How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

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iguanamon
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby iguanamon » Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:06 pm

This thread is starting to look like Twitter. One of the reasons we don't allow politics here is that otherwise reasonable adults end up devolving into pettiness defending their positions. The mods should shut it down now.
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Saim
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby Saim » Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:17 pm

Cavesa wrote:I've just seen how long my response was, sorry. There is really no point. It's just a bit sad to see the double standard. It makes me feel like vomiting, when a an american is proud of a "learning achievement", that would be still far in the realm of failure in the more educated countries. That's what Duolingo is (and that's how we got into this whole discussion in the first place). A pretense that a privileged american playing with a Spanish game for a few minutes a day is just as accomplished, as the real learners.


As far as I can tell Duolingo is quite popular in Europe as well. Lots of my friends, and many of my students, have used it. I don't know who is claiming that people who use Duolingo are "accomplished".

because you've simply pushed the better, nicer, and more logical languages aside.


Who is "you"? All Anglophones? All people who happen to have American citizenship? I don't think I've personally "pushed" any languages aside, I try to avoid using English as much as I can.

Cavesa wrote:Yet, my huge achievement (and that of millions of others, as everybody knows) of having learnt English is seen like "it doesn't count", while entitled, spoilt, and ignorant americans are being praised for at least playing with Duolingo. That's simply unfair.


I definitely won't belittle your, or anyone's, achievement at reaching a high level of English. By all means that's quite an achievement.

The point is that the economic and political dynamics that are forcing English on the rest of the world are the same as the ones keeping Anglophones monolingual. Yes, it is definitely unfair that Anglophones don't have to learn languages and non-Anglophones have to learn English.

The Czech Netflix is much poorer than the american one (for the same price). And without access to almost any French content


Really? In both Poland and Serbia I've been able to access quite a lot of French content. Things like Dix pour cent, Wakfu, Au service de la France, Marseille, and so on.
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iguanamon
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby iguanamon » Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:32 pm

As an international forum, we try to stay away from politics for a good reason. For everyone out there that thinks: "we are adults here. we can discuss these things intelligently and without acrimony", this is why we don't get into politics here. Another reason why we don't delve too deeply into politics is we don't want to find out that highly respected members hold opinions we may not like about politics. It's one thing to rant about duolinguo, Assimil, Pimsleur. It's another can of worms entirely to rant about a country... a country that has members on this forum... a place where I, as a citizen of said country, am beginning to feel quite unwelcome.

The forum is a nice place to be for a reason. I guess, because it's Saturday, that the moderators are absent right now.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby rdearman » Sat Aug 08, 2020 9:35 pm

Any more politics and I'll lock the thread and start handing out warnings.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby eido » Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:18 pm

I don't think this is political, and if it is, I apologize since it wasn't my intention to devolve the thread further.

I have a friend who was born and raised in South Korea.

One story that always sticks out to me that he told me from our few years knowing each other is:

In middle school, his English teacher asked him to use an American moniker instead of his real name, which started with the same sound. He had a passion for the English language, but his love for it suffered a setback when his foreign teacher tried to get him to ditch his Korean identity. Even though I can never experience such a thing myself, I understood him when he mentioned his offense at that, considering a similar history in the US of actors (and even my own family!) changing or not changing names to feel more accepted.

At the time he told me this I was already sensitive to similar issues, since with English being the international language and all, stories like this are becoming all the more common. We even had a discussion about him choosing a new English name, since I wanted to call him by his true name and not his last as he's assigned me, and he chose a pretty Western-sounding name of Latin origin instead of allowing me what would be a deep honor: to call him his given first name.

So I'm a person of a divided mind.

Native anglophone teachers try to turn their non-native students into international, and presumably well-rounded "world" citizens. But I've always wondered if being a part of this world means giving up that fundamental a part of you, or if you even have to be completely immersed in global culture to be considered a born and bred human. Globalization seemingly has good effects and bad effects, and for whom and for what reason it can be difficult to see at the outset.

I'm not bashing English teachers here. Plenty of more impassioned people on the Internet with more intel can do that for me. English teachers introduce interconnectedness and facility of communication to young people, but with that comes the idea that this wave of homogeneity and monolithic monolingualism is going to take over even the most diverse of regions, since America is seen as this vast wasteland linguistically and culturally.

My stance is that English is a bit like Internet cables, and every other language a PC. We all have a right to speak what we like and when, but something has to help us cross divides and end global wars. In the past that was Latin, or French, German, standard dialects of Chinese... name a region and there was a top-level communication tool. I think we should all work together to bridge gaps, and genuinely connect with one another like I know I have with my LEPs.

By the way, in the district I attended school, kids had the opportunity to start learning young and were highly encouraged to study by themselves or get a tutor that could help them. I was first exposed formally to Spanish in the 5th grade, and nowadays, kids start even younger depending on the school or feeder area. We also have an array of international schools in the metropolitan area where bilingual education is at the forefront.
golyplot wrote:For Americans, learning a foreign language is something you do for fun, like learning to play the violin or whatever, and approximately as useful economically. Although I'd say that Spanish is an exception, since some areas have a lot of Spanish speakers, so it is useful if you are in any sort of customer facing role. I've never personally needed it, but I have run into issues a couple times when trying to talk to someone with poor English skills.

Practicality is one of the reasons I chose Spanish when I first started seriously learning it, so you're correct here! I must be an exception, though, due to my family's history, because language was never considered a "just-for-fun" subject in my household. One of my grandmas spoke five languages as par for the course of moving around a lot, and we've always been pretty academic. So I've never experienced a simply "average" interest in that way.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby Sahmilat » Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:06 pm

I took foreign language classes for 12 years in school, 9 of which were required.

It's good to know that I'm just another ignorant American because I'm not D8 in five languages.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby jmar257 » Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:53 pm

Cavesa wrote:Two years from the beginning of your schooling up to the end of HS, that is laughable. In the european countries , the standard is the whole secondary and HS, with various starting points during the primary school. A couple of years, that really doesn't make people think that langauges are just as much a part of their education as for example maths or physics.
Two years in high school is not the same as two years from the beginning of schooling to the end of high school. I said the former, not the latter.

The fact most people either learn outside of school or fail, that is a different issue. But nobody pretends that 2 years are in any ways sufficient.

Literally no one here is pretending that.

When it comes to universities, it varies. When I see the very common posts on the internet, by americans who start a language at university and end at a not too high level (which is so sad, as you have otherwise the top universities and also the most expensive ones), it is so weird. In Europe, you usually need to be at least intermediate before studying a language at university (or in case of a less common one, you need to be good at a big language already, to be accepted). But sure, it varies. For example the language classes at medschool were a joke.
I mean, most schools have different levels and you can test into higher levels if you've taken it before/know some of it.


Edited this part because of warnings above

Really, no wonder the US are no longer that popular worldwide. Yes, everybody loves the Hollywood, and we all know the other superpowers are much worse in every way. But the way the anglophones, and the americans in particular, see themselves as superior to the rest is simply dumb.
There's a lot of projection here.

You are rich only thanks to immigrants (yet you refuse to learn their languages too)
1) Citation needed, there's a lot of native-born Americans doing great work 2) why would a nation be expected to learn the languages of various immigrant groups? Especially given the wide range of languages our immigrants speak. They're moving here, we're not moving there (although the (true) trope of the American traveling abroad and not so much as learning a few phrases irks me)
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby golyplot » Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:09 am

jmar257 wrote:why would a nation be expected to learn the languages of various immigrant groups? Especially given the wide range of languages our immigrants speak.


That's a good point. Where I live, it's common for government documents to be printed in four languages besides English. Even in just my own neighborhood, within a half mile radius I've heard at least six foreign languages spoken on at least one occasion (there's probably a lot more than six, but it's hard to recognize or distinguish languages you don't speak, especially if it's just a passing line overheard on the street) and I can hear more if I go out to get my hair cut.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby Cavesa » Sun Aug 09, 2020 11:54 am

Finished here, sorry about politics related examples.

We are starting to turn in circles. A few tiny bits that may perhaps still be salvaged and clarified without politics:

Saim wrote:Who is "you"? All Anglophones? All people who happen to have American citizenship? I don't think I've personally "pushed" any languages aside, I try to avoid using English as much as I can.

You still profit from your country getting tons of taxes from the English teaching industry and from it pushing your language on the rest of the world. You profit from it, as you can visit forums like this one in your native language, while the rest of the wolrd has to get through the gateway first. And the list would be rather long

Many of your compatriots profit from this, as they dare to go to other countries, become expats, profit from all the advantages of living outside of the US (for example being better protected from covid these days), profit from advantages over the locals (a better salary for the same job, as it is simply viewed as cool to have an american in the company), and dare to not learn the local language even in twenty years. And it is socially acceptable for them, that is the worst part. The proud morons do not get any disadvantage the same way immigrants with other native languages do. What makes others disciminated against or right away bullied gets your compatriots admiration and advantages.

This is what privilege is. You may not personally seem to be profiting from it, but you definitely are. And you can choose whether or not to profit from it in each situation, while the people without the privilege don't have the choice.

The Czech Netflix is much poorer than the american one (for the same price). And without access to almost any French content


Really? In both Poland and Serbia I've been able to access quite a lot of French content. Things like Dix pour cent, Wakfu, Au service de la France, Marseille, and so on.


You must be joking, if you find this to be a sign of equal access to the content, or in any way sufficient and globalised enough. These are just a few tiny bits, just as small as what you can see on the old tv channels (you could see a few films in French on a Czech tv too with subtitles. Very rarely, and just stuff meant for a tiny minority of public. That's different from access to anything in French too). Want a French dubbing of the Friends? Marseille in original? Italian dubbing of Dix pour cent? Indonesian shows? Everything should be available to every paying user. Until then, it is simply not "quite a lot of content".

Sahmilat wrote:I took foreign language classes for 12 years in school, 9 of which were required.

It's good to know that I'm just another ignorant American because I'm not D8 in five languages.

Thanks for the info, I'm glad to be corrected that the situation is more diverse in the country than what is usually presented online.
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Re: How long do bloggers think lockdowns last?

Postby golyplot » Sun Aug 09, 2020 1:36 pm

Cavesa wrote:Want a French dubbing of the Friends? Marseille in original? Italian dubbing of Dix pour cent? Indonesian shows? Everything should be available to every paying user. Until then, it is simply not "quite a lot of content".


I still think it's silly to basically criticize Netflix for not transforming the media industry fast enough. It's generally not Netflix making those decisions, but the companies they're licensing shows from.

However, the situation is far better than it was pre-Netflix. In particular, Netflix tends to make their own shows available in dozens of languages worldwide, especially the animated ones. At least in the US, it used to be impossible to see foreign dubs at all. The best you could hope for was to stumble on the foreign version of a show that someone pirated online, usually with terrible quality.
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