless you are one of those C2 learners, which I certainly am not). I have also discovered that no only am I learning French, but I am also mastering the art of circumlocution. Edited by Darklight1216 on 22 August 2013 at 12:09am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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