Post: #26

The main problem to me is the fact that teaching of languages is not very good here. The quality of instruction is not so good, and this turns off many people and convinces them that they "can't" learn it.

Post: #27

(09-19-2015 04:54 AM)Rawmeo Wrote:  We have a very popular saying among French-speaning Canadians:

How do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? -Trilingual
How do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? -Bilingual
How do you call someone who speaks 1 language? -American

Humans have a tendancy to reject the unknown before actually looking into it. A person who complains about you being bilingual / trilingual is, in 99.9% of all cases, unilingual.

Furthermore, I agree with the fact that when you go in a foreign country for a long-term stay, you need to learn their language. I live in Thailand, I learned Thai. It wasn't easy, but locals show a lot more respect when foreigners took time to learn their language.

I was always happy when the Thais helped me in English, because I always think, he is helping me, but he doesn't have to.

Dude - most Canadians are unilingual - there is no need for French out west unless you want to make into the higher ranks of Federal Government as a bureaucrat.

Post: #28

(09-28-2015 10:57 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  The main problem to me is the fact that teaching of languages is not very good here. The quality of instruction is not so good, and this turns off many people and convinces them that they "can't" learn it.

Language tends to very cultural by nature and why there are differences in dialects in a language. Consider two languages like Urdu and Hindi. Speakers of each language understand each other. Yet they use words of different origin. Where Urdu has influences from Arabic and Persian while Hindi is influenced by Sanskrit.

Post: #29

I'm not afraid, scared or any other bullshit regarding learning another language.

I just have no need to learn one. My time is precious.

And which one should I learn as an Englishman? French? Italian? German? Spanish? Chinese? Japanese? Russian? Thai?

None of those languages are remotely useful to me in any way shape or form besides being able to order some food or direct a taxi better 6-8 weeks of the year I am on holiday.


The only thing I am scared of is wasting my time.

Post: #30

What's interesting is that Americans get a lot more shit about being uni-lingual then say Canadians who aren't French Canadian as well as people from the other Anglo dominant countries.

Post: #31

As far as the shit americans get, everyone likes to take potshots at the big dog. So whenever i hear shit like that I actually enjoy it.

As far as learning languages when youre older. Its not harder than learning any other skill, the curve may be higher but all that takes is more time. After picking up a base in the language here ive become profecient through self study.


As for op, sounded like a basic way to try to connect with a person he assumed was similar to himself by discrediting the person you were talking to.

Post: #32

Until every hot chick in every country can speak conversational English, I will keep learning foreign languages. How else can I tell them to go easy on the teeth?

I second the expat thing. It's like a badge of pride for older guys here to speak none of the local language. I don't get it. When I order coffee, the looks I get are like I've just given a new revelation from God.

Post: #33

Theres a certain discomfort people feel when they come across a foreign language in a place they dont expect.

Perhaps the inability to participate gives them a feeling of alienation and discomfort which then if they fear the unknown they can easily catagorize that and respond in a way that their mind can handle.

For some reason I recalled something from a few years ago. After a night of drinking with some people, i had learned of of the guys was studying korean on an intensive level. Having just returned from korea i found it amusing to hurl random insults in korean to him, hed respond in kind and we were having a jolly ol time. Follow up the next day, apparently nearly everyone else felt weirded out that we used anything other than english. Despite the fact that all parties knew us and that we both knew the language.

Post: #34

Brits are also uni-lingual. The arrogance that Americans hold in only speaking English comes from the UK. Citizens of the United Kingdom are the worst in Europe when it comes to speaking any other than their main language. Most Brits can not converse in anything beyond English.

I think the whole reluctance in speaking another language is that fear of compromise. It's a final and desperate grasp onto what was once sacrosanct, the revere of the British Empire.

My statement to those such as CrashBangWallop is this, if you learn another language you will have a one up on those others who do not have English as their native tongue since you already have a powerful mastery of the most widely spoken language in the world which is English.

Post: #35

It is incredibly funny about this observation that OP said.

I have always thought that it is due to English/Irish(and scottish to certain extend, i found that scottish give less of fuck to stuff like that in general) being insecure at that:
Basically, they would feel 'insecure' if you speak a foreigner language within the range that they can hear you because apparently it is a common social etiquette that anything that you speak (freely) in public, the person who managed to eavesdrop whatever you are talking about shouldn't feel offended/awkward. It is ridiculous like that.

The observation first started lets say somewhere in England (not big cities) I speak spanish with a couple of spanish friends when we have an english friend among us, but we quickly agree on we should speak in english because we have a friend who cant speak/listen spanish, and because we are in UK so using english is the more appropriate language. Now that is fair and being considerate.

However, in reality, many british (lets just make my life easier for using 'british', people from different parts of uk/ireland have different tendency to accept foreign culture) have this self-entitlement of everyone should speak english when they are nearby them, this is very apparent when you see them getting annoyed when they are visiting other places outside of UK/Ireland.

I usually just cant be bothered with people like that (and these people usually give a bad name for british out there), sometimes if they annoyed me i would just go 'you know english is the international language has nothing to do with UK but it is because of USA right?'.

So considering the amount of arrogance and self-entitlement from some only-english speaking people out there, I wouldn't expect them to respect or admire foreign language/s let alone multilingual speakers. And like someone mentioned above, you make them look bad as well (this is very true for fellow english especially). However, it is only fair to say that british from big cities are usually cool with stuff like that. My friends from London wouldn't give a shit if we speak our language all day lol.

Also, i know for a fact that some (really) wealthy parents want their children to learn some chinese nowadays, this has started back in 2005 when i first heard about it. Go figure.

Post: #36

(10-19-2015 05:04 PM)Moma Wrote:  My statement to those such as CrashBangWallop is this, if you learn another language you will have a one up on those others who do not have English as their native tongue since you already have a powerful mastery of the most widely spoken language in the world which is English.

A one up when, on whom and how though?

Seriously, there are a million and one things more important to me on financial, intellectual and spiritual levels than learning another language.

It is neither useful nor fun to me. There is simply no point.

Post: #37

(10-20-2015 11:03 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(10-19-2015 05:04 PM)Moma Wrote:  My statement to those such as CrashBangWallop is this, if you learn another language you will have a one up on those others who do not have English as their native tongue since you already have a powerful mastery of the most widely spoken language in the world which is English.

A one up when, on whom and how though?

Seriously, there are a million and one things more important to me on financial, intellectual and spiritual levels than learning another language.

It is neither useful nor fun to me. There is simply no point.

You are perfectly entitled to do what stimulates you. I am only trying to remove the ego away from language learning or the fear of losing one's own culture. I think communicative skills are an extremely important part of one's intelligence quotient and learning another language just expands even further on the existing base. To say that learning a language is not intellectual or spiritual, I would have to respectfully disagree upon. It may not be financially rewarding to you and I can definitely see it from that angle depending on the language one decides to learn.

That being said, if it's a skillset that you don't enjoy..for whatever reason, then don't learn a language just to learn it. Knowledge acquisition works best when it's fun.