So here’s some research that says college students who identify as traditionally masculine consider learning another language a feminine pursuit.
Does the conclusion pass your sniff test? Does it match your experience of people in general?
I’m always surprised and admiring when somebody speaks fluently in another language, but don’t think it ties to men or women.
the study was conducted in Canada, it looks like - I’d be curious to see data from Europe.
My experience in school was far more language-specific… lots more girls took Spanish than boys (who generally took German)
I would have chosen gender neutral.
Perhaps:
Learning to speak another language is like a very long arduous journey where you can only navigate by constantly asking directions (or correction).
There are a very large number of Americans (especially men) who seem to think learning a language is a short, easy journey which they seem to magically “know†how to navigate.
What is most ironic is that many of these people travel a few steps, convince themselves they are “fluent.â€
And then talk critically about all of these “foreigners†who can barely speak English.
I would like to learn to speak a different language but it seems pointless if you aren’t going to use it.
I used to be decent at French, but I haven’t used it in 25 years so now I suck.
I could learn German and talk to people at work but I suspect that they would prefer that I not butcher their language and just converse in English.
My n=1 is my wife trying her hand at learning Portuguese before our trip to Portugal. I figured I would wing it (as I did with Spanish class in college) when we were on vacation.
While there we were advised it would be fruitless to try and learn their language… English speakers just do well with it.
I suppose from my experience, yeah maybe it is gendered, I don’t care for the journey to learn vs my wife. That could just be our personalities though.
I am male. I have no desire to learn another language whatsoever. If someone offered me 500 bucks, or the ability to speak perfect Spanish, it would be a tough decision because I might take the money.
My sister speaks 3 or 4 languages and it’s always been one of her passions. Almost every woman I know is interested in learning another language, but I’ve never talked to a male friend about their desire to learn another language.
I’ve never thought that men who speak other languages are feminine, nor do I look down upon those who do. However, I also don’t think anyone should look down on me for only knowing one language. It’s just that if I’m going to devote a lot of time to leaning something new, it’s going to be something that I have much more passion for, or something that provides much more utility in my life.
This could also be because I don’t have the same mental capacity that most women do for language…
So here’s some research that says college students who identify as traditionally masculine consider learning another language a feminine pursuit.
Does the conclusion pass your sniff test? Does it match your experience of people in general?
I’m always surprised and admiring when somebody speaks fluently in another language, but don’t think it ties to men or women.
Nope. I tried to learn as much French as possible before our trip to France in 2017. My buddy PJ knows a fair amount of Arabic. My dad tried to teach himself Finnish at one point in time.
I’m trying to learn spanish.
My nipples are sore and I have cramps.
**I’m always surprised and admiring when somebody speaks fluently in another language, but don’t think it ties to men or women. **
I learned to speak, read and write Thai as an adult.
In my experience, the only reason adults don’t learn another language fluently isn’t because they are male or female, it’s because they try to learn a language differently than they learned their first language. Children don’t learn languages by memorizing words or stale dialog, they learn by listening and engaging in conversations and if adults did that with a second language, they would be fluent in that as well.
If you can learn one language, you can learn another.
**I’m always surprised and admiring when somebody speaks fluently in another language, but don’t think it ties to men or women. **
I learned to speak, read and write Thai as an adult.
In my experience, the only reason adults don’t learn another language fluently isn’t because they are male or female, it’s because they try to learn a language differently than they learned their first language. Children don’t learn languages by memorizing words or stale dialog, they learn by listening and engaging in conversations and if adults did that with a second language, they would be fluent in that as well.
If you can learn one language, you can learn another.
Sort off…Some languages are related, some not. I speak good Italian so learning Spanish shouldn’t be very difficult. My sister learned French first then picked up Italian easily. My first language is Croatian and I can somewhat understand, but not speak, Check or Russian. My English is fluent and my Hungarian, which is not related at all to anything is also pretty good. My German is passable. I learned some of these languages in school and some just by being exposed to them from tourists, movies (with subtitles) etc.
That study is Canadian so gender had to be included otherwise accusations of gender bias, this or that phobia, hatred etc would fly
I have watched / am watching my kids become bilingual French / English in an English only household
My youngest started in nursery last september
Phase 1 is just listening. It lasts for months and she just adsorbs info
Phase 2 - we are now in - is the nonsense phase where we have continuous streams of verbal consciousness of French words that collectively mean nothing, but individually mean something. It is also the phase where she actually isn’t saying any words but is forming French sounds
Phase 3 - will happen in next 6-12 months where she will start constructing sentences and will sound English when speaking English and French when speaking french
My eldest switches without thinking
Though we do have some unintended consequences of having her lean French at school which is that she does use a lot of colloquialisms and kids slang which obviously her peers would not with their parents.
One other issue which is weird is she knows words in French and the same in English but is unable to translate them. She does not make the immediate connection
Anyway, I figure her being fluent with two even with that is better than not doing it
That’s great your daughter is willing to speak both. My three year old straight up refuses to speak English even though I’ve spoken to her in English her entire life. She knows I understand her so she has no reason to put in the effort. This makes me sad sometimes because unless she changes her mind at some point, she’ll be unable to communicate with her grandparents and anyone on my side of the family.
I assume it will be even more difficult to convince my second child (one year old) to speak English because the kids will speak german to each other.
That study is Canadian so gender had to be included otherwise accusations of gender bias, this or that phobia, hatred etc would fly
No kidding. Getting tired of Trudeau’s feminist agenda…
So my daughter almost exclusively refuses to speak French at home because we don’t speak it well enough
I think you’d find if you left her in an English environment, she’d speak it, just not to you
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Sounds like my kids. The 3 year old would sing German songs to the correct melody but the words, even though they were all German, were about half random to fit the melody.
My eldest switches without thinking
I thought it was pretty cool when my 7 yr old would speak German in her sleep. You know you are pretty fluent at that point.
**
If I were more of a bastard I’d have made them learn Arabic or mandarin
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So here’s some research that says college students who identify as traditionally masculine consider learning another language a feminine pursuit.
Unfortunately, there’s been some movement over the past couple decades towards intellectual pursuits in general being viewed as feminine.
the study was conducted in Canada, it looks like - I’d be curious to see data from Europe.
In Canada, “traditionally masculine” is feminine.
the study was conducted in Canada, it looks like - I’d be curious to see data from Europe.
In Canada, “traditionally masculine” is feminine.
“It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian.”