Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:17 pm

David1917 wrote:Lots of anecdotal back-and-forth here, which does nothing for sweeping statements.

We know it is a fact that USA'ians are notoriously monolingual. It is largely cultural. That breeds laziness. I mean, it's gotten to the point that it's too much to ask people to know how to multiply a restaurant tab by 1.2 in order to calculate a tip - now either the restaurant provides those options for you (15, 18, 20%) or you get a nice app where you can punch in the total and it does all the scary math for you. People can complain all day long about how much they don't "get" math or "get" languages, but both are untrue. You do and can "get" them, you're just given an impetus not to, and people naturally take the path of least resistance. That is the definition of laziness. I should maybe add that I don't mean that it makes you a bad person to be lazy.


Could it be that you're not all that travelled outside the States, or move in the wrong circles? I don't know, maybe you are well-travelled, but then it puzzles me why you'd have missed some obvious things. I've met a fair few of Americans in many countries and most spoke other languages. I'm not talking about casual tourists (though even there you see it) or people on a gap year or people working for Shell posted overseas. This would mean, I assume, that these are the ones who speak other languages. The rejoinder would then be: 'aha! but this is a minority...the exceptions that prove the rule. The rest are all monolinguals.' To which my answer would be: 'so what?' Do you really think that everywhere else outside the U.S. UK AUS the majority of every country's population is uniquely comprised of polyglots? People seem to think this and will claim it endlessly, but it's pure, unadulterated drivel, increasingly so. The very least 'requirement' now is that people speak English and even that is not guaranteed outside the metropolises (or in them!). All historical pluri-linguistic requirements were caused by circumstances; previously small linguistic groupings meeting one another in shared homelands for trade and forced contact, but unwilling to surrender language identity.

People who aren't language enthusiasts learn languages for purely practical reasons and it is often a chore. This goes for for most of Europe too. Even the much-vaunted places like Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. In Switzerland, that oft-quoted example of pluri-linguistic paradises (I've worked there), there are many people in the French areas who are pretty much hopeless at German, go there and try it. The French, like in France itself, are very keen for people to speak French, but not quite so keen on having to learn other languages. Sound familiar? German teaching in Geneva is half-hearted. By contrast French instruction in German speaking areas is taken more seriously.

Whilst in some sense an argument could be made that English dominance has contributed to relieving native English speakers of the immediate burden of learning other languages, this is no argument for especial cases of cultural idiocy. It's not only the U.S. that has been moving towards a policy of a national language over the last few hundred years; it happened in Germany and France and Italy and China... You can bet your bottom dollar if history had unfolded differently at various junctures there would be another language from somewhere in a dominant global position and people would be calling its native speakers 'lazy' for relaxing and capitalising on the fact that everyone speaks their language.

The topic of the thread (and what it related back to) is indeed more an opinion and thought experiment, because it is not a real prospect.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby David1917 » Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:55 pm

You can call native English speakers lazy when you find a country where everyone learns Thai, Uzbek, etc.

Yes, learning English takes considerable work if it's not your native language. No, that doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't learn a useless language is lazy.


Do you really think that everywhere else outside the U.S. UK AUS the majority of every country's population is uniquely comprised of polyglots?


Y'all love straw man arguments. Cavesa's original point was that if you enroll into a language class, compulsory or not, and get nothing from it, then it is user error. I even agreed with the first detractor that such failures were functions of society/education systems. Of course people take the path of least resistance. There is nothing wrong with that.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby sillygoose1 » Sat May 01, 2021 3:40 pm

Going back to OP, it seems like language learners seem to have unfair expectations of others regarding how many languages they should speak and I am guilty of projecting my linguistic desires unto others. Not many people are really apt for it. Not many can even progress past Duolingo let alone the infamous intermediate plateau in a language linguistically similar to their own. This is akin to a mathematician saying that an educated person should know up to Calculus 3 and advanced Algebra.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby Iversen » Sat May 01, 2021 4:59 pm

David1917 wrote:Of course people take the path of least resistance.There is nothing wrong with that.


It would be more correct to say that there is nothing unexpected about it, but it is definitely allowed to think that it's a pity, and that it isn't a positive thing that language learning in schools becomes restricted to learning English.

For instance here in Denmark German skills among school pupils have plummeted even though Germany is a major neighbour country and that we as a nation have a clear interest in having a sizeable stock of decent German speakers. The same with French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese etc. If there isn't an immediate reward for studying these languages then the schools and their pupils spend their efforts on English and English alone because everyone here can see that you have to learn that language. Maybe you can't blame each individual child (or school) for neglecting the other languages, and nobody in their sane mind would expect all Danes to learn six languages to perfection, but as a country we loose the direct contact with most of the world if all communication with it has to pass through English. The interests of the country are in direct conflict with the choices made by its citizens.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby golyplot » Sat May 01, 2021 5:57 pm

sillygoose1 wrote:Going back to OP, it seems like language learners seem to have unfair expectations of others regarding how many languages they should speak and I am guilty of projecting my linguistic desires unto others. Not many people are really apt for it. Not many can even progress past Duolingo let alone the infamous intermediate plateau in a language linguistically similar to their own. This is akin to a mathematician saying that an educated person should know up to Calculus 3 and advanced Algebra.


Nah, Calculus is easy. This is like saying an educated person should be able to rederive the proof of Dirchlet's Theorem.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby David1917 » Sat May 01, 2021 7:20 pm

sillygoose1 wrote:Going back to OP, it seems like language learners seem to have unfair expectations of others regarding how many languages they should speak and I am guilty of projecting my linguistic desires unto others. Not many people are really apt for it. Not many can even progress past Duolingo let alone the infamous intermediate plateau in a language linguistically similar to their own. This is akin to a mathematician saying that an educated person should know up to Calculus 3 and advanced Algebra.


In many of his other posts back then he lamented having a less-than-satisfactory knowledge of mathematics and "hard science" which he has apparently since remedied. Math is something people skimp on because "when am I ever going to use this?" I do think some of the more abstract stuff seems pointless, but teaching people say, Euclid's Elements would certainly create better problem solvers and logicians. And like I noted above, you should be able to do simple arithmetic without an app.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby Serpent » Mon May 03, 2021 2:42 pm

David1917 wrote: And like I noted above, you should be able to do simple arithmetic without an app.
When most of us went to primary school, teachers said you won't always carry a calculator wherever you go :lol:
Restaurants that calculate the tip for you do it as a further incentive to make you tip more :)
I've never used a tip calculation app but I can see how it has its use, especially in the USA with its tipping culture. I don't think the alternative is doing a mental calculation yourself - the alternative is making a guesstimate and possibly tipping too little or more than you intended. (Even with an app there's the possibility of performance error ie entering incorrect numbers)
I don't have much personal experience but I'm sure without calculators/apps ppl are likely to ask the go-to "math person" to calculate the tip, and potentially bicker over the amount, etc. Some people have learning disabilities or just don't trust their counting skills when drunk :D (There are probably many other examples, like chronic pain)
And just in terms of developing your math skills, I would destigmatize counting with pen&paper first of all :) But honestly I'm not sure it really changes anything other than learning/practising a skill. It certainly doesn't make you a better person.

For about 10 years I made an effort to say all numbers in my L2 (mostly Finnish and Italian)... Honestly it was such a relief when I allowed myself to just use Russian, especially when it's money-related :lol: I'm now aiming to use Croatian but I try to be gentle with myself, and I think this is something easier to do in a language closely related to your L1. (I know that this can differ even in related languages)
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby Le Baron » Mon May 03, 2021 3:44 pm

Serpent wrote:I've never used a tip calculation app but I can see how it has its use, especially in the USA with its tipping culture.

Yes, most countries don't worry about calculating tip percentages because the staff are actually paid. A tip is given for personal thanks and it can be whatever the tipper is prepared to give.

Serpent wrote:I don't have much personal experience but I'm sure without calculators/apps ppl are likely to ask the go-to "math person" to calculate the tip, and potentially bicker over the amount, etc. Some people have learning disabilities or just don't trust their counting skills when drunk :D (There are probably many other examples, like chronic pain)
And just in terms of developing your math skills, I would destigmatize counting with pen&paper first of all :) But honestly I'm not sure it really changes anything other than learning/practising a skill. It certainly doesn't make you a better person.

Deferring to the 'maths person' is exactly what happens. In any case I've never yet seen a scenario where people were especially troubled by working-out the tip. Even in the days when mental arithmetic and times-tables were drilled into students there were still people who couldn't do mental arithmetic. This alleged 'new' dearth of life-skills is largely a figment of the imagination of tiresome social conservatives. Where it is real it is magnified for effect.
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby sirgregory » Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:07 pm

I've had discussions/debates with various people on this. I myself lean toward something like Arguelles's view (though not as extreme), but it's probably a losing battle. The trends in education have been moving away from liberal arts ideals and toward economic convenience and practicality. Those who oppose foreign language instruction usually do so on economic grounds. And even many who argue for foreign language study often feel compelled to cast their argument in practical/economic terms.

For a counterpoint to Arguelles, here is a typical "anti-foreign language" argument offered by American economist Bryan Caplan.

Out of all my ultra moderate reforms that I suggested, the one that I stand behind more strongly than any other is abolishing foreign language requirements in the United States. Because there, we’ve got a bunch of facts, which are: hardly any jobs use foreign languages, it takes a lot of time to get any good. And furthermore, in this book I’m able to go and snap together a bunch of pieces of data to show that virtually zero Americans claim to… even claim to speak a foreign language very well in school.

So I say, look, even if it did have these big payoffs, the system is just a waste of time, and people spend years doing it for nothing. And even here, I just run against a brick wall and people say, well in that case we should just improve the teaching of the foreign language.

Well, how about you do that and then get back to me, but continuing to fund the thing that we have, this is garbage!

And again, Washington state from what I understand, now allows kids to use a computer language in place of foreign language. Like, why not do that? Then it’s like, “No, no we need to do both.” People don’t have an unlimited amount of time, and shouldn’t teenagers be able to have a frigging childhood! Like how much of their childhood do you want to destroy with jumping through these stupid hoops?

https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/bryan-caplan-case-for-and-against-education/#transcript

And here is a post from an American historian arguing against foreign language requirements in graduate programs in history. (It is typical for PhD history programs to require you to demonstrate some ability in at least one foreign language. Usually they give you a couple of passages and you have to translate them into English within a given time limit with a dictionary.)
https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2014/august/against-language-requirements/

Caplan is probably correct about the lack of direct benefit to the labor market but I would argue a) that the current level of investment (typically a couple of years in high school) is actually very modest, b) that the opportunity costs are not particularly large (i.e., the value of whatever alternative subjects).
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Re: Six languages an educated person should know (Prof. Argüelles)

Postby einzelne » Tue Dec 28, 2021 7:51 pm

I'm torn on this issue. I don't think that foreign languages has to be forced at college for everyone (STEM don't need it), yet on the other hand when I see a PhD thesis on Hegel which doesn't quote a single source in German, I really think higher education is in trouble.
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