Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

General discussion about learning languages
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Willow
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby Willow » Wed Dec 13, 2017 5:44 pm

Everyone keeps saying that I'm gifted in terms of languages, but I'm sure that I'm not. My skills are the result of persistant and hard work :x
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby David1917 » Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:25 am

Chinese has the worst ones:

"We're all gonna have to speak Chinese in the next few years, you're getting a headstart"
"Mandarin or Cantonese?" - just annoying that people only know these 2 and thus think there are only 2. Not necessarily on them, though, just American lack of education.
"ching chong chang chung"

In general, talking about being "gifted" with languages is especially irritating. I will concede that I have always been good at impersonations and the like, so I have better accents than other learners a lot of the time.
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby basica » Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:14 am

David1917 wrote:Chinese has the worst ones:

"We're all gonna have to speak Chinese in the next few years, you're getting a headstart"
"Mandarin or Cantonese?" - just annoying that people only know these 2 and thus think there are only 2. Not necessarily on them, though, just American lack of education.
"ching chong chang chung"


Most people don't know that there's even more than one Chinese language. The fact that they know of Mandarin and Cantonese should be lauded. Also to be fair to them, most would assume you would go for the bigger languages. For example, while I am aware of others, I would ask someone if they told me they were learning Chinese which of those 2 they're learning unless I knew they were the type of person to learn obscure languages like Basque or Romansch etc.

As for the gifted thing, I know a lot of people here seem to be annoyed at this kind of comment but to be honest I appreciate the recognition. Whenever people say you're gifted, that's a compliment, not some slight against the efforts you've expended (in my experience at least, i'm sure there's exceptions). Also, some may be saying that as a way to avoid ownership of their own lack of discipline, but at the same time we all surely know that there's always going to be some people better at performing some kind of task than another person even if both of them are just as passionate and dedicated as the other.

Anyways, as for something that people say that grinds my gears..I guess I would say it's when people ask you to perform for them by saying something or translating something. I mean, I get it. I'm not overly annoyed buy I dislike the pressure to "entertain".
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby David1917 » Thu Dec 14, 2017 4:38 pm

Perhaps because of the importance of Hong Kong in the world, the amount of Cantonese film, and the large Cantonese speaking diaspora, it could be seen as more important - and why many language learning companies only market "Chinese" and "Cantonese" materials. That said, Jin, Wu and Min all have more speakers than Yue/Cantonese (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language) so it's not really a slight on the people asking, just a general odd conclusion that society at large has drawn, and I feel like an ass if I do a "Well actually...."

Put it this way, if you told someone you were learning "Arabic" and the response was, "Modern Standard or Egyptian?" would it not be odd? That's all I'm getting at.

I also really don't like the "circus act" thing. Usually I just say, "Why would you want me to say something in X language if you can't understand it?" in that language, which is pretty funny when they then ask what I said.

In general, I don't take compliments well anyway, and am my own harshest critic. I recognize that many people do not *want* to spend time on a bunch of languages and would rather focus on some other skill (or just watch TV all day...) I think Arguelles puts the "gifted" comment in perspective in one of his Conference videos where he says "if you ask any first chair violinist how they got to where they are, they would say hours and hours of practice, not innate talent," but it is a somewhat endogenous factor - why WOULD someone put in those hours if they were not inclined to be successful at it? Either way, I much prefer the "Wow that's hard / I'm not good with languages I took 3 years of X" because it then more easily goes into a conversation on learning methods.
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby Serpent » Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:15 pm

:oops: I tend to ask "Mandarin or which one?" ;) Honestly it's disappointing when learners just refer to Mandarin as "the" Chinese language, of course unless they simply do it to avoid having to explain.
(Besides, I thought it's nearly impossible to learn another Chinese language without learning some Mandarin?)

nooj wrote:Fine, knowing Portuguese means you know quite a lot of Galician, that's interesting. I agree. But that's all they have to say about it. They never talk about Galician culture or Galician history. These kinds of judgements are facile way to not have to engage with the language, whereas it should really be the point of departure.

Great, Basque is a language isolate. Now I wonder how Basque works. Great, Catalan looks funny. Now I wonder what kind of literature is available in Catalan. Great, Galician and Portuguese are mutually intelligible. Now what kind of music do Galicians make?
To me it's just a kind of linguistic small talk tbh. I'm guilty as well, but I don't think I react differently to minority languages 8-) I'm afraid you have to be a bit more proactive, like "do you want to hear a song in Galician?" :? :ugeek:
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Re: Things you wish people would stop saying when you tell them the languages that you're learning

Postby basica » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:27 pm

David1917 wrote:Perhaps because of the importance of Hong Kong in the world, the amount of Cantonese film, and the large Cantonese speaking diaspora, it could be seen as more important - and why many language learning companies only market "Chinese" and "Cantonese" materials. That said, Jin, Wu and Min all have more speakers than Yue/Cantonese (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language) so it's not really a slight on the people asking, just a general odd conclusion that society at large has drawn, and I feel like an ass if I do a "Well actually...."

Put it this way, if you told someone you were learning "Arabic" and the response was, "Modern Standard or Egyptian?" would it not be odd? That's all I'm getting at.


Sure, and you raise a good point. For example I just learnt that it's not as widely spoken as I presumed. In Australia most older Chinese people you'll come across likely speak Cantonese. Nowadays there's more migration from Mandarin speakers so the younger folk are more likely to be Mandarin speakers than Cantonese, but in any case it left me with a strong impression there were a lot of speakers. So yeah, great point.

David1917 wrote:I think Arguelles puts the "gifted" comment in perspective in one of his Conference videos where he says "if you ask any first chair violinist how they got to where they are, they would say hours and hours of practice, not innate talent," but it is a somewhat endogenous factor - why WOULD someone put in those hours if they were not inclined to be successful at it? Either way, I much prefer the "Wow that's hard / I'm not good with languages I took 3 years of X" because it then more easily goes into a conversation on learning methods.


Sure, I get where people are coming from that, but as you somewhat hinted at; what makes some people have the drive to be accomplished? To be able persevere against obstacles and be so focused and dedicated to what they're doing? It's easy to say that some people are lazy, and some people are studious but why? I would argue that drive is a "gift", people don't develop it; they receive it. This doesn't take away from one's efforts however as they're just the foundation for the work that must go into whatever they're doing.

I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but to I guess give some background on my perspective here I'll say I guess I lean fairly strongly to the "gifted" side of things because of my own personal circumstances. I grew up in a poor neighborhood with myself in a poor household. Bar 1 person, all the people I knew living around me were on welfare. No one was interested in the things I am interested in and I'd hardly describe people from my hometown as having a thirst for knowledge. In short, from a very early age I realized I was different.

I did work to get were I am today (get and keep a job, put myself through university, teach myself technologies etc), but I didn't consider it hard work. I never felt I was slaving away, that's for sure. I am far from a studious person so for me I am greatly aware that I am merely "gifted" with certain talents that others don't have because we all grew up in a similar environment yet here we are at very different paths and I don't think the explanation is merely "you're a hard worker, and they're not".

Serpent wrote:To me it's just a kind of linguistic small talk tbh. I'm guilty as well, but I don't think I react differently to minority languages 8-) I'm afraid you have to be a bit more proactive, like "do you want to hear a song in Galician?" :? :ugeek:


I agree with Serpent, it's basically a way of trying to engage you with what they know of the language. If someone tells me they're from Estonia, I know the language is somewhat similar to Finnish and might chit-chat about how it's similar to that and what are things like in Estonia because that's literally all I know. If someone tells me they're from Korea, I might be able to engage in more of a detailed discussion because I am more familiar with the country, its people and the language.
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