What advice do you give to people IRL when language learning comes up?

[luke]

[jimmy]

I personally prefer to use such sentences,
----please be informed that one needs to be patient in language learning. Because to my experiences, just one language may cause you at least to spend/lose 4 years averagely.
----please further be informed that you will need to work hard if you accept the first condition mentioned in the first sentence. Generally ,There is NO free lunch without a sufficient and suitable effort/work.
--- if the previous sentence is also acceptable. please carefully make a selection on which language you would like to learn.

These are general sentences I prefer to use before everything starts.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’m constantly telling other parents to put their kids in front of dubbed cartoons. It works amazingly well for languages close to English. I’m pretty sure they don’t believe me.

Why don't they believe you?? How do they think all those Europeans learned English? (Hint: not school.)

Most Americans don’t really know anyone who has actually learned a second language. It couldn’t possibly be as easy as several hundred hours of television! Obviously TV doesn’t teach you everything, but it lays one hell of a foundation.

[Cavesa]

Vast majority of people asking for advice actually doesn't want my advice. They want me to confirm their nonsense. So, I often avoid it, or simply not dwell on the topic much.

Like to confirm AF is the best way to learn French (nope, it is just a language school, it is very slow, expensive, and the teachers' quality varies like everywhere), they want me to lie to them that Duolingo is a good way to learn (nope, you are just procrastinating), or to lie that you need to move abroad to learn a language and so on. They want me to give them a phone number of my tutor (when I gave the last French tutor's number with all the warnings about their shortcomings, and with all the info about MY work outside of the lessons, I was ignored. The person paid the tutor and came back with "well, you were right, they really do this or that and I don't know how to change the lessons to make them more useful")

If my advice differs from their expectations, they will just throw it away and pretend I know nothing about the topic, that I surely learnt only thanks to some amazing teachers I am just ungrateful to (nope, vast majority of teachers I've met should have been streetsweepers instead), or only thanks to high IQ (yes, I have a rather high IQ, but it helps only with certain aspects and a lot of work is still needed), or thanks to moving abroad (nope, I had passed my C2 BEFORE Erasmus).

They refuse even the short version of my advice: "well, put the time and efforts into completing a few coursebooks and add a lot of normal media at the intermediate level".

People really interested in my advice are rare IRL. They are a tiny minority of those actually asking.

[Irena]

vast majority of teachers I've met should have been streetsweepers instead

And then the vast majority of current streetsweepers would find themselves unemployed and surviving off welfare (i.e. your tax money), because after all, very few streetsweepers could make money as language teachers instead.

[jimmy]

In fact, I have always been my own teacher ..
for further information check please my signature

[Cavesa]

vast majority of teachers I've met should have been streetsweepers instead

And then the vast majority of current streetsweepers would find themselves unemployed and surviving off welfare (i.e. your tax money), because after all, very few streetsweepers could make money as language teachers instead.

I'm sorry you feel so irritated by absolutely anything I post for no reason since one simple disagreeement. Please, try to do something about it, there is no need to twist everything and to react in a similar manner to everything I post (btw I've also posted a joke in "Answers to discussion topics" and plenty other comments all over the forum, if you are so bored)

I was not expressing any opinion on the overall job market or economy (even though I would say that many important jobs, like streetsweepers, are understaffed and underpaid, and incompetetnt teachers could really help with the unqualified workforce shortage in many areas), but on the quality of most language teachers I've ever seen, who were clearly unfit for their job.

That was the point. Is it clearer now, or do you need even more explanation?
And can we get back to the original topic?

[jimmy]

It couldn’t possibly be as easy as several hundred hours of television! Obviously TV doesn’t teach you everything, but it lays one hell of a foundation.

This is correct but not the whole of completed portrait. Because there should be some other preparations at the background.I am sure there are many people believing to just watching television would be very very boring.
so, technically correct but useless just considering it as mere work.

[Irena]

I was not expressing any opinion on the overall job market or economy (even though I would say that many important jobs, like streetsweepers, are understaffed and underpaid, and incompetetnt teachers could really help with the unqualified workforce shortage in many areas), but on the quality of most language teachers I've ever seen, who were clearly unfit for their job.

My language teachers (I've had about 30 in my life, for a variety of languages, in a variety of settings) have generally been quite helpful. Some have been excellent, some have been basically competent, and none have been totally useless (though some could have been better than they were).

But we all have our unloved profession, I suppose. Language teachers are yours, as we can see. Mine? Doctors. Most of the ones I've dealt with have been quite arrogant (though I can think of an exception or two). They are generally helpful for straightforward problems, i.e. if my issue is fixable with a course of antibiotics, then a trip to a doctor is likely to result in improvement. For anything chronic, though? Google has occasionally helped me, but a doctor never has (which is why I no longer ask them for help with such things). Alas, there is no antibiotic equivalent in language learning. That being the case, it is fortunate that a typical language teacher has been far more helpful with those no-magic-pills issues than a typical doctor.

[Cavesa]

I was not expressing any opinion on the overall job market or economy (even though I would say that many important jobs, like streetsweepers, are understaffed and underpaid, and incompetetnt teachers could really help with the unqualified workforce shortage in many areas), but on the quality of most language teachers I've ever seen, who were clearly unfit for their job.

My language teachers (I've had about 30 in my life, for a variety of languages, in a variety of settings) have generally been quite helpful. Some have been excellent, some have been basically competent, and none have been totally useless (though some could have been better than they were).

But we all have our unloved profession, I suppose. Language teachers are yours, as we can see. Mine? Doctors. Most of the ones I've dealt with have been quite arrogant (though I can think of an exception or two). They are generally helpful for straightforward problems, i.e. if my issue is fixable with a course of antibiotics, then a trip to a doctor is likely to result in improvement. For anything chronic, though? Google has occasionally helped me, but a doctor never has (which is why I no longer ask them for help with such things). Alas, there is no antibiotic equivalent in language learning. That being the case, it is fortunate that a typical language teacher has been far more helpful with those no-magic-pills issues than a typical doctor.

I've had about 30 language teachers too, and a minority were good, perhaps two were excellent, most were bad, and a few were disasters that should not only leaving teaching, but also get treated.

There is no reason for such attacks, any discussion on doctors (even if we could agree on quite a lot of points, and I could easily explain to you, why you are wrong about the rest) is not the subject of this topic. Please read the topic again, it is written in big letters at the start.

Please, stop these barely veiled personal attacks and total changes of the discussion. This thread is about something else, there is no need for you to get another normal thread locked.