Are there people who just can't do languages?

fraz   Fri May 29, 2009 11:29 am GMT
Was chatting to a young chap of about 14 who has basically been told by his school that he isn't able to cope with languages and has been removed from the languages department (not for behavioural reasons).

Can this really be the case? Everyone has a mother tongue and even people with learning difficulties have a vocabulary consisting of thousands of words. Surely everyone can pick up a foreign language to some extent?

What about all the people who move to a new country and have to learn a new language to survive? Some of them will be low in academic stock but they'll find a way to cope and won't spend the rest of their days in a state of incommunicado.

You also seem to get a lot of English speakers - highly educated ones in some cases - who CLAIM that they just can't do languages. This gives rise to the rather absurd situation where an itelligent scientist baulks at basic French yet in Holland and Scandanavia, pretty much everyone from all walks of life will have some English, ranging from basic competency to near-native fluency.
E1Ler   Fri May 29, 2009 2:40 pm GMT
<<You also seem to get a lot of English speakers - highly educated ones in some cases - who CLAIM that they just can't do languages. >>

My guess: English is much simpler than most other languages, so E1L foreign language students are quickly overwhelmed when they start studying other languages. Imagine the shock when a native English speaker first enclounters something like Ainu, Ancient Chinese, Navajo, Sanskrit, Basque, etc.

On the other hand, you hear some students studying English say it's pidgin-like in its simplicity, a "toy language", or "a piece of cake".
sssss   Fri May 29, 2009 3:15 pm GMT
My guess: English is much simpler than most other languages, so E1L foreign language students are quickly overwhelmed when they start studying other languages. Imagine the shock when a native English speaker first enclounters something like Ainu, Ancient Chinese, Navajo, Sanskrit, Basque, etc.


This is shit from a linguistic point of view!
ESLer   Fri May 29, 2009 3:51 pm GMT
Yeah, we're smarter than you.
Julien   Fri May 29, 2009 4:55 pm GMT
English is much simpler than most other languages

_____________________________

Sorry but english is a very difficult language, I find spanish easier, but I'm french ...
Moi   Fri May 29, 2009 6:25 pm GMT
<<Sorry but english is a very difficult language, I find spanish easier, but I'm french ...>>

Gracias.
Paul   Fri May 29, 2009 10:11 pm GMT
<<Was chatting to a young chap of about 14 who has basically been told by his school that he isn't able to cope with languages and has been removed from the languages department (not for behavioural reasons).>>

That's a failed school and failed teachers, who would rather fault the child's mental capacity than their own teaching method.

This is common in foreign language teaching unfortunately.
Sombre   Fri May 29, 2009 10:34 pm GMT
<<My guess: English is much simpler than most other languages, so E1L foreign language students are quickly overwhelmed when they start studying other languages. Imagine the shock when a native English speaker first enclounters something like Ainu, Ancient Chinese, Navajo, Sanskrit, Basque, etc.

On the other hand, you hear some students studying English say it's pidgin-like in its simplicity, a "toy language", or "a piece of cake". >>


Have you learnt Ainu, Ancient Chinese, Navajo, Sanskrit or Basque? Can you enlighten us on the shock you experienced when you first encountered it? Of all the foreigners who've learnt Navajo, surely most of them have been native English speakers. Anyway, the reason Anglos claim to not be able to learn languages is because they've never learnt one. That's all there is to it. I know plenty of older Soviet people who claimed they couldn't learn other languages simply because they never learned any. It seems when they came across English it was anything but a 'toy language' or a 'piece of cake' for them. Or maybe Russian is even simpler than English?
MrPedantic   Fri May 29, 2009 10:35 pm GMT
<Can this really be the case? Everyone has a mother tongue and even people with learning difficulties have a vocabulary consisting of thousands of words. Surely everyone can pick up a foreign language to some extent? >

I believe the physiology of 2nd language learning is different, after a certain age.

MrP
E1Ler   Sat May 30, 2009 3:01 am GMT
<<Have you learnt Ainu, Ancient Chinese, Navajo, Sanskrit or Basque? Can you enlighten us on the shock you experienced when you first encountered it? >>

I've read about these, so you could say I've had my first encounter with them, and experienced shock. Needless to say, I've never learned any of these

If I recall correctly:

(classical/older) Ainu -- agglutinative/polysynthetic language -- whole clauses or sentences jammed together in one word [ghastly at first glance]

Ancient, Classical (or older) Chinese -- up to 55000 characters -- supposedly some ancient Chinese is full of allusions ("inside jokes") so you have to know the culture inside and out before you can make sense of it. [not my idea of a fun language to learn].

Sample obsolete characters:

龖爩龞爩齱鼟纞黱繠黐鬰黝鰰鬰躧鰱爩黐總鬰縱鰲鬰鰧鬫鬰糶躨饠纞鬰饢纞豓驧驠饢
纞霳驧驠饢鐢黝鰰躧鰱纞钀豂藯艬霳纅纅闢鑳饢籛鏷釅臠艬瀱爨爧玀瓕玁爧饢爩爨鐢

Navajo -- reputedly tough -- another language far removed from English -- Did I read somewhere that nouns had to appear in some sort of hierarchical order in the sentence, and the verb sorted out their roles? -- do verbs have 990 forms? etc. Is this the language that has imbedded pauses of various lengths that alter the meaning of the sentence? [again, I'm glad I don't have to learn this one.]

Sanskrit (especially the oldest form) -- highly inflected language [not something I'd like to study]

Basque -- not sure what's really tough about it based on 1 hour's worth of reading about it. Reputedly one of the world's toughest languages, though.

I even found Spanish and French annoyingly complex, compared to English. Looking back in it, learning English seemed as easy as falling off a log. (Disclaimer: before you ask, I've never actually fallen off a floating log.)
Enlightener   Sat May 30, 2009 4:07 am GMT
<<Surely everyone can pick up a foreign language to some extent? >>


The key difference between the native English speakers and the non-native English speakers lies in the word "foreign".

Disregarding strict definitions, there are many countries in Europe and other places where English can be seen all over in ads, in movies and in school. In a geographic sense, English is foreign there, but in the sense of what you are accustomed to, of what makes up your everyday life, English is not foreign, but only 'semi-foreign'.

On the other hand, in the vast majority of English speaking places, all other languages are completely foreign. They are no where to be seen. You have to dig deep to find them.

Now imagine a language which is really completely foreign in, say, the Netherlands, like Mandarin. A monolingual Dutch speaker won't find it any easier to learn than a monolingual English speaker. On the other hand, Uighur speakers will learn it with a lot less difficulty, because they're raised in an environment where Mandarin, although it's not their home language, is ubiquitous, and hence is only 'semi-foreign'.
eeuuian   Sat May 30, 2009 4:25 am GMT
<<On the other hand, in the vast majority of English speaking places, all other languages are completely foreign. They are no where to be seen. You have to dig deep to find them.>>

In the US, you don't have to dig very deep to find Spanish. I don't even live in a heavy hispanic area, and you often see signs in Spanish in stores, in instruction books, on package labels, etc. There's Spanish on radio and TV. You hear people speaking it fairly regularly. Even some English-speaking radio and TV personalities occasionally throw in a couple of Spanish words here and there.
Ana   Sat May 30, 2009 9:38 pm GMT
I think the English easier. I became able to speak everything I know in english, just reading some books and listening musics!


Really easier than Romance languages!
Lolzor   Sat May 30, 2009 10:20 pm GMT
<<I think the English easier. I became able to speak everything I know in english, just reading some books and listening musics!


Really easier than Romance languages! >>


I hope this is an imposter with a good sense of ironic humour!
Julien   Sat May 30, 2009 10:59 pm GMT
"I became able to speak everything I know in english, just reading some books and listening musics!"

woah!! you must be a genius ... I never meet a person who learn a foreign language only by reading books and listening musics.